New build instead of Synology 1815+

[dj_sim]

Hello

 

What a great forum! I've been a long time lurker and now getting close to pressing the buy button.  My current setup is a QNAP TS-219p II NAS with 2 x 3TB drives.

I need more power, space and speed and was about to purchase a Synology 1815+, the cheapest I can find one is £671.90 with a 4GB ram chip.

 

For this kind of money I though that I would look at alternatives, I had heard and read about unraid before and I think it will fit my needs as I can expand when required.

 

Case - Fractal Design R5 - £77.40

Motherboard - Supermicro X10SL7-F - £207

CPU - Intel Xeon E3 1231 V3 - £210.97

Ram - Crucial CT2KIT102472BD160B ECC DDR3 1600 x2 8GB - £85.73

PSU - Newton 600W 80 Plus Platinum Modular Power Supply - £82.99 

Functional hardware subtotal - £664.09

 

SSD - Samsung 850 Evo 250GB - £68.99

HDD - 3TB WD Red - £90.99 each - £181.98

Unraid License - Pro key - £42.00

Grand total £957.06

 

I've got a USB2 thumb drive somewhere already that I can use, is there a befnift to using a USB3 drive?

 

Can I build my array with the 2 new WD reds then once working I will add the 2 drives from my QNAP?

 

I've read so many posts and I think this motherboard will suit me as I can expand to 14 drives without an additional PCI expander, once I flash the LSI on the motherboard to IT mode can I then use the blue sata ports directly to my hard drives?

 

Do I use the SSD as a cache drive or just for Apps and Dockers?

 

Will this all work together, can anyone shed some light on the wattage this will use?  I've seen many posts with some that say 18w idle and others 35w?

 

Thank you

 

[tdallen]

Hi, that looks like a great build  .

 

I've got a USB2 thumb drive somewhere already that I can use, is there a befnift to using a USB3 drive?  Nope, not really - USB2 should be fine provided it has a serial number.

 

Can I build my array with the 2 new WD reds then once working I will add the 2 drives from my QNAP? Yes, although you will want to plan out how you do the transfer of the data from the QNAP.

 

Do I use the SSD as a cache drive or just for Apps and Dockers? That's up to you, but I find writes to the parity protected array are fast enough for my needs.  I'd recommend starting with using the cache drive just for apps and Dockers, and add write caching if necessary.

 

Will this all work together, can anyone shed some light on the wattage this will use?  I've seen many posts with some that say 18w idle and others 35w? My guess is closer to 35w.  I don't have those components but the build looks good.  That processor doesn't have video, but the motherboard does.  It's quality RAM.  Single 12v rail on the power supply, great case.

[dj_sim]

Good afternoon tdallen

 

Thank you for taking the time to reply, I will stick with a USB2 thumb drive, can you recomend the best way to transfer my data from the QNAP? Should I use Rsync instead of transfering files through my iMac.

 

The only thing I was thinking was that the Motherboard is from 2013, is there anythinig more recent that performs better?  Is skylake worth the extra ££?

 

I don't have a monitor or keyboard, can I do the full setup using IPMI via my imac?

 

Thanks

[tdallen]

Rsync is probably the best option.  How much data do you have on the QNAP? 

 

You should be able to do everything via IPMI and the unRAID WebGUI (once you're up and running everything is done via the web management interface).

 

Skylake has been a mixed bag, there are a lot of threads on it.  It does some things well (DMI 3.0 and DDR4) but has some issues with IOMMU and device pass-through into VMs.  If you're getting a good deal on the Haswell hardware it's still a good option.