February 16, 201016 yr Having toyed with the idea of buying a Thecus, I came across unRAID via a Macworld article. I've immersed myself in the forums and wiki for the last couple of weeks, and now I'm ready to take the unRAID plunge! Really looking forward to building my first unRAID server. There are however some glaring gaps in my knowledge. As a Mac user, the last computer I took apart, other than to add RAM, was an 8 MHz Mac Classic in 1993. I’ve never looked inside a PC tower case and until last week didn’t know that AMD/Intel each have a range of different sockets for their processors. Lots to learn – and please excuse really basic questions. Here is the hardware I’m planning to use: Case: Coolermaster Centurion 590. Amazon £57 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cooler-Master-Centurion-590-Case/dp/B0015A2JSA/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1266277851&sr=8-15 Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H, AMD 785G, AM3. Scan. £72 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigabyte-GA-MA785GT-UD3H-AMD-785G-AM3-DDR3-1066-1333-1800-SATA-3Gb-s-RAID-ATX-VGA CPU: AMD Sempron 140 2.7ghz 45w. Scan £27 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-Sempron-140-Sargas-Core-Socket-AM3-27GHz-512KB-L2-Cache-HT-4000MHz-45W-Retail Psu: 550W Corsair CMPSU-550VXUK. Scan £66 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/550W-Corsair-CMPSU-550VXUK-ATX-PS-2-5-year-Warranty Ram: 2Gb crucial 1066, 240 pin. Crucial. £44 Hard discs: 3x 1.5Tb Western Digital Greens. Scan £80 each And now for the basic questions! Case and cooling: I chose this case based on recommendations in other threads. Lots of space for discs and, hopefully, not too fiddly to bolt stuff into. As the server will (ideally) live in a wardrobe with minimal if any airflow (the powersockets and Ethernet are wired in behind this), I am naturally concerned about overheating. How many fans should I have? Are there particular brands/types that are known to be quiet/good? Are the fans easy to fit? Motherboard This Gigabyte board looks ideal. However, I understand that I will need to make sure that HPA is disabled – by checking the BIOS - or I’ll have parity drive trouble. (Have been perusing lots of threads trying to follow this one!). Is this as simple as booting up the system, without any HDs attached? (I’m guessing that booting will call up lots of crazy text, somewhere within will be an option to disable HPA). CPU I like the look of this single core Sempron, with its 45w rating. £27! What sort of CPU cooling should I look at for this? A Titan fan pops up next to the Sempron in the Scan listing. £4.57. Which may mean that it’s a bargain, or cheap and noisy and no use at all. http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Titan-DC-K8J825Z-N-CPU-cooler-for-AM2-Sempron-3800plus-939-Athlon-3800plus-940-AM2-AM3-Athlon Haven’t spotted other suitable alternatives as yet. Or perhaps I don’t need one at all? Power supply The 550w Corsair has a single +12V power rail. Which a number of posters on this forum have advocated. Although I plan to increase to 6 discs once I’ve got the system sorted and tested, is this PSU overkill? The projected cost so far is £260 or so, plus discs, although i'll need to get some wires, fans, USB stick etc. So, roughly £300 plus discs. The 5 bay Thecus I was looking at (the N5500) goes for £575, plus discs. And the discs have to be all the same size. Next on my list is to start reading up on the software side. More late nights ahead!
February 16, 201016 yr Just a note with the Centurion 590 case.. If you ever plan on adding any 5in3 drive bays (in the 5.25" bays), you will most likely have to modify the case for them to fit. This is because the CM590 has little metal "tabs" between the 5.25" bays which requires you to either bend the tabs with some pliers or dremel them off. Just a note.. For cooling, the Sempron should come with its own HSF.. I wouldn't worry about putting anything else in cooling. If you're sticking it in your closet, the biggest thing you have to worry about is making sure your HDs have good airflow. I would keep a close eye on the stats making sure everything is in optimal ranges once you throw it in the closet. Depending on your home and how hot it is, the problem with a closet (especially a small one) is that it can almost act as an "oven" (i've had this happen before) where the heat stagnates and doesn't get recirculated properly - hence why you may want to keep an eye on it for the first month or so to make sure.
