Like to upgrade my Current Setup. Suggestions?

[kizer]

Currently I'm running one of the original Budget Builds and its been working great for years. However now I'm to the point where I would like to give my box some more power. I'm not looking to do any on the fly trans-coding, but I'd like to do some background transcoding from larger format files to smaller ones via handbrake or something of the sort, but I'd like my machine to be able to use the Pre-clear plugin without appearing to choke and possibly start experimenting with some of the dockers.

 

Everything I currently have is in my Signature and I'd gladly answer any questions unless its so technical it'll make my head explode. =)

 

- I'd like to be able to utilize the power supply, drives, case. I've seen a few motherboards with more than 6SATA connections which would be kinda nice so I could remove my SATA Expansion card, but not a have to.

- Keeping it quite would be really nice too. Currently I can barely hear my system across the room because I built it for lower power and low energy consumption. 

- Can't be super expensive either. Have to get it pass the boss lady at home too.

 

Anyways any advice would be very welcome.

 

Couldn't I just slap in a faster processor and squeeze a bit more out of the Mother Board and Ram and utilize everything I already currently have?

[tdallen]

Couldn't I just slap in a faster processor and squeeze a bit more out of the Mother Board and Ram and utilize everything I already currently have?

That would be the easiest thing to do.  The Sempron 140 is a single core chip with 738 Passmarks.  That's probably below the minimum recommended spec for unRAID 6.  Your motherboard supports a number of AM2, AM2+, and AM3 CPUs.  At a bare minimum you should get a dual core CPU and try to double your Passmarks, and since you're upgrading why not go all the way to an Phenom II x4?  The further you get above 2,000 Passmarks the happier you will be with background processing capabilities.

 

The 140 is a 45w chip, btw.  You may need a new CPU cooler as well if your current one can't handle the increased heat of a faster chip.

[kizer]

Couldn't I just slap in a faster processor and squeeze a bit more out of the Mother Board and Ram and utilize everything I already currently have?

That would be the easiest thing to do.  The Sempron 140 is a single core chip with 738 Passmarks.  That's probably below the minimum recommended spec for unRAID 6.  Your motherboard supports a number of AM2, AM2+, and AM3 CPUs.  At a bare minimum you should get a dual core CPU and try to double your Passmarks, and since you're upgrading why not go all the way to an Phenom II x4?  The further you get above 2,000 Passmarks the happier you will be with background processing capabilities.

 

The 140 is a 45w chip, btw.  You may need a new CPU cooler as well if your current one can't handle the increased heat of a faster chip.

 

Exactly what I was looking at today. I was looking simply at things like AMD Athlon II X2 260 that would easily double my BenchMark at 1886 and even that at Single Thread of 1078 which is still a lot faster than my 738. I can only imagine that unRAID takes full advantage of the multiple processors since V4.4. 

 

Since the Sempron only uses 45watts I can only imagine doubling that can easily be done with my current power supply.

 

I think the only issue I'm coming across is how far can I push the processors without pushing past what the MotherBoard can support.

[tdallen]

There are some documented issues of slowness running unRAID 6+ on low end single core chips (I'm assuming you're on 6?).  Upgrading to a dual core (or better) chip will help a lot with basic NAS duties.  If you want to run Dockers and background transcoding then I'd target something over 2,000 Passmarks, though the Athlon II X2 would certainly be an improvement over the old Sempron.  Make sure to get a 64 bit CPU.

[kizer]

I was looking at the Phenom ii x4, but I can't find anything that address's Bios updates if/needed on the BioStar Mobo.

[garycase]

According to your motherboard's CPU support list, an Athlon II X4 630 (PassMark 3164) is supported:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/AMD-Athlon-II-X4-630-2-8-GHz-ADX630WFK42GI-Quad-Core-Socket-AM3-/361310855241?hash=item541fce2049:g:qG0AAOSwKrhVbNXH

 

... as is a Phenom II X4 945 (PassMark 3718):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/AMD-CPU-Phenom-II-X4-945-3-0GHz-Socket-AM3-HDX945WFK4DGM-GI-95W-/172399805068?hash=item2823d4428c:g:wt0AAOSw7W5XOOSg

 

Either of these would give you a BIG boost in performance with your board.

