We are looking to use an Unraid to store a lot of Final Cut Pro X files in one central location, and access/view them and do some minor edits from a workstation on the same gigabit LAN switch. We may also store an iTunes collection on there as well as some much older video files in iMovie format.  We're a small school with many hours of video footage spread out over many, many external hard drives collected over the years -- and we are now in a position where we need to relocate some of those files off of old hard drives before they fail; and it makes more sense to jump on a server to finally consolidate all of these files rather than buy yet another few 8TB Seagate external drives @ $179.

 

I have a big IT and software background; and some experience with hardware -- but I have tried and tried and just can't get a handle all the nuances and minimums to build an Unraid server ourselves -- or to even be really clear about buying something that meets the requirements... This is especially true because it's not clear how our use case of an Final Cut Pro and iTunes file server varies from Lime Tech's hw recommendations for various other apps. 

 

So, I'm hoping someone can just treat my like I'm somewhere around 14 years old and just tell me if any of these will work for our needs, and which one is best (and/or if there's someone in the Unraid community who sells something that would work for us for a low price).  Here's what we're looking at:

 

OPTION A:

 

Server Chassis/ Case	CSE-216E16-R800UB
Motherboard	X8DTU-F
Backplane	BPN-SAS2-216EL1 24-port 2U SAS2 6Gbps single-expander backplane, support up to 24x 2.5-inch SAS2/SATA3 HDD
NIC	* Integrated Dual Intel 1000BASE-T Ports
IPMI	* Integrated IPMI 2.0 Management
Processor	2x Intel Xeon L5640 (Low Power) Hex (6) Core 2.26GHz Socket: LGA1366 Clockspeed: 2.8 GHz Turbo Speed: 2.8 GHz No of Cores: 6 (2 logical cores per physical) Typical TDP: 60 W
Memory	48GB DDR3 12 x 4GB - DDR3 - REG
RAID / HBA	1x LSI 9211-4i HBA JBOD FREENAS UNRAID (with sas2 expander will hold all 24 drives)
HD Caddy	24x 2.5" Caddy
Power Supply	2x 800Watt Power Supply
Rail	Rail Kit 2U
PCI-Expansions slots	4 x Full Height PCI-E x8 slot (RSC-R2UU-A4E8+)

 

 

OPTION B:

 

Motherboard : X8DTl-3F-TM010

Front Backplane : SAS-846EL1 ( Just Support up to 2TB Per Hard drive )
Rear backplane : SAS-826EL1 ( Just Support up to 2TB Per Hard drive )

2 x  CPU Six-core E5649 2.53Ghz

 Ram : 6x 8GB (Total: 48GB)

36 Caddy/Tray as in picture 
Power Supply : 2 (1400 Watt)

 

 

 

 

______________

 

I have been interested in getting an Unpaid for years (we even bought the OS flash drives years ago and never did anything with them), but there's always been some amount of doubt or confusion as to whether this will really suit our needs. We need to do something right away, to avoid either problems or double-spending a lot of money we don't have -- and I don't want to buy into another, expensive platform that may not be any better or may even be worse if Unraid will do the job. Please feel free to share your 2 cents as to whether or not I'm on the right track here, with this hardware or even using Unraid at all.

 

Thanks!

OPTION C:

 

Supermicro 2U 12x 3.5" Drive Bays 1 Nodes
Server Chassis/ Case	SC826TQ-R800LPB
Motherboard	X8DTN+
Backplane	BPN-SAS-826TQ SAS / SATA Direct attached Backplane  Compatible with 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB hard drives.
NIC	* Integrated Dual Intel 1000BASE-T Ports
IPMI	* Add-On SIMLP-3+ 2-Port IPMI 2.0 Remote Access Management Ethernet Adapter
Processor	2x Intel Xeon L5640 (Low Power) Hex (6) Core 2.26GHz Socket: LGA1366 Clockspeed: 2.8 GHz Turbo Speed: 2.8 GHz No of Cores: 6 (2 logical cores per physical) Typical TDP: 60 W
Memory	24GB DDR3 6x 4GB - DDR3 - REG
Hard Drives	None ( Add on drive with links below )
RAID / HBA	2x LSI 9210-8i  HBA JBOD FREENAS UNRAID With both controller will support all 12 drives
HD Caddy	12x 3.5" Caddy
Power Supply	2x 800Watt Power Supply
Rail	Rail Kit 2U
PCI-Expansions slots	Low Profile 2 (x8) PCI-E 2.0 (1 in x16 slot), 1 (x4) PCI-E (in x 8 slot), 1x 64-bit 133MHz PCI-X, 2x 64-bit 133/100MHz PCI-X

OPTION D (I think the only dif between this and Option C is a slower CPU and Quad Core vs 6 Core, but $80 cheaper):

 

Server Chassis/ Case	SC826TQ-R800LPB
Motherboard	X8DTN+
Backplane	BPN-SAS-826TQ SAS / SATA Direct attached Backplane  Compatible with 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB hard drives.
NIC	* Integrated Dual Intel 1000BASE-T Ports
IPMI	* Add-On SIMLP-3+ 2-Port IPMI 2.0 Remote Access Management Ethernet Adapter
Processor	2x Intel Xeon L5630 (Low Power) Quad (4) Core 2.13GHz Socket: LGA1366 Clockspeed: 2.1 GHz Turbo Speed: 2.4 GHz No of Cores: 4 (2 logical cores per physical) Typical TDP: 40 W
Memory	24GB DDR3 6x 4GB - DDR3 - REG
Hard Drives	None ( Add on drive with links below )
RAID / HBA	2x LSI 9210-8i  HBA JBOD FREENAS UNRAID With both controller will support all 12 drives
HD Caddy	12x 3.5" Caddy
Power Supply	2x 800Watt Power Supply
Rail	Rail Kit 2U
PCI-Expansions slots	Low Profile 2 (x8) PCI-E 2.0 (1 in x16 slot), 1 (x4) PCI-E (in x 8 slot), 1x 64-bit 133MHz PCI-X, 2x 64-bit 133/100MHz PCI-X