I currently have a WHS 2011 tower that I built years ago.  It's time to replace WHS for me, as there are some things I want to do with it that it does not do.  After digging around I think unraid 6 will fit the bill for me.  I'm going to list what parts I have in the WHS below and what I'm thinking about upgrading.  I'm also going to list what I want to be able to do with it.  Thanks for taking the time to look this over and respond.

 

Hardware I have on hand

1.  Old Antech SOHO tower that is still serviceable

2.  Gigabyte GA-880GMA-USB3 AM3+ motherboard

3.  AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black edition

4.  8 GB Ram (Motherboard can handle up to 32 GB Ram)

5.  1 2TB HDD

6.  3 1TB HDD's

7.  Extra D-Link NIC

8.  Powersupply but I can't remember what it is.  It's been working and I'm not overly concerned about it.

 

Parts to Purchase

1.  Possibly a 6 or 8 Core AM3+ processor (If needed for my purposes) ($140)

2.  Up to 32 GB ram ($130) 16GB is half the price

3.  1 more 2TB HDD ($75.00)

4.  A 3 or 4 TB HDD for parity ($114)

4.  SSD or 2 for cache probably 120 or 240 GB ($160 for 2 120's)

5. Anything I've forgotten?

 

Uses of unRaid machine

1.  File Server (what WHS mostly does for me now)

2.  Game server host (Ark Survival Evolved)

3.  VM host for test VM's and I would also like to do a virtual desktop using a dumb terminal of sorts.(This is one thing I can't do now)

4.  Plex

5.  Media server HDNLA or other.

6.  Team Speak

 

Can I do what I've listed as my uses with what I have or should I do some or all of the upgrades listed?  Or would it be better to start from scratch with server class hardware?

 

 

 

It appears that you are somewhat concerned about cost.  My suggestion would be to go with the 3TB drive for parity as that is the 'sweet spot' at the present time.  For the same reason, I would suggest a 3TB for that additional storage drive.  (In fact, ordering two 3TB HD will probably be cheaper than a 4TB and a 2 TB!)

 

Double check that 'old' PS and see if it has a single 12v or two rails.  If it is single rail supply check to make sure that lowest current rail has a current rating great than 10 Amps.  unRAID will spin up all of the drives simultaneously at various times and for various reasons.  (The starting current of a HD is much greater than the running current and if you exceed the limit on the rail for even a faction of a second, bad things happen!) 

 

I am not an expert on VM's but be sure that your MB will allow you to do everything that you will need for your VM applications.  Here is a link to the unRAID manual:

 

  http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/UnRAID_Manual_6#WORK_IN_PROGRESS

 

If that does not answer your questions, post back and someone will probably be able to assist you. 

Thanks for the input Frank.  I wouldn't have thought to check the PS.  I looked before posting and it appears that my mobo and cpu support visualization.  I was wondering more if I needed to have more than 4 cores to run what I wanted to run.  Also thanks for the input on drives that helps to.  Wasn't overly concerned with cost but it's always a factor and saving money is nice.  Heck if I can make what I have do what I want to do I'd be thrilled.  When digging into visualization before it always appeared to me that more cores and more ram was always good.  But I could be wrong on that.  Remembered after posting that I also have 2 older 60gb ssd's that aren't doing much right now.  Wonder if that would be good for cache?

If it was me, I would test your current MB/CPU combo if it will do what you want.  I would not drop any money to upgrade the CPU.  Your CPU has a passmark of 4003/single thread 1119 score

 

I would verify your PS is single rail and what current the 12V rail is rated at.  Your current MB supports 6 SATA drives.

 

Then I would go with a pair of new 8TB Seagate drives. 

1 - Mount the first in a separate PC and copy all of your data from your WHS drives to the 8TB drive.

2 - Remove all of the drives form you WHS labeling which SATA port they are connected to.

3 - Install the second 8TB drive into your server, along with the unraid software.  PreClear the 8TB drive.  Me I use 3 passes (1+2).  Verify it is good.

4 - Set up your shares and copy the files from the first 8TB drive to the appropriate shares of your unraid server.

5 - Move the first 8Tb drive to your unraid server and run 3 (1+2) preclear cycles.

6 - Add the drive to the system as your parity assuming  it passed the preclear.

7 - After the parity is built and you are satisfied, add the balance of your WHS drives to the array.  I would use one of the 1TB as the Cache drive.  This is the last step as you want to preserve the WHS drives/config to fall back to in case you need the data.

 

This is the way I would go.  This is basically how I migrated from my original FreeNAS config.

 

Then you can start trying the current hardware to see if it can do all of the various things you want it to do.  If it doesn't perform, then I would probably look at updating the MB/CPU/Memory to one of the newer Intel setups vs trying to upgrade the AMD CPU/Memory.

 

 

 

http://www.neweggbusiness.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9B-22-178-748&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleBiz-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleBiz-PC-_-pla-_-Hard+Drives-_-9B-22-178-748&gclid=Cj0KEQjwosK4BRCYhsngx4_SybcBEiQAowaCJVzfvIYJVU0v23WD2cUNnvcSFfl77YFPkcXT0eRIUt0aAlhV8P8HAQ

These are the items I am not sure your hardware would support.  It would also be dependent on how much of the various things are happening simultaneously.

 

2.  Game server host (Ark Survival Evolved)

3.  VM host for test VM's and I would also like to do a virtual desktop using a dumb terminal of sorts.(This is one thing I can't do now)

 

 

This is dependent on how many transcodes/streams you have going and what else is going on in the system

4.  Plex

 

 

EDIT:

If you decide on a AMD CPU upgrade, I would probably go with a FX-6300,  CPU Mark of 6343

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113286

 

I would also look at a Intel Core i7-6700K upgrade.  With a passmark of 10992/Single Thread Rating: 2326, it is probably a good choice. 

Thanks Switchman I really appreciate that info.  I've double checked and my PS Antec EarthWatts EA-430D Green 430 Watt 80 PLUS BRONZE Power Supply, has 2 12v rails.  I'm going to order a couple of drives and get this party started.  I don't have as much data as I originally thought I did.  I haven't even used half of my 2tb drive as of yet.  Nice thing about unraid from what I've read is you can use different size drives and put bigger drives in as needed.  Unless I'm wrong on that.  For the most part the system is mainly meant to be a file server.  The other stuff is something I want to do but isn't critical.  So I'll pick and choose as needed.  I really like the suggestion to try what I want and see if it works or not.  Really thanks again guys for the info I appreciate it.  If anyone has any experience with VM's and game server hosting feel free to chime in as well. 

You can look here, all of your connectors except the 4+4 pin ATX12V / EPS12V are on rail 1.  You may have weird issues when you load your system up.

I haven't even used half of my 2tb drive as of yet.  Nice thing about unraid from what I've read is you can use different size drives and put bigger drives in as needed.  Unless I'm wrong on that.  For the most part the system is mainly meant to be a file server.  The other stuff is something I want to do but isn't critical.  So I'll pick and choose as needed.  I really like the suggestion to try what I want and see if it works or not.  Really thanks again guys for the info I appreciate it.  If anyone has any experience with VM's and game server hosting feel free to chime in as well.

Yes you are right, you can add different size of drives to unraid as long the parity disk is the biggest one.