Hi all

 

Completely new to the forum, so greetings to you all.

 

I'm going to built a NAS and have some questions that hopefully you can clear, this is currently my choice of hardware.

 

CASE Fractal Design Node 304 https://www.amazon.de/Fractal-Design-Node-Case-Computer/dp/B00CYW2XDY http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/node-series/node-304-black
PSU Corsair RM550x https://www.amazon.de/Corsair-RM550x-power-supply-24-pin/dp/B015Q7F36M http://www.corsair.com/en/rmx-series-rm550x-550-watt-80-plus-gold-certified-fully-modular-psu
MAINBOARD ASRock Rack C236 WSI https://www.amazon.de/ASRock-Rack-C236-WSI-Mainboard/dp/B01B96248O http://asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=C236 WSI#Specifications
MEMORY KVR21E15D8/8 8GB 2133 MHz DDR4 ECC Unregistered https://www.amazon.de/Kingston-ValueRAM-KVR21E15D8-Unbuffered-2133MHz/dp/B01AW2L8TM/ http://www.kingston.com/dataSheets/KVR21E15D8_8.pdf
CPUIntel Core i3-6100 @ 3.70GHz https://www.amazon.de/Intel-BX80662I36100-Skylake-Dual-Core-Processor/dp/B015VPX2EO/ http://ark.intel.com/products/90729/Intel-Core-i3-6100-Processor-3M-Cache-3_70-GHz
CPU CoolerCooler Master Hyper 212 EVO https://www.amazon.de/Cooler-Master-RR-212E-16PK-R1-Performance-Universal/dp/B0068OI7T8/ http://www.coolermaster.com/cooling/cpu-air-cooler/hyper-212-evo/
SDD/HDD Expansion Slot S25SLOTR - 2.5in SATA Removable SDD/HDDBay https://www.amazon.de/-/en/StarTech-Wechsellrahmen-S25SLOTR-Expansion-Storage/dp/B002MWDRD6/ https://www.startech.com/HDD/Mobile-Racks/25in-SATA-Removable-Hard-Drive-Bay-for-PC-Expansion-Slot~S25SLOTR

 

I know that probably some of you'll tell me that my hardware is overkill for unRAID, but when I was gathering it I wanted to use freeNAS. I then discover unRAID, but decided that I wasn't going to change the hardware, because in the end I have a NAS that is good for any NAS software that I might want to use.

 

I know that the case only has 6 bays for disks, but I've seen people installing drives on the outside of disk holder -  @ 2:32

 

 

Meaning that I'll probably be able to install 2 SSD (for cache) on the outside of the holders, near the case cover. So I'll be able to use the 8x SATA ports, which are connected to a single SATA controller.

 

The Mainboard supports ECC, and as far as I've seen as long as I use a CPU that has ECC support (http://ark.intel.com/search/advanced?ECCMemory=true&MarketSegment=DT) I'll be ok. If I'm wrong please point it out.

 

I'll probably have some issues with one of the network ports (Intel® i210+Intel® i219), in this case the i219 (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=45978.0), but for now, since I'll be using only one, I'm hopping that unRAID will have better support for it by the time I decided to get a router/switch that supports link aggregation. If the issues with Intel® i219 have been solved please let me know, because I didn't found any more topics related to it.

 

While I was looking for the software to use on my NAS I stumbled on a comparation from SNAPRAID (http://www.snapraid.it/compare), where I saw this

 

"[1] - unRAID doesn't have any kind of checksum, and it just ignores silent errors. Even worse, if a parity error is detected as result of a silent error in the data, the parity is automatically recomputed, making impossible to recover the silent error, even manually."

 

Is this still true or in the latest release this has been address in a different way?

 

 

Thanks in advance for your answers.

 

 

Regards to all

SMAP

Edited March 29, 20233 yr by smap
Fix links

So had one big issue ... bought ECC Reg RAM and the board only supports ECC Unregistered. Didn't read the board specs properly and simply though that it would work with ECC Reg

 

I already talked with the seller and ordered the correct RAM, which should arrive by Wednesday. So the new RAM is KVR21E15D8/8 8GB 2133 MHz DDR4 ECC Unregistered (already updated the inicial post with this).