February 16, 201016 yr Consider purchasing an extra one of these 4in3 cages (the case already comes with one): http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Coolermaster-Full-Alloy-4-in-3-Devices-Module-Ideal-for-Most-cases for future expansion. If I remember correctly, the CM 590 comes with one 120mm fan at the back. I would purchase two additional 120mm fans and mount them at the top of the case as exhaust. This will give you two intake fans over the drives, and three exhaust fans (1 in back, two on top). Then, block off any remaining vents using clear tape to further control the air flow. Also, position the PSU so that it's intake fan is drawing air from within the case. For the Gigabyte MB, flash the BIOS to the most current version and there should be an option within BIOS something like 'save copy of BIOS to hard drive'. Make sure to toggle this setting to 'NO' or 'OFF'. I believe this controls HPA. As Stokkes mentioned, the biggest hurdle is going to be monitoring the airflow inside the closet - insuring the heat generated by the server has somewhere to go.
February 16, 201016 yr Once you get the hardware built and get your unRAID running, if you need any Mac-specific help with your unRAID, you can always feel free to PM. All my machines, aside from the unRAID tower are Macs.
February 16, 201016 yr Author Many thanks for the guidance. It’s really helping to fit the pieces together in my brain. (which is slightly short of sleep as I’ve been staying up late reading the forum and wiki!) I hadn’t realised that the 4in3 cages come with a fan. The idea of fans at the front pulling air over the drives, and those at the top shipping it out, makes perfect sense. I had been fretting over the Gigabyte MB BIOS. In that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one. However, having perused lots of PDFs on the Gigabyte site and read a plethora of forum threads, I came across the splendid phrase: “Press Del to enter the BIOS” (sometimes it’s the really basic things that get you!) Hopefully I will get a motherboard with firmware that can disable HPA straight off. The latest version of the firmware for the GA-MA785GT-UD3H (rev. 1.1) is F4, released on 4/12/2009. http://www.giga-byte.com/Support/Motherboard/BIOS_Model.aspx?ProductID=3291 It’s not entirely clear whether a rev 1.1 MB would ship with F4, or whether this is the version to upgrade to should it be required. We shall see. Not fretting now. And ClunkClunk – many thanks for the kind offer of Mac-specific help.
February 16, 201016 yr Ditto, on the offer for Mac help from me. I have and use a mac as my main machine but also some Windows machines on my network. The only downside right now for me with unRAID is not being able to use AFP. unRAID 5.0 is supposed to fix that and I am hoping to see a beta sometime soon so I can start messing with it. I have a spare computer ready to go so that I can hook it up and play till my heart is content.
February 17, 201016 yr Ditto on everyone else's advice, but I would also add that if you only plan on using a maximum of 6 disks, the 550 W PSU is overkill. I would go for a 380 W - 450 W, either Corsair or Antec Earthwatts. I'm currently running 8 drives (half 'green', half not) on a 380 W Antec Earthwatts PSU. However, if you plan on upgrading significantly past 6 drives at any point, then the 550 W PSU may come in handy. Also keep in mind that its best to stagger your hard drive purchases, instead of buying them all at once. My advice would be to buy your first hard drive soon, maybe today (the 1.5 TB WD Greens that you mentioned are perfect). Then in a few weeks once you are done doing all your research, order your server components as well as a second hard drive. Then a few weeks after that (or whenever you run out of space), buy your third hard drive. Even if you still get all WD Greens, by spacing out your purchases like that you will decrease your chances of getting a bunch of drives from the same (potentially bad) batch.
