Getting Into unRaid 1k Budget

[Goldoni]

I am looking at getting into unRaid because it seems that it offers just about everything that I am looking for. Here is what I am looking at doing. One or two modded minecraft servers, seedbox, file shares, and file syncs to Google Drive. I have looked at tons and tons of setups but not sure what direction I should go. I do have some drives that I will be added to the server that are kinda already being used but I can redownload everything back from Gdrive. So that side of it is not a problem if I have to wipe out the drives. Will need a cache drive and full tower. Everything else should be accounted for. I am not sure how much power I need to  throw at this system to run everything that I am looking for. Thanks for all of the thoughts and ideas. 

 

Parts Have:

4tb WD RED x3

 

One Direction I Thought was this https://natex.us/asrock-ep2c602-4l-d16/

Options Selected

Duel E5-2670 v1

64GB (8x8GB)

EVGA Bronze 750w SuperNova

Dual CoolerMaster Evo 212

 

Edited September 25, 2018 by Goldoni

[ashman70]

That is quite a parts list, I just upgraded to an EP2C602 dual E-2650's myself, but my server does a lot.

The usage you have listed doesn't call for dual Xeon's with 8 cores each, however if you have other plans for that much horsepower then perhaps you do. For that board, you'll need to find a rack mount case as it won't fit in an ordinary one so I don't know how that fits into your plan. You would have to look at a Supermicro or Norco case. You could dial it back a bit and go with an i7 setup, but again, I don't know what your future plans are.

[Goldoni]

42 minutes ago, ashman70 said:

That is quite a parts list, I just upgraded to an EP2C602 dual E-2650's myself, but my server does a lot.

The usage you have listed doesn't call for dual Xeon's with 8 cores each, however if you have other plans for that much horsepower then perhaps you do. For that board, you'll need to find a rack mount case as it won't fit in an ordinary one so I don't know how that fits into your plan. You would have to look at a Supermicro or Norco case. You could dial it back a bit and go with an i7 setup, but again, I don't know what your future plans are.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811854004&cm_re=ssi_eeb-_-11-854-004-_-Product

 

This case States that it can handle SSI EEB. Could this be what I need or is my only option rack mount because that does kinda throw a loop into the plan.

 

See and that is the thing I am not sure what would be the minimum build to support what I am doing. So I was kinda thinking of spending 1k anyway. So why not go a little over kill. Just in case if I do start to like other plugins and such. That is also another thing about this platform not sure all of what it has to offer and I am sure I am not noticing things that I could use now but will find later.

 

If you think this is too over kill and should tone it down a bit and maybe save some money. I'll be happy to look at some other build ideas. I was looking at doing an i7-8700 build with about 32GB of RAM but not counting case I was looking at like $1500. Maybe I need some direction on what I need that can run everything that I am looking for right now with a little bit of overhead.      

 

[ashman70]

No experience with that case but it looks like a monster. It only holds six drives internally, and you may be able to squeeze a 5 in 1 cage up top to increase the drive count to 11, is that going to be a limiting factor? See a 24 bay Norco for example, allows you to start with as many drives as you like and grow all the way up to 24. There are many people on here who have builds with Norco cases and they can share their tips and tricks with you. The thing is the Norco case is large, kind of like this tower, but side ways and you may want to replace the fans it comes with because they are loud. Do you have a place to put your server such as a basement where it is far way from anyone who might hear it?

[Goldoni]

6 Drive bays should be enough honestly. I live in the south basements are not a thing down here. The location that I am gonna be putting it will be in the living room next to my main computer now. Which was one of the reasons to have it in a case. I might have to install new fans in that case that I am looking at for some quite ones but might not have to because there is a huge window unit in the living room that is on all of the time. Heat is also not much of an issue because I normally keep the house a lovely 66 degree.

 

Looking at putting it on the ground to the left of that white cabinet between that TV stand. (which the TV stand is not there anymore.

[ashman70]

Then the tower should fit there just fine. Seems like that would be the one to go with then.

[Goldoni]

Am I shooting to the stars too much or should I tone down the rig and or go with something else. Like an i5 or something like that for about $500 bucks? Because the over all plan with the files that I want to host for the house will be moved to Gdrive and not be save locally at the house. And mount the Gdrive to be access from the cloud for plex and the seedbox and other computers on the network. So I am not filling up my server with movie after movie. (I think I read that I can do this somehow don't remember what it was). So the main things that would be running on the server would be one to two modded minecraft servers (which I believe I will have to VM those servers unless there is another way). Everything else should be fine I guess.

[Fffrank]

I've recently mothballed my desktop (32gb of RAM, i7 3770k) after my "experiment" with unraid.  I bought older enterprise grade hardware from eBay and I'll never go back to a "real" computer.

 

As crazy as it sounds, I was previously hosting Plex/Sonarr/Radarr/SabNZBd/Hydra/Deluge and some other misc apps on my media server which was an Odroid C2 (think beefy pi.)  It worked but I had to reboot it frequently.  

 

For $250 I bought an HP 380G7 w/ 96gb of RAM and dual Xeon X5660 CPUs.  It came with 8x150gb SAS drives.  I added 3x4tb Seagates ($90x3).  This gives me more horsepower (for far less money) than my desktop.   