 

HOWEVER, although both are listed on the CPU support list for your board [ http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=394#cpusupport'>http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=394#cpusupport ], there is a highlighted note at the bottom of the page warning you to be sure you have the updated BIOS to support any CPU you plan to install.  Unfortunately, the list doesn't show which BIOS version is required for specific CPU's ==> so if you plan to change the FIRST thing you should do is update to the latest BIOS version.

 

Be sure you update the BIOS FIRST -- before switching CPU's.    There's a utility built-in to your BIOS to do the upgrade, so you can simply put the new BIOS on a FAT32-formatted USB flash drive (there are instructions in the BIOS flashing manual).  You can download the BIOS Update Manual and latest BIOS by clicking the download link here:  http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=394

... and choosing any OS (I'd just click on Windows 10) => then you'll see the BIOS downloads, including the manual.

 

[garycase]

... by the way, be sure to look at your current BIOS and see what version you already have.  Since the latest BIOS is over 6 years old (uploaded 2010-7-14) you may already have it.

 

[garycase]

... also, the motherboard specifications show support for CPU's up to 95 watts, so either of those CPU's are fine (they both have 95w TDPs).  Depending on what cooler you're using, you may want to upgrade the heatsink/cooler, but your power supply, motherboard, and memory are all fine.

 

[garycase]

... finally, you might want to bump your memory up to the max the motherboard supports (8GB):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Samsung-8GB-2X-4GB-DDR2-800-MHZ-PC2-6400-240PIN-Desktop-memory-AMD-Motherboard-/151491353376?hash=item2345969b20:g:3p0AAOSwiLdWA66U

 

[kizer]

Holly Molly Gary. I had some questions and I think you answered them and gave me more and then answered them too. Lol

[garycase]

Glad to help -- hope those upgrades will give you a few more years life on that system 

[kizer]

Glad to help -- hope those upgrades will give you a few more years life on that system 

 

Yeah its been a great little build and its been stable as all heck except when I had a powersupply issue which you pointed out and then a mobo that decided to stop recognizing my USB and then oddly enough I had a second of the same Mobo and rebuilt the system with a newer Bios I think. lol

 

I'll attempt to do some research on Bios and pull some triggers on some things and milk it out a bit longer. All ready looking at buying some Red drives too to replace my tired Greens.

[kizer]

@tdallen

 

Thanks for the idea to do this jump. I think I'm going to give this a go sometime soon.

[TheSpoon]

Haha, Kizer, let me guess, your build has been running great for about 5 years?

 

I came to the forums looking to upgrade my 4TB setup as I've finally maxed out my storage.  My system has been running flawlessly since I built it, so much so, that I haven't even kept up with the updates to unRaid (still running pre v6 unRaid, maybe something in the 4 range).  Seeing all the things it can do now has me wanting to update the system and I have nearly the exact same setup as you, so we must have pulled from the same budget build.

 

I pulled up my newegg order confirmation and see I bought them on 5/9/11, so I figured yours was right around the same time...

 

Anyhow, thanks for your post/question, I'll be following along and probably using the same hardware setups....  though, it appears I still needs some more info on the extra drives it can use now...  (cache drive?)

 

Nelson

[tdallen]

@TheSpoon

 

Under unRAID v6 the cache drive serves 2 purposes.

 

First, it can be used to cache writes to the parity protected array.  Each user share can be configured to write new files to the cache drive instead of the array (it's faster, no parity calculation) and then periodically Mover kicks in to move the new files to the array.  I'm not sure when this was introduced but it's been around since at least the v5 days.  This was really useful in the days of slower drives, say 250GB - 2TB.  It's less useful today with higher capacity, faster drives 3TB+.  Personally I don't use the cache drive for caching writes to the array - it's pretty fast for me to write directly to the array and I like having my data protected by parity immediately.  It's a choice - some people use it that way, some don't.

 

The other thing the cache drive is used for is a defacto application drive in unRAID 6.  It's the default place to install the Docker image, Docker Containers and their data, and VM images.  Using an SSD as the cache drive is ideal for this new functionality.  unRAID has become quite the application/media automation server under unRAID 6 and has evolved far beyond the plugin model of older versions (though plugins are still used for some things).  Older NAS-only hardware may not be up to the task of running applications, though...

