Hi! Prebuilt question!


Steve_Titan

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Hi! I am from Quebec, Canada and english is not my primary language so I will do my best lol! ;) I am very interested in building a unraid system for my home office and the forum seem a good place to start with all the knowledge you have!

 


The goal is to replace a simple 2 bay buffalo nas to something more reliable, customizable!  I want 8-12tb capacity, and maybe run a teamspeak server for gaming with friends, and maybe plex to stream to my tv.

 

My main question is:  You seem to prefer custom built machine for unraid...but I have access to all sort of used workstation and tower server for ridiculous prices...all the line of dell precision Txxxx, hp Zxxx, dell T310, T410  Do you recommend any of these workstation or it's all crap for unraid and I should build my own for double the money?

 

thanks for the help, and I can't find the search forum function...is there one?

 

Steve!

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I'm sure most any used machine would be fine. The key things to check, off of the top of my head, are IMO:

 

  • 64-bit processor, if you want to run VMs, then make sure it has HVM and IOMMU enabled (see image). I have one unraid server that doesn't have those capabilities so it can only do Dockers. The best way to test this (and general booting with a USB drive) is to try booting with unraid on a USB drive and note the System info (Info button in the upper right hand of the GUI).
  • Drive space/slots. at minimum, 3 slots IMO. (note there are ways to use dual-bay CD drives with HDDs.This is in my Amazon wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JOC6X9W/?coliid=IREY7H9KJE253&colid=536LMEL3XFBI&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it  )
  • Memory. My non VM capable server has 4G - the max of the motherboard. The other handling VMs has 16G with a mother board max of 64G.

Again, trying unRaid on any machine should let you know more details about it. Other things are motherboard slots, in case you need to add a video card for VM pass-through and odd network cards that need a special driver not included in unRaid.

 

I would check the BIOS of the machine and if it can do UEFI booting of the USB drive, that would be a good candidate as it should have some of the 'freshest' hardware.

 

 

 

Screen Shot 2018-04-17 at 1.46.46 PM.png

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21 hours ago, Steve_Titan said:

maybe plex to stream to my tv.

 

 

Here, your server would need a CPU with approximately 2000 passmarks to transcode 1080p video streams per stream.  If you don't transcode and simply pass the video format straight through, most CPU's  introduced in the past five years will do the job.  Until you get to running VM's.  There you have have to decide on the level of performance you want from the VM in choosing the CPU and provide a bit of cushion.

 

21 hours ago, Steve_Titan said:

I can't find the search forum function...is there one?

 

It is there....  But I have found that Google is much better.  Just use  unRAID  as one of the search words.  

Edited by Frank1940
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22 hours ago, Steve_Titan said:

Hi! I am from Quebec, Canada and english is not my primary language so I will do my best lol! ;) I am very interested in building a unraid system for my home office and the forum seem a good place to start with all the knowledge you have!

 


The goal is to replace a simple 2 bay buffalo nas to something more reliable, customizable!  I want 8-12tb capacity, and maybe run a teamspeak server for gaming with friends, and maybe plex to stream to my tv.

 

My main question is:  You seem to prefer custom built machine for unraid...but I have access to all sort of used workstation and tower server for ridiculous prices...all the line of dell precision Txxxx, hp Zxxx, dell T310, T410  Do you recommend any of these workstation or it's all crap for unraid and I should build my own for double the money?

 

thanks for the help, and I can't find the search forum function...is there one?

 

Steve!

I built mine from an HP pre-built I7 6700 and runs fantastic very little issues with the exception of operator error:$ I did however upgrade the mobo as it did not have enough sata ports and limited PCIe slots those 2 seemed to be my biggest issue with my pre-built for future growth I'm currently a 17TB with Plex and piehole running in the background with no complaints you should be fine but as others have stated look a little forward of your desired outcome for some future growth

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