 

Besides that I also bought a cooler to change the stock one that comes with the CPU. The new CPU cooler is Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO (already updated the inicial post with this). Really a big cooler to put in such a small case, but it will fit. You can actually check a video on youtube where someone did something like it - @34:10

 

 

Also decided to got an extension slot to put the SDD. The extension slot for SDD is S25SLOTR (already updated the inicial post with this).

 

Once I have everything working I'll try to make a video and some pictures to post here.

Nice setup => this will run UnRAID very nicely.  Looking forward to pictures of the completed build.

 

Nice setup => this will run UnRAID very nicely.

 

I'm hopping so

 

I'd already read somewhere that the fan controller has a bug, and now I've seen it with my own eyes. The fans from the case stop running

 

If I leave the fan controller on "low" and turn off the power, when I power on the case only the big (120mm) fan on the back will spin. If I then switch the fan controler to "medium" one of the front (92mm) fans will start to spin, if I then switch the fan controller to "high" the remaining front (92mm) fan will also start to spin. After all the fans are spinning I can go to "low" that then will continue to spin, but obviously slower

 

If I leave the fan controller on "medium" or "high" and turn off the power, all the fans will spin once I turn the power on. So for now I will leave the fan controller in "medium", but I might buy a fan splitter cable - https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B004CLFOK4/ - and connect all the fan to the motherboard.

 

You can read about this bad "feature" of the fan controller here - http://www.overclock.net/t/1266342/official-fractal-design-node-304-owners-club/3420#post_22442106

And here are some pics, some with only 3 drives, but today I got 3 more drives and now its full house 

 

None of your pictures are showing.

 

None of your pictures are showing.

 

Sorry for that, but apparently google drive doesn't allow pics to be showed in forums. All fixed now with anew account on photobucket.

Since you seem to like using a label maker, I'd recommend adding the last 4 digits of each drive's serial number to your visible drive faces. It will make things much easier when it's time to replace drives.

Since you seem to like using a label maker, I'd recommend adding the last 4 digits of each drive's serial number to your visible drive faces. It will make things much easier when it's time to replace drives.

 

Thanks for the recommendation, I actually didn't thought of that. Anyway, I have a list that matches the label to the serial number, which should be enough for now (don't really want to be taking everything apart now to add the serial number labels)

 

SATA 0ARRAY 0WD-WCC4E3JH0ZEZ

SATA 1ARRAY 1WD-WCC4E1YK22X3

SATA 2ARRAY 2WD-WCC4E2DD5VX2

SATA 3ARRAY 3WD-WCC4E2DD5137

SATA 4ARRAY 4WD-WCC4E0HVL1XL

SATA 5PAR 0WD-WCC4E6DZ6L9H

That's all you really need => the key thing is to have a reference so if you ever need to pull out a failed drive you KNOW which drive it is, so you don't have to pull out a bunch of drives to find the right one 

 

... a cross reference like you have, together with the nicely marked drives, will certainly provide that information.

 

WD drives have the serial number on the end, so it's simple to see which is which.  Most Seagates have this also, now.

WD drives have the serial number on the end, so it's simple to see which is which.  Most Seagates have this also, now.

As you can see in the pictures, his specific drives do not have the serial number label on the end he is labeling.

I built my little mITX 6 drive server in a Node 304 several years ago. it is serving me nicely except the poor Atom D525 CPU cannot seem to keep up with read/write speeds anymore. I'm going to upgrade sometime in the near future but I think I'm going to go with an integrated CPU again to cut down on noise and heat. My server is idle 95% of the time.

Have a look at the Avoton C2750-based boards ... 8 cores, more than 5 times the performance of the D525, and a TDP of 20w (only 7 watts higher than the D525 ... and that will only be the case when it's running at a high CPU load).

 

I quite like my Supermicro X10SBA - it's got a Celeron J1900 on there, and 6 SATA ports.  Power consumption is basically nothing.

This motherboard doesn't have a beeper/buzzer, which would've helped me a lot figuring out that I had the wrong RAM. With or witout RAM there was no beep.

 

I bought this one now - https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B017LB6CJS - and will install it later on.

 

The mode S3 Sleep works and I can wake it using wolcmd.exe (https://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Setup_Sleep_(S3)_and_Wake_on_Lan_(WOL)), but fater waking up from sleep the button for sleep isn't available anymore. I'm using the Dinamix V6 Pluging for S3 Sleep - http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=36543.0 - and I'll put some screenshots later so it's easy for everyone to see it.