 

 

[kizer]

Lol, probably did pull from the same build sheet when it was suggested a long time ago. 3/16/2011  to be exact with NewEGG lol .... and yes its ran great and survived every update up to now at 6.2.4. The new web page interface looks really sharp and the addons of Plugins are really cool and helpful. I'd highly recommend you doing at least the upgrade to the most current version. If you have my build you shouldn't have any issues. Just make sure you upgrade it the way its suggested because your a way back and then future updates you can just click on a button in the GUI to continue updating. No more downloading anything its almost automatic

 

Personally I use my Cache Drive as a place to store odd ball things when I don't want to clutter up my Array. For instance when I rip a movie I normally rip it as high quality as I can for the big screen and then of course my kids want to be able to watch it on their Tablet so instead of manually ripping it again manually I found a script on the net I run on my windows machine that looks on my cache drive for files and pulls one off rips it and then puts it in another folder in my protected Array.

 

At one time I was planning on having a web server and again my Cache drive would of been perfect for that. I scrapped the idea, however now that I'm thinking of it I could use my Cache as an FTP upload drop or a place to load up security footage when I finally get around to some cameras.

 

In short a Cache drive would be great for speed or simply to load things that you don't need in your array.

 

Limitations well so far Other than buying a controller card so I can add more drives and my motherboard dieing on me and I had a spare and I've upped my power supply from the original CX400 which was recommended I've had zero issues. I'm just growing beyond my older 2TB drives and thought what else could I squeeze out of this machine.   I'll update my Build/Topic in my Signature if/when I finally do an upgrade to the processor.

[TheSpoon]

...

The other thing the cache drive is used for is a defacto application drive in unRAID 6.  It's the default place to install the Docker image, Docker Containers and their data, and VM images.  Using an SSD as the cache drive is ideal for this new functionality.  unRAID has become quite the application/media automation server under unRAID 6 and has evolved far beyond the plugin model of older versions (though plugins are still used for some things).  Older NAS-only hardware may not be up to the task of running applications, though...

 

Thanks for the summary tdallen.  And yeah, I'm looking to update more than just the harddrives now after catching up on what unRaid can do.  I'll take advantage of some of the docker stuff (deluge and sonarr specifically) and maybe one a bit more if I see a use before I make the purchases.  I'm going to try to roll some of the updates in with Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales and see how far ahead I can get.

 

Lol, probably did pull from the same build sheet when it was suggested a long time ago. 3/16/2011  to be exact with NewEGG lol .... and yes its ran great and survived every update up to now at 6.2.4. The new web page interface looks really sharp and the addons of Plugins are really cool and helpful. I'd highly recommend you doing at least the upgrade to the most current version. If you have my build you shouldn't have any issues. Just make sure you upgrade it the way its suggested because your a way back and then future updates you can just click on a button in the GUI to continue updating. No more downloading anything its almost automatic

 

Personally I use my Cache Drive as a place to store odd ball things when I don't want to clutter up my Array. For instance when I rip a movie I normally rip it as high quality as I can for the big screen and then of course my kids want to be able to watch it on their Tablet so instead of manually ripping it again manually I found a script on the net I run on my windows machine that looks on my cache drive for files and pulls one off rips it and then puts it in another folder in my protected Array.

 

At one time I was planning on having a web server and again my Cache drive would of been perfect for that. I scrapped the idea, however now that I'm thinking of it I could use my Cache as an FTP upload drop or a place to load up security footage when I finally get around to some cameras.

 

In short a Cache drive would be great for speed or simply to load things that you don't need in your array.

 

Limitations well so far Other than buying a controller card so I can add more drives and my motherboard dieing on me and I had a spare and I've upped my power supply from the original CX400 which was recommended I've had zero issues. I'm just growing beyond my older 2TB drives and thought what else could I squeeze out of this machine.   I'll update my Build/Topic in my Signature if/when I finally do an upgrade to the processor.

 

I ran across unRaid over on the avsforums way back when.  It still took me a few years to build my first unraid system.  I'm thinking right now I'll keep the new setup at/under the 6 drives the MB can handle (after I actually purchase unRaid, instead of running the 3 drive max demo).  New CPU, max the RAM, a new (big) parity and a SSD cache...  That can/should probably handle most everything I need.