 

Additionally, I untangled an entire room worth of network cables, external USB drives, HDMI relays, etc and moved it all into a 12u server cabinet ($70) (I fabricated a vertical mount on the back for the HP server ($30.)  I added a cheap PFSense box ($50 off eBay) a Linksys managed switch ($30) and a UNIFI access point ($70.)  Everything is now hidden in my basement.  

 

I'm at $680 and would say I have a pretty robust setup.  I've got an AMD GPU from a few years ago that I'm going to see if it will fit -- but outside of gaming and possible video editing, my rig should be able to run circles around my previous desktop setup.

[Goldoni]

6 hours ago, Fffrank said:

I've recently mothballed my desktop (32gb of RAM, i7 3770k) after my "experiment" with unraid.  I bought older enterprise grade hardware from eBay and I'll never go back to a "real" computer.

 

As crazy as it sounds, I was previously hosting Plex/Sonarr/Radarr/SabNZBd/Hydra/Deluge and some other misc apps on my media server which was an Odroid C2 (think beefy pi.)  It worked but I had to reboot it frequently.  

 

For $250 I bought an HP 380G7 w/ 96gb of RAM and dual Xeon X5660 CPUs.  It came with 8x150gb SAS drives.  I added 3x4tb Seagates ($90x3).  This gives me more horsepower (for far less money) than my desktop.   

 

Additionally, I untangled an entire room worth of network cables, external USB drives, HDMI relays, etc and moved it all into a 12u server cabinet ($70) (I fabricated a vertical mount on the back for the HP server ($30.)  I added a cheap PFSense box ($50 off eBay) a Linksys managed switch ($30) and a UNIFI access point ($70.)  Everything is now hidden in my basement.  

 

I'm at $680 and would say I have a pretty robust setup.  I've got an AMD GPU from a few years ago that I'm going to see if it will fit -- but outside of gaming and possible video editing, my rig should be able to run circles around my previous desktop setup.

So with having all of this experience with the unRaid plugins. You think that setup for one is worth the money and two good enough to run everything I am looking at doing plus overhead? or am I shooting to high?

[Fffrank]

3 hours ago, Goldoni said:

So with having all of this experience with the unRaid plugins. You think that setup for one is worth the money and two good enough to run everything I am looking at doing plus overhead? or am I shooting to high?

I don't think it's worth it to purchase brand new quasi server-grade hardware when you can get actual server hardware for much cheaper. You'll need to figure out a racking solution and deal with server noise, but there are plenty of cool vertical mounting options and methods to reduce fan noise. The support, quality and reliability of server hardware is going to be so much better than the mainboard you picked out. I'd spend some time on labgopher.com and see what you can come up with. 

[ashman70]

I can't argue with you Frank, but I think it's worth point out that this is not the solution for everyone. While there can be some great value in older retired corp hardware, it's big, heavy, noisy, sucks power and as you've pointed out needs a racking or some kind of solution for a home. I myself got a screaming deal on a 36 bay supermicro 4U chassis with older dual xeons and a whack of ECC RAM, but I had to buy a half rack to put it in which I lucked out on finding. I just recently upgraded the MB to two newish xeons and that was a lot of fun.

[tr0910]

Yes, you have to careful with older server hardware, but I have some ancient TAMS 24 bay servers with very old intel and AMD cpus that suck power like crazy, but since they have ipmi, they can be shut off and only be turned on via a VPN protected IPMI script call, and then they accept backups just fine.  After they are done they are turned off via IPMI.

 

I also have some dual Xeon 2670 based hardware that I use 24x7 and power use and noise are very well controlled in an Intel P4000 chassis.  Since 2670 days, the advances to Intel power and performance has relatively pathetic.  Sure you need to be careful, but Intel 2670 gen 1 is good stuff and recent enough that you are OK.  Just be aware of Spectre and Meltdown issues and keep your patches current.

[Goldoni]

4 hours ago, Fffrank said:

I don't think it's worth it to purchase brand new quasi server-grade hardware when you can get actual server hardware for much cheaper. You'll need to figure out a racking solution and deal with server noise, but there are plenty of cool vertical mounting options and methods to reduce fan noise. The support, quality and reliability of server hardware is going to be so much better than the mainboard you picked out. I'd spend some time on labgopher.com and see what you can come up with. 

Sadly the house that I live in right now can't accommodate for a server rack. This server I am looking at building will be placed in the living room. So being it a pc case would be best. I also posted a picture a few comments up where it will have to go. Unless there is a way to transplant 1U server into a pc case. 

[Fffrank]

9 hours ago, Goldoni said:

Sadly the house that I live in right now can't accommodate for a server rack. This server I am looking at building will be placed in the living room. So being it a pc case would be best. I also posted a picture a few comments up where it will have to go. Unless there is a way to transplant 1U server into a pc case. 

Everywhere can accomodate a server rack.  Something like this would hang it vertically, you could bolt it right to the side of your desk.

 

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-RK119WALLV-19-Inch-Vertical-Equipment/dp/B001YI0V7O?th=1

[Goldoni]

Just following up and giving and update. I found a decent server on ebay and won the bid looks like I'll be a new owner of an unraid server. Server Listing. Should be in Monday. Thank yall for all of the help! Yall really helped out a lot.