February 28, 201016 yr Author So I returned from a work trip to San Diego to find several boxes of unRAID shopping had arrived. I've had an initial construction session... Fitted powersupply Fitted first HD in 4-in-3 cage Added 2 exhaust fans Added processor to motherboard, fitted motherboard into case ...and so far its been pleasingly straightforward and logical. But, I haven't tackled any of the wiring as yet; leaving that particular treat until another day. A few thoughts: Case: The Centurion 590 case is big! I hadn't really considered quite how big a full tower case can be, and my plan of hiding it in a wardrobe may need to be reconsidered. But, this size has made construction extremely easy - plenty of space for a PC-building rookie to move parts around. Motherboard: The Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H board came with a manual that is (perhaps surprisingly) well written and illustrated. Is this commonplace or a rarity in the PC-building industry? Many manuals are sparse or a clear afterthought, but Gigabyte have made an effort. I was particularly reassured/interested by/in the pages explaining the BIOS, as I'd been rather confused by this. CPU: Installing the Sempron 140 was almost disconcertingly easy. Dropped into the socket, added the heatsink/fan combo that it came with (which had preinstalled thermal grease stuff - another factor that I'd read about, pondered, and then found had been taken care of by the supplier). Next task is to investigate wiring: disentanging the octopus of wires that emerges from the powersupply and working out what they do / where they go. working out where to plug the four fans I now have, discovering how to link up the various front panel twinkly lights etc.
March 1, 201016 yr I bought that same case and yeah the guides between the bays scared me. Luckly for me the 4 to 3 HDD Tray Enclosures has a slot in the middle of the sides, which accomodated for cases which have these guides for 5 1/4 bay devices. So take care regarding the kind of enclosures your considering purchasing. Cheers!
March 1, 201016 yr I'm glad to see that there are a number of Mac users here. Not to hijack Brandnewfatboy's thread but I'm also a Mac/Apple person, since 1981, with 2 G4s, a G5 a Mac-Mini -late 2009 intel (for HTPC) and I'm also getting ready to take the plunge into the UnRaid world. I started out looking for a better solution and options for FW drive housings since most $110 housings are not worth the money and don't last more than 18 months. The decent ones cost over $200+, plus 1 for a backup drive. Then I discovered UnRaid and have been reading as much as could find for the last few weeks. I have never dared to enter into the dark side of hardware, I've had to learn a few things about PC hardware and still learning, but since this is a linux system I'm ok and have no problem building it and I'm looking forward to it. I would use this mostly for my HTPC but also would like to use it for general back up of my Macs and Video editing projects that I work on in Final Cut. My backup drives are now scattered all around. We record up to 2 OTA HD channels at ~ 18 mbps each from a HDHomerun network tuner and may watch a 3rd off the drive (doing this now with a USB connected drive since my FW800 housing died). That means ~36 mbps write and ~18 mbps read at the same time. My 1st concern is will the UnRaid handle this without stuttering. The gigabit network appears to be able to handle 100 mbps (real world). My second concern is I'd like this to be as energy efficient as possible. I'm looking at 6 drives max. Parity drive 1tb Drive 1, 1tb seems to be enough so far since we average around 450gb on this drive. Drive 2, 1tb for Video project backup. Drives 3&4, 500 gigs each for system images and general data backup (using Superduper). Will I still be able to use Superduper for backup with UnRaid? I already have the above drives all Seagate Barracudas 7200.11 and 7200.12. The 2 500 gig drives just had the firmware updated since they were from that bad batch but have worked fine for 18 months. Brandnewfatboy's system is very similar to what I've been looking at but the lack of IPMI on the Gigabyte boards has slowed me down. The Supermicro boards look nice but seem like they only spec for hi wattage CPUs. How important is having the IPMI? Am I getting hung up an that? I would rather not have to have a monitor attached to it and just be able to run it from my Macs. From what I have read here I get the impression that to power on and start the UnRaid a monitor is required without IPMI. I would like to shut it down easily and turn it on when not in use. Any help would be appreciated.
March 1, 201016 yr You don't need to have IPMI to run a server without a keyboard/mouse/monitor connected to it. You can merely telnet/ssh/web into the server from your MAC for management needs. A Video Card is not the same as a Monitor. The server will need a video card of some sort, but does not need to have a monitor connected.
