Final hardware check please guys (DVD Server)?

[MrLeek]

Before I do hit "order"   I'd appreciate some thoughts on my component list:

 

Celeron Dual Core E3300

Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L

Corsair XMS2 1GB PC2-6400

WD Caviar Green 2Tb drives (WD20EARS) x 2

Corsair CMPSU-450 PSU

 

I'm a little worried about the HD options - I thought about Seagate ST32000542AS Barracuda or Spinpoint F3EG, EcoGreen (both 2Tb). Got an old case to store it all in, but it's got lots of room and the cooling is fine.

 

Help??

 

Edit: Hopefully a better title. I'm planning to use this to store DVDs, streaming them to my TV via Media Lobby from Cinemar. First time I've taken on this sort of challenge before (I've built PCs before, but this feels like a big step up!) so I want to avoid as many problems as possible.

[unraided]

Hi. From what I can see, the CPU is well enough for the job, I've always bought Gigabyte mobo's so I can say that their good, though I'd go to the unraids Hardware Compatibility site to double check that the chipsets on this mobo you'd like to order is listed as compatible, see link below:

 

http://www.lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Hardware_Compatibility

 

1GB RAM is ample for a standard unraid server, though if your planning to run heaps od addons or something more resource hungry like a full blown Slackware OS install or VMware server, mayble get 2GB instead, RAM is cheap these anyways.

 

I don't know what your paying for those WD 2TB drives, but ATM (well in Australia anyways) 1.5TB drives are more bang for buck and I'd recommend buying 1.5TBs instead. For buying 2x 2TBs here, you can get 3x 1.5TBs. WD drives are pretty good too and plenty of people can vouch for them (Including myself).

 

The powersupply seems to be ok as well. If your going to be running under 7 or so drives, it would cope with the load. Well read the reviews for any hardware your keen on, do the research on the link above for your mobo and when you get your rig up and running, welcome to the unraid community. Hope all goes well and Good Luck.

[MrLeek]

Thanks for the comments unraided & Barzija. I noticed that the GA-G31M-ES2L motherboard was list on the compatibility link that you posted - in particular test logs have been provided for this board (the tick marks for the other newbies ).

 

It's a fair shout on the 1.5TB drive; I am thinking about getting a 2TB parity drive and then a 1.5TB data drive to start the array off with. That way I get the option of adding 2TB drives in the future. The prices in the UK for 1.5TB and 2TB are largely comparable - around £90 for 1.5TB and £120 for 2TB, so there's no cost saving there.

 

Finally the reviews I've read thus far on these items is very good, although Google searches for the hard drives tends to hide the reviews in the shopping results. It seems that any of those drives are good for the job, but if people have thoughts on that then I'm eager to hear then.

[MrLeek]

The prices in the UK for 1.5TB and 2TB are largely comparable - around £90 for 1.5TB and £120 for 2TB, so there's no cost saving there

then don't waste a slot on 1.5gb disk.  there's cost per slot in your server.

 

 

Yep - my thinking as well. Saving £30 now may come back to haunt me in the months ahead - false economy IMO.

[unraided]

Well It is the tasmanian devils that put the price up on our drives, how did you guess 

 

I'd appreciate some thoughts on my component list:

Your list is perfect. I will not change nothing.  I have unraid  with 6 disks*2tb wd green all runing on 180W psu! So yours is ok.

You know tasmanian devils live in australia?

 

 

[MrLeek]

Well It is the tasmanian devils that put the price up on our drives, how did you guess 

 

 

It'll be the next government (election in May most likely) that'll put our prices up; 2.5% Value Added Tax increase is almost certain to happen 

 

Best I get my gear soon!

[Kaygee]

The prices in the UK for 1.5TB and 2TB are largely comparable - around £90 for 1.5TB and £120 for 2TB

 

scan.co.uk and ebuyer.co.uk can both beat those HDD prices @76 and 110 respectively. M/B has only got 4 sata ports (6TB), i'd look for a board with 6 sata ports (10TB) before you start needing to add cards. Buy a cheaper CPU if need to save money unraid doesnt need a dual core.

 

I have a bunch or Samsung drives and never had any complaints. They are fast, reliable and quiet. Run pretty cool too for 7200 rpm drives.

 

 

[MrLeek]

Thanks for the advice Kaygee. The prices that I quoted were just general guidelines - what I noticed that the price difference between 1.5TB and 2TB was about the same, regardless of manaufacturer.

