Dragon, my new unRAID Build


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I've been using unraid for almost 10 years with only one small upgrade over 7 years ago.  The server has been bullet proof and the MB/CPU have survived transplants 3 times as I grew.  This summer I started ground-up rebuild to move from a 24 bay rack to a system that could reside in my office.

 

This is a work in progress, I upgraded the Case/Drives/Fans over the summer and am now assembling the parts to replace the MB/CPU/RAM.  I'm not going to make this a build-log, just going to edit it as I settle on parts and get things running.

 

The basic idea came from snuffy1pro's "Shogun" build

 

OS at time of building: 6.6.0

CPU: E-2176G

CoolerNoctua NH-DS15S

Heatsink Covers: Noctua NA-HC3 chromax.Black.swap heatsink Covers

Replacement Cooler FansNoctua NF-A15 HS-PWM chromax.Black.swap Premium-Grade Quiet 140mm Fan

Motherboard: X11SCA-F-O

Thermal: Graphite Pad

RAM: 2xSupermicro 16GB 288-Pin DDR4 2666 (ECC)

Case: LIAN LI PC-D600WB

Drive Cage(s): 3xiStarUSA BPN-DE350SS-BLACK 3x5.25" to 5x3.5" SAS/SATA 6.0 Gb/s Trayless Hot-Swap Cage

Note: I replaced the fans on the cages with Noctua NF-A8 PWM Premium 80mm and ran them to the motherboard along with the 3 Noctua fans on the back of the drive side of the case, all 6 fans are controlled by the auto-fan plugin and watching HD temps rather than system temps.

Power Supply: Seasonic 650W 80 Plus Titanium ATX12V Power Supply with Active PFC F3 (SSR-650TD)

SATA Expansion Card(s): LSI SAS 9207-8i

Cables: Cable Matters Internal Mini SAS to SATA Cable (SFF-8087 to SATA Forward Breakout) (2x3.3' 2x1.6')

Addon Network Card: ASUS XG-C100C 10G Network Adapter PCI-E x4 Card

Fans: 2xCorsair ML140 Pro LED, Blue (1xML120); 3xNoctua NF-A14 PWM chromax.Black.swap

 

Parity Drive: 12TB Seagate Ironwolf

Data Drives: 5x10TB Seagate Ironwolf, 3x8TB Seagate Ironwolf

Cache Drive: Samsung 860 EVO 2TB

VM Drive: Samsung 970 EVO 250GB

Total Drive Capacity: 74TB (67% used)

 

Primary Use: Media storage and streaming (Kodi local, Plex remote)

Likes: Love the look, very quiet even under load.

Dislikes: Seagate drives in these trayless bays can "tick" a bit, sort of annoying in an otherwise silent system.

Add Ons Used: Radarr, Sonarr, NZBGet, Organizr, DuckDNS and tons of plugins...I'm a nerd what I can I say.

Future Plans: None at the moment

Boot (peak): TBD

Idle (avg): 70w

Active (avg): ~90w

Light use (avg): ~80w

Disk Rebuild: 105w

 

The highest usage I've seen was the 105w during data rebuild, even booting my windows and linux VMs doesn't push it about the mid 80s.

More information to follow when I can order the CPU and swap the core of the system.

 

Current view from the front (Will replace later with full pictures of finished project)

IMG_0289.png.9c0f497022fa01a82dba7fd66b83f062.png

System Side:

IMG_0362.thumb.png.e27bd24839e1504a0c115927c32a9ddf.png

System Side with Chromax fans and Heatsink covers:

IMG_0375.thumb.png.af85a404a30685225fe7efda2de08a80.png

 

Drive side:

IMG_0363.thumb.png.11320ce31a99c3c74a96cafd9f6163ad.png

Edited by Tybio
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Reserved for addon topics:

 

1> Fan Replacement:  I used some weather stripping to cover the "Gap" as custom fan that came with it meant the cover could not be re-used.  Here are some pictures of the process.

