Hey everyone!

 

I've been playing with unRAID on an old PC and it suits my needs perfectly.  Unfortunately the old PC is a Dell Optiplex.  It has hit capacity and is very noisy.

I want to build a quiet unRAID server so it can sit in the living room without it being too audible, low power consumption and have plenty of future expansion.

 

It needs to be cheap as possible as I don't have much cash at the moment but I don't want to cut corners.

What do you think to this hardware list?

 

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L Intel G31 (4xSATA) (£36)

CPU: Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5300 (£55)

PSU: Fractal Design Newton R2 650W Modular Power Supply (£95)

Case: Fractal Design Define R2 Midi Tower Case (£80)

HDD: Samsung EcoGreen F2 1.5TB SATA-II 32MB Cache (£76) [x2]

RAM: Kingston 1GB DDR2 800 (£FREE) [x2] - I have some lying about

 

Total = £418

 

I can add in SATA controller cards as and when I need expansion but 1.5-4.5TB of storage from the onboard controller should be enough to get me started.

 

Can anyone see any potential problems with the above?  The case can hold 8 hard disks in it's current state, is a 650w PSU overkill?

Any help/advice would be appreciated...

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

My suggestions below:

 

1). Mobo: Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L Intel G31 (4xSATA) (£36) - It is fine, but Id go for a Gigabyte mobo with at lease 6 SATA ports or more for future expansion without the use of addon sata cards.

 

2). CPU: Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5300 (£55) - A bit of an over kill, if you could go for something cheaper in the Dual-Core range, buy that.

 

3). PSU: Fractal Design Newton R2 650W Modular Power Supply (£95) - If to think you'll have more than 8+ drives in the future, it'll be fine, if not, go for a 550W or possibly a 450W PSU instead. See link below for the unRAID Calculator, it should give you an idea on HDD wattage, ext mobo components, etc...

 

http://unraid.category5.tv/

 

4). Case: Fractal Design Define R2 Midi Tower Case (£80) - The case you choose looks good and should do the job fine, it could be open to opinion though.

 

5). HDD: Samsung EcoGreen F2 1.5TB SATA-II 32MB Cache (£76) [x2] - I'm a Seagate HDD person, though others state on the forum that Western Digital and Samsung are good too, but if you've read good reviews about them, it is possibly true. I'd start off with at lease 3 HDDs. 

 

6). RAM: Kingston 1GB DDR2 800 (£FREE) [x2]- I have some lying about - 1GB is sufficient, though 2GB RAM is cheap as chips these days.

 

Hope this helps 'monkeeboy'.

 

Thanks for the quick response -these forums rock.

Will look at investing more in the Mobo to get 6x SATA and by the looks of things I could get away with a lower wattage PSU from that tool you linked too.

 

Awesome.

 

I agree with the previous post about finding a board that has at least 6 onboard SATA.  It will be a benefit later on down the road for sure.

 

As for the other things, they look fine.  I have never heard of the case nor power supply brand, but the PSU says it is a single rail design which is good.  You can probably find similar components for cheaper elsewhere, but not sure since I am not in your neck of the woods.