 

I've done some more investigation, in part as I'm worried about the Gigabyte HPA issue biting me on the backside, and I've come up with an updated list of components. It's using an AMD processer this time; I've used AMD's in the past but not for some years, so feel free to highlight any issues:

 

Asus M4A78L-M

AMD Sempron 140

1Gb Corsair XMS (PC2-6400)

Corsair 450w PSU

2 x 2TB Samsung Spinpoint F3EG (parity and data)

 

The components do show up on the hardware compatability list, so I think I'm fairly safe with this option. But my knowledge on AMD processors is more limited so I welcome any thoughts. This route should give me an upgrade path as I add more data to the server (mainly movies!) by just adding more hard drives.

 

Thanks guys!

[Kaygee]

Looks a nice setup. CPU is more than fast enough, I run a low powered LE AMD CPU with no issues.

 

With unraid my list of things to look out for are in no particular order are listed below.

 

USB key is supported.

Motherboard has enough sata ports and expansion slots so x HDDs can be supported (6 onboard and a couple of PCI-e expansion slots).

Case big enough for x HDDs. My starting x value was 10 but everyone is different. 

PSU is suitable (enough watts for x HDDs and single 12v rail).

Memory matches motherboard (easily done).

Network controller is supported by unraid. (unraid is much better now and most MBs have Marvel or Realtek onboard GB NICs).

Decent SATA cables.

[Rajahal]

I personally prefer Biostar to Asus - they are generally cheaper and of comparable or even better quality.  Here's the equivalent Biostar board.  Technically the Asus you chose is 'fancier' since it has HDMI and optical ports - unRAID won't use them, of course, but they may come in handy if you ever need to repurpose the board as an HTPC.

 

All your other components look good.  The Sempron 140 is a good choice.  You can save money on the RAM if you care to, you don't need something as fancy as Corsair.  Kingston or Crucial will work fine as well.

 

I wouldn't recommend buying two of any type of hard drive.  If you were so unlucky as to get both drives from a bad batch, you would have a very good chance of losing data.  Instead, buy one of each from two different brands - I would recommend WD and Samsung.

 

 

[MrLeek]

I actually looked for that Biostar board and couldn't find anywhere in the UK that I could trust to sell it (now someone will prove me wrong!  ). Otherwise I switched the HD's around (1 x WD and 1 x Samsung) and placed the order - I found that I was only making tiny savings so I chose to ran with it.

 

Wish me luck guys! I'll keep you all posted...

[MrLeek]

I thought I'd report in 

 

I ended up with WD EARS 2TD drives in the end, partly as the Samsung drive I wanted was out of stock for over a week. Otherwise the component list was as described in an earlier post. The build went really well, however, I did have a few moments when trying to get the USB stick to boot up (a combination of not being in Administrator mode for the command line and some BIOS settings). Preclear and memory test were fine and it's been running without a reboot for over a week now with no issues and it's all configured to stream movies to the HTPC in the living room.

 

That's about it I think. I've been meaning to do a more detailed write up on the things I learned - hopefully the other newbies out there will benefit. All told the build was fairly easy- as long as I took my time and thought about what I was doing it was all good.

 

I've attached my syslog for the experts out there to comment on. 4.5.3 allows you to get the syslog by entering http://tower/log/syslog into a browser window - but saving it into a text file caused it to lose the CR formating. (I'm probably having a dumb moment on the text formatting - but I'm still recovering from the flu!  )

 

Thanks guys!

syslog.txt

[Rajahal]

I've noticed the formatting issue before as well, but for some reason uploading it here seems to fix it.  Look at the syslog you just posted, the formatting is fine.

 

Hopefully you remembered to jumper your EARS drives before installing them in your server.

 

Glad your build went well.  I'm sure many can benefit from the writeup you are planning.

[MrLeek]

Hopefully you remembered to jumper your EARS drives before installing them in your server.

 

I did - had some REALLY old hd's lying around (one was 3GB! ) so I "borrowed" the jumpers from them.

 

That did bring me onto another question though - where do you get the jumpers if you don't have spare HD's? If memory serves the drives I bought were OEM, but since the jumpers are only needed for unraid builds you might have to source your own jumpers. A quick Google search picked out a few places in the UK that sold jumpers - e-buyer does 100 for £3.64. This seems to be the best price per item. I can't speak for other markets, but I'm sure they can be sourced...even it it's from e-bay.

 

Yes ok - the experts knew this already....but there's bound to be a newbie like me wondering where they get the jumpers from! 

[Rajahal]

Yeah, I would just google them and buy the cheapest 100 pack I could find.  Either that or swing by a local computer shop, they'll probably even give you a couple for free or cheap since I'm sure they have to buy them in bulk as well.