Hello unRAIDers.  I'm looking to pull the trigger on a home NAS (admittedly my first, though I'm a tech professional).  I've gone back and forth for a while between FreeNAS and unRAID, and I'm landing on unRAID.  I think I've got a pretty good handle on best practices for everything.  My current expected use is going to be primarily file storage/backup, Plex streaming (expecting no more than 2, but room for growth is needed), and a linux VM to run OpenHAB once I get into home automation.  I'm going to use Amazon Cloud backup for regular backups of the 'critical info'. 

 

Now, I realize the build here is overkill.  My concern is in making sure I'm as future-proof as one can expect to be.  I'd rather not be upgraded again in a couple years.  I'm planning to run a mirror of the cache drive (hence the duplicate), and I want to run two of the Hitachi drives striped, with the other two serving as redundant parity for the RAID.  Everything else should be self explanatory.  The slim-drive is included because I'm going to be ripping over 300 movies to the NAS, and it makes more sense to me to just run that right through the server, instead of ripping to my desktop PC and then transferring.  I might be persuaded to go that route, though, if there's good cause.  For the RAM, I'd really love to be at 32GB, but things got a bit away from me on cost.  Since that's one of the easiest upgrades possible, I'll just roll with 16GB and then double it later on if necessary. 

 

So go ahead and tear me down or build me up as necessary.  Any input is appreciated.  The list below is strictly newegg for simplicity, but I'll break out some of the components wherever I can find them cheapest.  I'll also use at least two sources for the HDDs, maybe more.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1225 V5 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($236.98 @ Newegg)

CPU Cooler: Deepcool CAPTAIN 240 91.1 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($68.00 @ Newegg)

Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X11SSH-LN4F Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($218.98 @ Newegg)

Memory: Kingston ValueRAM 16GB (1 x 16GB) DDR4-2133 Memory

Storage: A-Data Premier Pro SP900 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($45.98 @ Newegg)

Storage: A-Data Premier Pro SP900 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($45.98 @ Newegg)

Storage: Hitachi Deskstar NAS 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($157.49 @ Newegg)

Storage: Hitachi Deskstar NAS 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($157.49 @ Newegg)

Storage: Hitachi Deskstar NAS 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($157.49 @ Newegg)

Storage: Hitachi Deskstar NAS 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($157.49 @ Newegg)

Case: Fractal Design Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($89.99 @ Newegg)

Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA P2 650W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($105.98 @ Newegg)

Optical Drive: Panasonic UJ-265 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer

Case Fan: Noctua NF-S12B redux-700 33.5 CFM  120mm Fan  ($16.94 @ Newegg)

Other: Slimline SATA to SATA power adapter ($7.71)

Other: Silicon Power 16GB Blaze B05 Flash Drive ($7.21)

Total: $1473.71

 

I want to run two of the Hitachi drives striped, with the other two serving as redundant parity for the RAID.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, each array data volume in unraid is independent, no striping. Parity is arguably the least important drive for data integrity, because if parity fails, you haven't yet lost any data, only the ability to rebuild a failed drive. If 2 drives fail, and one is parity, you only lose the data that was on the failed drive. If 2 data drives fail, you lose both of them, parity won't help. The new 6.2 (still in RC stage right now) unraid introduces the concept of dual parity to unraid, where each parity drive can allow rebuilding of one other failed drive, so 2 drives can fail without losing data. It's not redundant parity though, each parity drive is independent.

 

Another observation, I think the aftermarket CPU cooler is WAY overkill. Current intel processors run very cool, I don't think you need to spend the money. The heatsink and fan that comes with the processor is plenty. I think you would be better off spending that money swapping to a pair of 250GB SSD's for cache duty. Like you said, upgrading RAM is easy. Swapping out cache drives is much more of a pain, and I think anything smaller than 250 is a waste of a slot.

 

If you are planning to run the VM with a monitor attached to the server, you will need a video card to pass through to it. If you are ok with controlling it with VNC on your current desktop, then you don't.

 

Honestly, the basic specs of what you've outlined is pretty far from overkill, it looks like the basis of a solid server for pretty much exactly what you said you wanted to do with it.

 

Also, the motherboard has a discrete VGA onboard, no need to spec a CPU with onboard graphics. I didn't check to see if the price was any different, but it may save you a few bucks, or allow you to step up to the next faster speed for the same money.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, each array data volume in unraid is independent, no striping.

Sorry, I'm stuck in old world RAID terminology.  My understanding is that with two parity drives, I can recover from two disks of failure. The rebuild of a 4TB drive is intensive enough that the probability of another failure during the rebuild operation goes up. By keeping that second parity drive, I can recover from another drive failure while recovering from a failed data disk.

 

With the CPU, that was selected based on the price/performance ratio. Having onboard graphics wasn't a consideration either way.

 

For the graphics adapter, I don't plan to run anything intensive enough on the VMs to require a separate graphics card. I'll just access it through another box.  The NAS itself will be running headless.

 

For the water cooling, that's a combo of personal preference and performance. Water cooling has always done better for me than heatsink and fan approaches.  I like it better from a noise and case airflow standpoint as well. I've considered the SSDs being a bit small. If I can catch a deal on some parts, I'll likely bump those to 256GB each.