Most basic / barebones / dirt cheap components that work without severe limitations?


charlescc1000

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I’m planning a build of an unRAID server that is solely for storage. No need for encoding/transcoding of plex files, no need for VM support, etc. storage only. There will likely never be more 1 person accessing the storage system.

 

Right now I’m thinking about:

CPU - core i3-2100 (sandy bridge) about $35 on eBay

Mobo - Q67,H67 or Z68 chipset board?  All allow for up to 6 SATA port... Z68 has smart response technology- is this useful at all with unRAID?  Not really sure which chipset is likely cheapest / best but I found an Asus P8H67 for $70 on eBay.

RAM - sandy bridge supports up to DDR3-1333 so I will likely pickup a set of 2x4GB on eBay.  About $30

Case - Cooler Master HAF912 - ATX Mid Tower,  6 internal 3.5 bays, 2 fans included, $37

PSU - Corsair VS500W 80+ cert. $20

 

hard drives- Everyone says go with drives with TLER support so WD Red 8TB. Probably going to start with just 1 or 2 and slowly add them.  Forgoing TLER support would allow me to use WD Blue 5400rpm 4TB drive and HGST 2TB drive I have, but probably shouldn’t risk it.

 

TL,DR:

I’m trying to do this on the cheap... is something as “new” as an i3-2100 really needed? Or can I go even older?  How important is TLER support?  Id like to get everything but the drives for under $150 used.  The big question is how far back can I go on the CPU & Motherboard before I run into serious problems?  I don’t care if it impacts my read and write speed, I just need the system to be usable.  We can upgrade later on :)

 

thanks

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With RAID, TLER is very important. The raid controller is going to expect drives to respond within the TLER time window. No answer and the drive is assumed to have died and gets kicked. So a drive goes to extraordinary effort to retry reads and try to get the data it will very quickly kicked from the array.

 

UnRaid does not care about TLER. It will not kick a drive for responding slowly. So not nearly as important, although NAS drives are fine and work well with unRaid.

 

I would suggest getting a CPU with at least 5000 passmark (preferably 7500). 8G RAM (preferably 12G) and add on controller (LSI SAS9201-8i or similar). I'd also suggest hot swap cages.

 

That will give enough power to serve as NAS server and start to leverage more advanced features like Dockers and even VMs. Because I can promise once you start using it you will come up with use cases you never imagined.

 

UNLESS you already have a motherboard / CPU that you could use to get your feet wet. I'd go with that to get started, and then if you need more, you'll have a much better idea of what to buy. I'd just hate for you to buy something with low power and regret it very soon, when for a few dollars more you could have gotten a more powerful unit.

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That will give enough power to serve as NAS server and start to leverage more advanced features like Dockers and even VMs. Because I can promise once you start using it you will come up with use cases you never imagined.

 

 

^This... I did the same thing you are asking and built on the lower end with an i3 and 4 GB of RAM. Then found out how useful unRAID was and upgraded to an i5 and 16Gb of RAM! And then I found even more use and now I have an i7 and 32 GB of RAM...

 

Moral of my story, buy all the fancy computer parts.

 

At the very least buy newer enough parts that can be upgraded in the not too distant future.

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13 hours ago, archedraft said:

 

^This... I did the same thing you are asking and built on the lower end with an i3 and 4 GB of RAM. Then found out how useful unRAID was and upgraded to an i5 and 16Gb of RAM! And then I found even more use and now I have an i7 and 32 GB of RAM...

 

Moral of my story, buy all the fancy computer parts.

 

At the very least buy newer enough parts that can be upgraded in the not too distant future.

 

@charlescc1000 Yes, the system you have specified will run unRAID as a pure file server without issue.  In fact, that is very much like the first unRAID server i built in late 2011.  I still have the original i3 2100 CPU (not being used) I used then on an H61 motherboard with 4GB RAM and 5 HDDs and an SSD for cache.  If you have extreme will power, perhaps that will be fine for you forever. :D

 

Like archedraft (and many others), once unRAID started supporting dockers and VMs, I quickly discovered all the system could do.  My second system was built around an i5 4590 and 16GB RAM (it's now my backup server); then, even that was not enough and I now have a main server with a Xeon CPU and 32 GB ECC RAM.  Of course, in between, I tried to squeeze more out of the hardware by upgrading CPUs or increasing RAM until I needed to move to another motherboard with a different socket and chip set.

 

If in the future I start to care about streaming 4K content, I will likely find that what I have now is not enough.  I run 7-10 dockers and two not-always-on VMs.

 

Just be prepared for your "needs" to change over time.  You can either plan for that now or start over if/when it happens.  But, again, maybe you know what you need and that will never change. 

Edited by Hoopster
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I never hear talk of it, but I've been a fan of Dell Refurbished deals for awhile now for non-Unraid applications. Though I've never done it, I wonder if a Dell Tower would make a decent bare-bones UnRaid system? They have coupon deals all the time (I would never buy without a coupon), and right now till tomorrow they seem to have 50% off basic Optiplex towers. Here's an example:

 

https://www.dellrefurbished.com/desktop-computers/dell-optiplex-3020-112265.html

 

This is all the available towers (Coupon doesn't work on the clearance marked ones)

https://www.dellrefurbished.com/desktop-computers?filter_brand=188&filter_chassis_type=236&filter_model=439

 

You need to add the coupon code currently active (In this case, it would be: DT3020DEAL). With the coupon, this unit comes to $170.

 

Holds 2 drives by default, but a 3-in-2 cage for the 2 5.25 bays would add another 3 drives (Assuming it would work)...

 

My biggest concern would be the PSU (Though not confirmed, some sites state it is only 290w)... Might be enough for simple system. No videocard. Max 5 drives).

 

Has anyone tried this? Might be just the thing OP is looking for (And almost 5000 passmark).

 

Processor: Intel Core i3 (i3-4130) 3.40 GHz

Memory: 4GB

Hard Drive: 500GB

 

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13 hours ago, tdallen said:

I have had decent luck with Dell’s as desktop PCs but some models have had proprietary components so I’d be careful what you are getting and what your options will be to replace or reuse components.

Definitely! Totally agree. I've been burned in the past by proprietary hardware from the big PC companies! >:(. I know the Dell Small form factor cases are extremely hard to upgrade, but I think the mini tower gives a *bit* more flexibility.

 

The only thing I would consider upgrading is the PSU, and a quick read seems to suggest a standard atx PSU will fit in the mini tower. It seems like you need to get an adapter for the motherboard power though, because it doesn't support the standard 24-pin.

 

Seems like it would make a decent little file server at a really low price. Even comes with a 500GB drive for cache...

 

It's too bad you can't get it without the Windows license. That would save even a few more bucks... Maybe it could be transferred to a vm (I think this unit has basic virtualization support vt-x only)...

 

To be clear, this is an exercise is trying to find the cheapest decent hardware for a basic UnRaid server. Definitely not a recommendation if more budget is available! :)

 

 

 

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