 

IMG_0102.thumb.jpg.e8b6681784ae6b1a953d74f77febc569.jpg

IMG_0103.thumb.jpg.f6387c43d1538ce9d7b2ba22b3be626f.jpg

Edited by Tybio
Added fan replacement
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Nice Build, I am just trying to get together a new build for me.   Sounds like we run about the same stuff.  I have not built a system in a couple years.    Realy torn on processors and mb.   Xeon, or i7/i9 or a threadripper 16 core.    Mostly plex, but I also do a lot of photography, and would like my win10 vm to be a full fledged computer.  Lot of cores and ram, and passthrough a video card for rendering projects.   Budget is 1000-1500 for MB, ram, case (to hold 6 or so 3.5 inch drives) and 3 ssd's, power supply, cpu cooler (never done liquid, but might get an all in one liquid cooler vs noctua dual heatsink thing)    Ugh.  So many options..... ha

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Yea, check out the thread in the MB/CPU forums on the E-2186G...I've been having some very similar re-thinks about things..but finally ended up realizing that I have a desktop I'm not getting rid of, so I should focus on the server tasks for my unraid box.  So Dockers and Plex Transcoding, thus the E-21xxG family.  If was doing /anything/ else (other than transcoding) I'd have done a 2700x or TR.

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21 hours ago, Tybio said:

Yea, check out the thread in the MB/CPU forums on the E-2186G...I've been having some very similar re-thinks about things..but finally ended up realizing that I have a desktop I'm not getting rid of, so I should focus on the server tasks for my unraid box.  So Dockers and Plex Transcoding, thus the E-21xxG family.  If was doing /anything/ else (other than transcoding) I'd have done a 2700x or TR.

That is my dillemma.  My current server will become my desktop.  It is roughly 4 years old.   intel 4790k with 24 gigs of ram.  Will work as a desktop.   Threadripper might be overkill.  But would be nice to have a nice desktop burried in the server.  Win 10 vm or whatever to house my photoshop and lightroom tasks.   I am curious how utilizing that vm remotely, would affect performance?

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

The parts are in and the system is rebuilt.  I had two issues:

 

1> Had to force the IGPU to be used by the BIOS.  In Auto mode even without another GPU in the system it would not bring up video on the on-board ports

2> I had an LSI card in the first PCI-E slot (Closest to the CPU) and was unable to mount any drives...though the card ROM loaded fine and the drives were detected by the LSI card.  I moved it to the second PCI-E slot and it is working fine ATM.

 

Going to update the main post now.

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New to UNRAID and I am building with the same CPU as you but with another MB/RAM setup (Need more SATA ports and all out of PCI-e slots LOL.)

 

I have some questions I hope you can help me with :-)

  • Any reason you selected 1x2TB cash drive instead of having 2x1TB for extra security on your cash?
  • Are your VM drive M.2 setup as a UAD? - I guess that would provide barebone speed for your VM's right?
  • You did a screen capture of Plex transcoding in your other post, what installation of Plex are you using on UNRAID? (Linuxserver Docker?)
  • Also have you placed your Plex metadata on the cash drive or on a SSD mounted as a UAD? (Is there a best recommended practice for this?)
  • I was wondering if it would be better to use the M.2 as a UAD for VM's and also Metadata and maybee even for temporary Plex transcoding?
  • I also "only" have 32G RAM and I don't think that would be enough to use RAM-drive as a tmp for transcoding? (But it would prolong my SSD life!)
  • Do you know if M.2 lifetime is also impacted by high usage - like tmp transcoding usage?
  • Shares between different storage servers (I have a 24 drive Synology) is it best using SMB shares or NFS with UNRAID?

Thanks for a very informative and finally a happy ending on your very hard journey building your new system.

I hope I get the right CPU still waiting for it.....

 

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Let me see if I can answer!  Also, what board did you go with?  My investigation concluded that there was only so much they could do with the c246 chipset and PCI-E lanes from the processor.  I'd love to see an option with more SATA/PCI-E.