 

Also bought Noctua NF-A14 PWM and will buy 2 Noctua NF-9 PWM to replace the stock fans, not because they make noise, but simple because I want to control the fans via bios/software, and the stock ones only have 3 pins.

 

I'll update the table on the initial post with this info later on.

WD drives have the serial number on the end, so it's simple to see which is which.  Most Seagates have this also, now.

As you can see in the pictures, his specific drives do not have the serial number label on the end he is labeling.

It's trivial to lift the drive cage out and look at the other end. 

Like I said on my previous post I decided to install PWM FAN - Noctua NF-A14 PWM. After installing I went to the BIOS to change the way the FANs (CPU and CASE) work. I set them both to silent and on the screenshot you can the rpms from the CPU fan at 544rpm and the CPU temperature at 35 C, mainly because I have the Noctua NF-A14 PWM right next to it pulling air also.

 

 

Here are the specs from Noctua NF-A14 PWM and also from Cooler Master hyper-212-evo

 

http://noctua.at/en/nf-a14-pwm/specification

http://www.coolermaster.com/product/Detail_aj01/cooling/P1302180416de94/Specs.html

 

So I now I've a cooler case with almost no noise

 

On Friday or Saturday, I'll probably receive the 92mm FANs (Noctua NF-A9 PWM - http://noctua.at/en/nf-a9-pwm/specification) to replace the stock ones.

 

The stock ones that came with the case are Fractal Design Silent Series R2 140mm (http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/case-fans/silent-series-r2-140mm) and 92mm (http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/case-fans/silent-series-r2-92mm), which although they are silent, they simple can't match the specs of the Noctua's that I'm putting in their place in terms of Airflow or even Static Pressure.

 

Once I've everything assembled I plan to make a video, or at least some pictures using an app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.melon.sound_meter) on my phone to measure the decibels. Currently it's around 25dB(A), but I still have the stock 92mm at full power.

 

For now I'm really happy with the build, I can't even compared it to Synology DS411j (https://global.download.synology.com/download/Document/DataSheet/DiskStation/11-year/DS411j/Synology_DS411j_Data_Sheet_enu.pdf) which I'm replacing with this one, it's so much better (I know that Synology DS411j is 5 years old, but I doubt that if I bought a current Synology now it could be as good as my current buid)

Video

 

 

And here are the pics with the new FANs and the sound it makes

 

 

Pics from the BIOS

 

 

Sweet build. How much power does it draw at idle (drives spun down, but not asleep)? I'm thinking about something similar but want to run Sonarr so I probably have to keep my machine awake 24/7.

Sweet build. How much power does it draw at idle (drives spun down, but not asleep)?

 

Is there a simple way to measure it? if you can tell me how to measure I'll do it.

Sweet build. How much power does it draw at idle (drives spun down, but not asleep)?

 

Is there a simple way to measure it? if you can tell me how to measure I'll do it.

 

Does your UPS have a display that shows the current power consumption?  [You DO have a UPS on your system -- right??]

... or you can measure it with a Kill-a-Watt (a VERY handy gadget to have)  https://www.amazon.com/P3-P4400-Electricity-Usage-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1476819736&sr=8-1&keywords=kill%2Ba%2Bwatt&th=1

Sweet build. How much power does it draw at idle (drives spun down, but not asleep)?

 

Is there a simple way to measure it? if you can tell me how to measure I'll do it.

 

[You DO have a UPS on your system -- right??]

... or you can measure it with a Kill-a-Watt (a VERY handy gadget to have)  https://www.amazon.com/P3-P4400-Electricity-Usage-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1476819736&sr=8-1&keywords=kill%2Ba%2Bwatt&th=1

 

No, as odd as it may look I don't have an UPS. If I would be living in Portugal (my home country) I would without any doubt have an UPS, because the place my house is located in Portugal the power fails a lot. But as I'm currently living in Germany, I really don't feel the need. I'm on my current apartment since 1st of April of 2011 and never had a power down.

 

I'll try to see if I can found something to measure the watt on a store, or I might get this one in amazon.de - https://www.amazon.de/Brennenstuhl-Energiemessgerät-Primera-Line-silber-1506600/dp/B007459MH6

That power meter looks like just the thing -- basically a 240v version of the Kill-a-Watt 

If you ever get around to measuring it, please do post your results! I'm always curious to see power consumption in different builds.