Interest check: Would you buy a custom preconfigured unRAID server?

[Rajahal]

I'm not actually selling anything yet, I'm just gauging interest.

 

Thanks to a bit of wheeling and dealing with WeeboTech, I am also in possession of the following server components:

 

two 5-in-3 trayless hot swap bays

 

two 3-in-2 trayless hot swap bays

 

As well as a Norco 4220 from Newegg:

 

Basically, I have the components for at least 3 different servers of different capacities.  If I were to fill all of my available hard drive bays with 2 TB drives, I would have a total of 84 TBs.  This is clearly too many servers for just one man.  I would like to customize and sell one or two of these.  The 20 Drive Beast is pretty much ready as it is, it just needs a bit more burn-in testing.  I'm considering splitting up the drive cages into a few different builds, for example one 6 drive server built from a small form factor case and both the 3-in-2's (perfect match for the unRAID Plus license), and a 10 drive server built from a standard desktop case (the CM-590, perhaps?) and the two 5-in-3's.  Or I could put out a couple of cheap 5 drive servers based on a cheap, small case like this and a single 5-in-3.  I would of course run thorough burn-in testing on any server before selling it.

 

 

The backstory:

Simply put, I went server crazy the past few weeks and bought up a ton of server components.  I bought the amazing Norco 4220 + free server mobo deal from Newegg.  I plopped in a Celeron 430, 1 GB of DDR2 667 RAM I had laying about, and a generic 500 W PSU.  I now have the makings for a 20 Drive Beast:

 

 

 

This is just the quick-n-dirty version.  My SAS cables don't arrive until tomorrow, so I had to ghetto-rig the hard drives for my initial testing.  I also plan to customize the fan plate that cools the drives.  The current setup of four 80mm fans is ridiculously loud.  I'll take a dremel to the plate and make it fit three 120 mm fans.  I also don't trust that generic PSU with 20 drives, so I'll be swapping that out with something good quality.

 

 

In addition to the 20 Drive Beast pictured above, I also have my trusty old 12 Drive server based on an Antec p180.  I installed the two 3-in-2's into it, so it now has 6 external trayless hot swap bays, and space for another 6 drives mounted internally:

 

This is also somewhat quick and dirty.  I plan to clean up the cabling a bit when I have time.

[guiri]

I would be..

[Rajahal]

Excellent!  How many drives would you like your server to support?  Also, do you care about looks and noise levels?

[guiri]

Alright, 20 HD unraid bought from Raja