March 1, 201016 yr I'm glad to see that there are a number of Mac users here. Not to hijack Brandnewfatboy's thread but I'm also a Mac/Apple person, since 1981, with 2 G4s, a G5 a Mac-Mini -late 2009 intel (for HTPC) and I'm also getting ready to take the plunge into the UnRaid world. I started out looking for a better solution and options for FW drive housings since most $110 housings are not worth the money and don't last more than 18 months. The decent ones cost over $200+, plus 1 for a backup drive. Then I discovered UnRaid and have been reading as much as could find for the last few weeks. I have never dared to enter into the dark side of hardware, I've had to learn a few things about PC hardware and still learning, but since this is a linux system I'm ok and have no problem building it and I'm looking forward to it. I would use this mostly for my HTPC but also would like to use it for general back up of my Macs and Video editing projects that I work on in Final Cut. My backup drives are now scattered all around. We record up to 2 OTA HD channels at ~ 18 mbps each from a HDHomerun network tuner and may watch a 3rd off the drive (doing this now with a USB connected drive since my FW800 housing died). That means ~36 mbps write and ~18 mbps read at the same time. My 1st concern is will the UnRaid handle this without stuttering. The gigabit network appears to be able to handle 100 mbps (real world). My second concern is I'd like this to be as energy efficient as possible. I'm looking at 6 drives max. Parity drive 1tb Drive 1, 1tb seems to be enough so far since we average around 450gb on this drive. Drive 2, 1tb for Video project backup. Drives 3&4, 500 gigs each for system images and general data backup (using Superduper). Will I still be able to use Superduper for backup with UnRaid? I already have the above drives all Seagate Barracudas 7200.11 and 7200.12. The 2 500 gig drives just had the firmware updated since they were from that bad batch but have worked fine for 18 months. Brandnewfatboy's system is very similar to what I've been looking at but the lack of IPMI on the Gigabyte boards has slowed me down. The Supermicro boards look nice but seem like they only spec for hi wattage CPUs. How important is having the IPMI? Am I getting hung up an that? I would rather not have to have a monitor attached to it and just be able to run it from my Macs. From what I have read here I get the impression that to power on and start the UnRaid a monitor is required without IPMI. I would like to shut it down easily and turn it on when not in use. Any help would be appreciated. You don't need the IPMI part at all. It is a nice thing to have but not at all needed. You will more than likely need some kind of video card in the server to get it to boot. A lot of motherboard these days require it, kind of annoying but whatever. I suggest searching craigslist for really really old working PCI video cards. I got 3 for very cheap a couple weeks ago just to put in my server (and any others I end up building that don't have video built in). unRAID should be able to handle that but you are probably going to want to write directly to the disk shares and not the UserShare when recording, or better yet write to a cache drive. I have not tried using SuperDuper over my network. I am fairly certain that you will lose the ability to make it a bootable volume but you should be able to clone your entire drive over the network. I use a program called CrashPlan that does something similar but is not quite the same as SuperDuper. Take a look through the Topical Index to get an idea of what others are doing with there server and how they are using it.
March 1, 201016 yr I suggest searching craigslist for really really old working PCI video cards. I got 3 for very cheap a couple weeks ago just to put in my server (and any others I end up building that don't have video built in). PCI or PCIe? Any particular requirements? I'm not use to PC Hardware. I have not tried using SuperDuper over my network. I am fairly certain that you will lose the ability to make it a bootable volume but you should be able to clone your entire drive over the network. It doesn't have to be bootable off the UnRaid they are just image files of my system that need to be smart updated from Superduper and of course if cloned back to my Mac I would then need to be able to boot from that. I found this in the SuperDuper user guide. "Backing up over a network Backing up to a network volume with SuperDuper! is as easy as backing up to a local volume, with a few special considerations. First, SuperDuper! cannot write directly to the network volume itself. Instead, you must store your backup in an image – preferably a Read/Write “Sparse” Image. To do this, mount the network volume, and then choose Disk Image… from the destination pop-up. Then, select the network volume and folder where you want to store the image, and name it appropriately. Make sure the pop-up at the bottom is set to Read/Write “Sparse” Image, then click Save. In Options…, set things as desired (I recommend using Smart Update) and click Copy Now. The next time through, SuperDuper! will automatically mount the network volume, mount the image, back up to it and unmount it when done. Again, make sure you use Smart Update to ensure the fastest operation! Note It’s very important that the network drive support files larger than 4GB. FAT32-based servers or NAS devices will not work, and fail pretty spectacularly when this limit is reached. Please ensure the network volume is HFS+, NTFS or ext3, all of which support large files. "
March 1, 201016 yr It’s very important that the network drive support files larger than 4GB. FAT32-based servers or NAS devices will not work, and fail pretty spectacularly when this limit is reached. Please ensure the network volume is HFS+, NTFS or ext3, all of which support large files. " unRAID uses ReiserFS, which also supports large files. You won't have any problems there.
