September 16, 200916 yr My goal for an unRAID server is as follows: - Purpose - Media Server (Samba), Backup - Low power consumption, particularly when idle for extended periods. - 3 (or so) disks to start, 6 would be plenty in the next couple years. - Fairly inexpensive Please see the post below (3-4 down) for a potential revision to the CPU and MB CPU: AMD Sempron 140 Sargas 2.7GHz Socket AM3 45W Single-Core Processor Model SDX140HBGQBOX - Retail $40 Low power MB: Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2 $55 6 Sata, seems like a model people are using. On board video. Low power. Case: Antec Two/Three Hundred $50 These cases seem to offer good space for 6 drives, and it appears that cooling those drives should be easy enough. There are also the 3x5.25" bays if needed for future expansion. PS: CORSAIR CMPSU-400CX 400W ATX12V V2.2 80 PLUS Certified Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply - Retail $55 6 sata power connections, plenty of watts even if I go beyond 6 drives. Seems popular here. RAM: Kingston left overs - 2 x 512MB DDR2 667 $Free Should be adequate for now, can always upgrade later. It is worth going for the 2x1GB now? OS: unRAID Plus $80 (approx after $ conversion) HDD: Assorted low power, already purchased - Western Digital WD15EADS Caviar Green 1.5TB - Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B 1TB (I will have 2 available, but might use 1 for another task, in which case I will likely buy another 1.5TB now) USB Flash: Lexar Firefly I think I have one if these around, 1GB maybe. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
September 16, 200916 yr Here's my experience from an unRAID newbie: • Antec Three Hundred - I'm really enjoying this case. The drives mount fairly easily, and the 120mm fan bays up front were easy to install fans in to, and keep my drives nice and cool (31 to 33°C). The case is well constructed. I already have 6 drives in mine, and I'm going to eventually be using the 3x5.25 bays for three more. The only thing I can mention about this case is that because the power supply is on the bottom, it can make some cable arrangements a bit harder. I found a few cables from motherboard to fans to be a tiny bit too short for my likes, though that might be my motherboard's fault. • CPU choices - I have an Intel Core 2 Duo E5200 2.5Ghz Wolfdale (~$65 US). For everything I've thrown at the unRAID server, it's overkill in terms of performance. I think you could easily get away with something much slower, particularly if you're not going to be running a VMWare server on it.
October 9, 200916 yr Author I have revised my plans for this system, and as a result my build components. Please take another look. Thanks!
October 9, 200916 yr I have the same CPU. I splurged a little with a different MB. South bridge SB710 or SB750 are required to unlock the second (hidden) core of that processor. The single core is all you need though. I have not seen the CPU run higher than 10%. I planned to run Subsonic music streamer, FTP, torrent, and possibly truecrypt so I wanted the ability to open up more horse power if needed. My build thread is here. Be aware of the HPA issue on Gigabyte motherboards. I knew nothing about RAID and even less about Linux when I started. Its not too hard and the people on the forums are very helpful (and reply quickly). Your hardware looks fine.
October 9, 200916 yr Author Looks like my MB and CPU just went out of stock at my preferred supplier. I can order those parts elsewhere, but lose my free shipping which will add about $30 to the order. I will give them a couple days to restock, but looking at other options I found this alternate combination: ASUS P5KPL-CM LGA 775 Intel G31 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - $59 Only 4 sata ports, 2 less than my first choice. Not sure about power efficiency. Intel Celeron E3200 Dual Core Processor LGA775 2.4GHZ 1MB L2 Cache 65W Retail Box - $51 Dual core with VT support, good if I want to increase the role of this box later. 65W vs 45W on the Sempron. Seems like a lot more bang for about $15 more, but I will lose a couple SATA ports and see some decrease in power efficiency. I can always add one of the Monoprice PCIe 2 port SATA cards once I use up the 4 on board, they are only about $15. Thoughts? Thanks!
October 9, 200916 yr Intel Celeron E3200 Dual Core Processor LGA775 2.4GHZ 1MB L2 Cache 65W Retail Box - $51 Dual core with VT support, good if I want to increase the role of this box later. 65W vs 45W on the Sempron. If you are planning to run vmware later on, go for a processor with more cache. Cache helps a great deal with vmware and virtualization.
October 11, 200916 yr Does that Gigabyte MB support the Sempron 140? Sempron 140 is an AM3 Sempron mostly only supported on latest AM3 socket motherboards. As for VM ware get a dual, triple or quad if that is on the cards and a MB with more memory slots! VMware licences per socket so a single quad core license is the same cost as a basic single core sempron.
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.