So, I'm building a beast.  20-drive capacity (+2 internally) and enough horses to run the addons that I need for the media provisioning and transcoding... Here's the quote page I cached and editted the personal details from...

 

http://cerver.phe4r.com:8080/ATIC-quote.html

 

Summary:

Case: Norco 4020

Mobo: Supermicro X7SBE (with two PCI-X 8-channel SATA controllers)

Proc: Intel Core2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz

Ram: Kingston 4GB DDR2-800 (2x2GB)

PSU: Corsair 750W

 

is unraid going to be run under a different os?

i think you should be configuring your software first

 

PCI-X is not PCIe

I believe the cards are supported, at least if I'm correctly reading the claims accoring to this post:

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=4479.0

Oh, as for drives, I was thinking WD green for data, and WD black for my parity and cache drives, 1.5TB's across the board, until I need more that is... Now I understand that I should break up the sourcing/buying of those drives so I reduce the chance of getting several drives from the same batch which could potentially be a bad batch and thus cost me in the long run with lost data, but are there any other concerns I should be aware of?

Oh, as for drives, I was thinking WD green for data, and WD black for my parity and cache drives, 1.5TB's across the board, until I need more that is... Now I understand that I should break up the sourcing/buying of those drives so I reduce the chance of getting several drives from the same batch which could potentially be a bad batch and thus cost me in the long run with lost data, but are there any other concerns I should be aware of?

 

The WD Balck will do you no good if you also have WD greens in the array.  You may see marginal benefit from a WD Black drive as a cache drive.  You will be limited by the speed of your slowest drive in the array.

So then are the benefits of the Black series enough to use them for the entire array, or should I just stick with Green for the entire array for power/noise/etc considerations in a dense array such as this?

So then are the benefits of the Black series enough to use them for the entire array, or should I just stick with Green for the entire array for power/noise/etc considerations in a dense array such as this?

 

That is entirely an opinion question.  As far as I am concerned the benefits of the blacks do not help mitigate the price nor extra heat they put out.  I would rather go with the greens for price, powersavings, and heat reasons.

have you worked out your PCIe is not PCI-X problem yet?

That M/B will be fine with two PCI-X sata cards (It has 4 x PCI-X slots across two PCI-X buses (100Mhz and 133Mhz).

yeah but you never orignially listed a mobo in your post

I would do the following:

 

Norco RPC-4220 case

Supermicro C2SEA motherboard

(2) Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 SATA controller

SeaSonic X750 Gold power supply

 

Lower cost ~$400

Possibly higher performance (PCIe vs. PCI-X)

Better efficiency

Cleaner cabling

 

 

 

 

That M/B will be fine with two PCI-X sata cards (It has 4 x PCI-X slots across two PCI-X buses (100Mhz and 133Mhz).

 

PCI-X is not a bad way to go - but PCIe is newer and better supported.  Hard to find a PCI-X motherboard, but impossible to find a MB without PCI-e.  Although the MB / cards you are considering would certainly work and provide good performance with a large number of drives, I (personally) would look for a PCI-e solution.  If your MB were ever to die, you'd have a large variety of MB options.  With PCI-X, you may be looking at replacing the MB + controller cards if PCI-X has become extinct.

Support for the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 SATA card was very recently added and with that card there is no longer a need to use PCI-X to be able to use 8-port cards. So, go with the newer card.

 

Peter

 

I had looked at the PCIe cards as well, I had thought that by going this way I could conceivably add two of those and further expand my capacity down the road by another 16 drives (this of course under the assumption that unRAID continues to grow and support more and more drives)... Is this a pipe dream? Should I be concerned enough about PCI-X disappearing that I ought to consider getting a spare MB now if I want to go down this path?

It's a tough call, that motherboard gives you a lot of usable slots and is a server grade solution. It supports PCI, PCI-X and PCI-E.

 

In terms of future proofing PCI-E is potentially better being current technology (however in two or three years PCI-E might well be obsolete). A more modern solution would be better in terms of power consumption and potentially cost, in terms of number of sata ports that is one of the best motherboards around.

 

Take care when picking a PCI-E motherboard, find one that will suport multiple cards, lots don't. Check with the motherboards support teams, this may not mean it doesnt work but will mean it is supported. They often say VGA only or something similar.

 

When I had a chance I picked up a ASUS workstation board with both PCI, PCI-X and PCI-E slots, I jumped at the chance.  More options is always better IMO.

 

 

 

 

 

I would do the following:

 

Norco RPC-4220 case

Supermicro C2SEA motherboard

(2) Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 SATA controller

SeaSonic X750 Gold power supply

 

Lower cost ~$400

Possibly higher performance (PCIe vs. PCI-X)

Better efficiency

Cleaner cabling

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the suggestion on that case, sourced a vendor here in Canada (NCIX) and placed the order for that already, couldn't see a reason not to get that one, easily $300 cheaper than the other solution, those 5in3 bays drive up the cost damn quickly... I think this solution will have better airflow as well, and I'm going to go with the SeaSonic modular PSU as suggested as well... Still on the fence about the rest... thankfully those parts are just one province away so they won't take long to get here once I decide...