March 1, 201016 yr PCI or PCIe? Any particular requirements? I'm not use to PC Hardware. PCI, not PCIe. I would leave the PCIe slots on the motherboard for SATA addon cards. There are no requirements just that it has a VGA or DVI port so you can plug a monitor in and view the console in case you need to see something on the screen.
March 3, 201016 yr Author More ingredients for my unRAID have arrived: RAM, and the USB Flash stick with unRAID installed. Another 1.5Tb WD caviar is on its way (I've taken Rajahal's wise suggestion of spacing out HD purchases). For the USB stick, I searched the wiki/forum for a while looking to see whether it could be set up on a Mac. The wiki has "Linux or Unix-based operating systems... You will still use your system's syslinux tool"; although OSX is unix-based, syslinux is not something I've encountered. So I took the easy route of giving the Flash to a PC-using friend to set up. If it isn't possible to use OSX to create the hidden file ldlinux.sys and make the drive bootable, or if there is a simple method to do so, is there a para we could add to the wiki to clarify matters for the next Mac-using newbie? For future updates to the Flash, I'm assuming that I can just mount it on my Mac and copy files over - is this correct? Can't put the parts together tonight as I'm off to Wembley to watch England v Egypt. But, tomorrow I hope to do the wiring and go for first boot. Just to make sure I'm on the right lines with the wiring ... - The motherboard gets a powercable. - Each HD gets a small SATA cable to the motherboard, and a powercable. - Each fan plugs into the motherboard. However, I have 4 fans (1 for the HD 4-in-3 cage, 2 at the top, 1 at the back), and as far as I can tell the Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H motherboard has 3 small fan connectors. Have I misunderstood, or are there alternative connectors I should use? - The flurry of wires from the front panel plug into the motherboard. - Any other crucial bits of wiring I've missed? (!!) Russ Uno - very interesting idea of using SuperDuper, as I'm assuming that we can't use TimeMachine until AFP is built-in in unRAID 5. Haven't used SuperDuper for a while, and only then for creating full bootable HD clones, but from what I recall it can also be set to do regular backups of subsets of files (which I would want to be the essentials of iPhoto library and family vids). Will explore. Meanwhile, I've been reading the 'original monster thread at AVSForum' while on the train. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=573986 Am up to page 8 (of 65), and its been v interesting to follow the development of unRAID from August 2005. And the discussions of the ethos of unRAID, how it compares to other RAID types, and the explanations of parity, have been most helpful.
March 3, 201016 yr Russ Uno - very interesting idea of using SuperDuper, as I'm assuming that we can't use TimeMachine until AFP is built-in in unRAID 5. Haven't used SuperDuper for a while, and only then for creating full bootable HD clones, but from what I recall it can also be set to do regular backups of subsets of files (which I would want to be the essentials of iPhoto library and family vids). Will explore. Yes & yes you can schedule backups with it. I contacted tech support and got this reply. "We can only back up directly from or two HFS+ volumes. However, we can back up an HFS+ volume to an *image* stored on any file system that's writable on your OSX system, as long as it supports very large files (as ReiserFS does). We just can't write it "directly" to the volume. " Which is fine with me since I usually back up to image files anyway that way I can have an "A" and a "B" to alternate backups to and they can reside side by side on the same drive. I used to use CCC but switched to SuperDuper a while ago. The consensus is that it makes the most accurate copies of the file system.
March 4, 201016 yr Just to make sure I'm on the right lines with the wiring ... - The motherboard gets a powercable. Actually, motherboards typically get two power cables - one big fat one (20 pin) and little small one (4 or 8 pin). Both come directly from the power supply. - Each HD gets a small SATA cable to the motherboard, and a powercable. Right. - Each fan plugs into the motherboard. However, I have 4 fans (1 for the HD 4-in-3 cage, 2 at the top, 1 at the back), and as far as I can tell the Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H motherboard has 3 small fan connectors. Have I misunderstood, or are there alternative connectors I should use? Not necessarily. The CPU fan (which sits on top of the CPU's heatsink) does plug directly into the motherboard, like this (the slot on the mobo is usually labeled like that too). As for all the other fans - that depends on the type of fans, and the type of motherboard you have. If the fan has a tiny little connector similar to the CPU fan's connector, then it is intended to be plugged into the motherboard (example). This allows the motherboard to control the fan's speed. However, the typical case fan hooks up with a 4 pin Molex connector, which looks like this. These fans will generally be one speed (though they sometimes have manual switches for L-M-H). Some fans can go both ways (meheheheheheh). Your 4-in-3 cage's fan is most likely of the 4 pin Molex variety. - The flurry of wires from the front panel plug into the motherboard. Right. This is by far the most annoying part of putting together a computer, since the wires are all so small and don't lock into place. They will plug into an appropriately labeled area of the motherboard like this. What makes it extra annoying is that you generally don't know which way to plug them in (is positive on the left or on the right?). It is generally a good idea to consult your mobo's manual, since it should have a nice large print diagram of the area in question, and hopefully it will tell you how to plug them in. If your computer won't boot initially, it could be that these plugs are switched around the wrong way. Certain plugs are mandatory, PWR (power switch) and RST (reset switch), for example. However, any one that says LED after it, such as PWR_LED or HDD_LED is technically optional. For example, I chose to plug in the PWR_LED but leave off the HDD_LED on my unRAID server, since I want to know when it is on (thus PWR_LED is plugged in), but I don't care when the first hard drive is active, since the hard drives are almost always active (hence, HDD_LED is left unplugged). Since it is your first time, you may just want to plug everything in and go from there. Also, generally the case's front panel audio plugs into a different section of the motherboard. Again, this is technically optional since unRAID will make no use of your audio ports. - Any other crucial bits of wiring I've missed? (!!) Guess you'll find out But no, I don't think so. In my experience, its always that second mobo power cord that I forget to plug in. Also, don't fret if your server doesn't turn on the very first time you press the power switch - sometimes you have to play with the combination of backside power switch (on the PSU) and frontside power switch (on the case) before they are both in the 'on' position. The backside one is easy - '|' mean on, and 'O' means off (think 'O' for Open circuit, that's how I remember it). The frontside power switch is just a toggle, though, so you have no way of knowing which state is on and which is off except simple trial and error. Don't forget to wear an ESD bracelet while building your computer, or at least ground yourself on something often. Good luck, be patient, and have fun.
March 6, 201016 yr Author Success! We have a working unRAID system. Very pleased. Many thanks to all for the advice. And in particular to Rajahal for the detailed comments on wiring. Legend. State of play: - booted into BIOS and confirmed that the option to save BIOS to hard disc was disabled. This agrees with a couple of other comments on the forum, so I presume this is now default for the Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H board. - booted unRAID off Flash USB. Wasn't particularly quick; I might time it at some point to see if it's in the same ballpark as other forum comments. - tried and failed to login to //tower from Macbook Pro using Safari and Firefox. - Attached monitor to the unRAID and used ifconfig to get the IP address - Could then login to //IPaddress using Firefox, but not with Safari - Tested telnet with ifconfig. All good There is definitely quick learning curve with unRAID. Until this evening, I hadn't booted into a bios, or used ifconfig or telnet. I have been reading up on the issues with Macs not being able to use //tower unless /etc/hosts has been edited. Will try this once I've figured what static IP to give the server. Could only find one other comment - from Prostuff1 - about Safari not working where Firefox does. Oddness - have no idea why this might be so. Only other issue is the fans - 3 of which are spinning happily, while one is sulking. One for another day
March 10, 201016 yr Congrats! Glad to hear it all worked out. Treat yourself to a nice dark beer, you have joined the ranks of 'system builders' or 'computer geeks' as we are more commonly known.
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