 

  1. I'm going to upgrade to 2x2TB at some point, I'm doing a lot of UHD downloads at the moment and 1TB was getting over 50% used at times...I'd rather my cache drive never run into size contention over data security as everything ON the cache can be re-downloaded/restored.  My VMs are on the M.2 and backed up to the array so they are also protected.
  2. Yes, I use it unassigned as I have multiple VMs on it.  If I were to setup a desktop replacement VM I'd pass it through to get a little more isolation...but it wouldn't be a function of speed...they are stupid fast to start with.
  3. Linuxserver docker, with just the standard --device options and the go file to discover the iGPU.  Totally generic configuration.
  4. Metadata is on Cache, mostly so the CA Backup script can capture it without having to do anything special.
  5. Plex transcoding isn't ever disk limited on an SSD...so I've left it on the cache.  The only reason to move it is to prolong life of the SSD as far as I can tell.
  6. You don't need much for the transcoding location, I've not looked into it lately but IIRC the only things in there are the 1 minute "look ahead" when it is throttled.  That said, I haven't bothered to go that far so am not an expert :).
  7. I assume it is, as M.2 is just flash on a different form factor, so it will suffer from the same limitations...I'm in the "Buy a cheap SSD for cache and replace it when needed" camp, but I go high quality on my M.2 as that is where the VMs are and in the future might be a desktop replacement.  The unraid cache is never going to be really speed stressed, so even a degraded SATA SSD is going to out preform the rest of the setup for a good while.  When it doesn't...I'll just buy the cheapest option to replace.  That said, I've had SSDs for 2+ years and never noticed degridation with both nzbget post-processing and plex transcoding going on.
  8. I use SMB as my clients all support it out of the box.  Mostly using Nvidia Shield's as my STBs and it is just easy.  With 10G networks coming about, IMHO it is better to plan that path then to nit-pick about the protocol used...the overhead is more and more meaningless...so I just went with the one that was the most likely to be supported...and turned the others off to prevent spamming my network with useless shares.  

These are all just my opinions mind you, so take them with a grain of salt!

 

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Thanks for sharing your personal opinions 😊

 

I ended up with the Gigabyte C246-WU4 I needed "Full size PCie" ports and 10 Sata ports. Also I need 4 full slots with 4X & 8X speed.

Since I have a 24+2 drive case that I would like to use 100%

 

Yes it all comes down to having enough PCI-e slots... (-;

image.png.d3d815dceca893aee0d8c9ca2f242057.png

 

Yes using the first M.2 with PCIe have no impact. but using the secound M.2 slot would mean that I would lose the last PCIe socket

 

image.png.a0350da9d8c4acb65c3c5a4003624be2.png

 

On the positive side I have the option to have one more CASH drive as a M.2 SSD :-)

 

image.thumb.png.1ec3994a298275ccfc84a3de956e3e7d.png  

 

I needed x8, x4, x8, x4 - For two controller cards, a ethernetcard and a graphic card.

If I use the 8 sata on the board for the rack I could save one of the LSI cards....

 

So this is actually the only MB I could find that supports what I would like to do

UPDATE: Its very hard to get this motherboard still waiting for it......

 

Edited by casperse
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Just a thought:

 

If a M.2 device is shared with a SATA port, does that mean that this M.2 is limited in speed?

 

AFAIK M.2 devices can offer up to ~3GB/s, SATA3 ist limited to ~6Gb/s.

 

When building a Cache RAID1 this would reduce Cache writing speed to SATA3 capabilities. IMHO, using a M.2 device doesn't make sense then.

 

 

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@hawihoneyI think you are comparing the wrong M.2 drives  :-)

The loss of a SATA port is for use of a M.2 SATA SSD - and the speed here is the same as a normal SSD

The M.2 PCIe NVMe (Fast one) does not have any impact on my SATA connections.

 

If I select the first M.2 slot for a fast M.2 PCIe NVMe, and the other M.2 slot as a "Slow" M.2 SATA SSD then there will be no impact to existing SATA connections or my PCIEX4_2 slot and I get one more SSD drive and one fast M.2 PCIe

 

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On the SM board used in this build, there is an impact.  The SATA controler can only support 8 drives, so if you put an SATA M.2 in then you lose a MB SATA port (#3 I believe).  It isn't about speed in this case, it is about the chipset SATA controller.  The Gigabyte has 8xSATA on board and 2xSATA "Extra" that are using an additional SATA controller.  That is why it has 10 ports (and you can see the 2 additional ports are different and not in the MB supported block, they are gold/yellow and not black).  Likely what they did is add a 4xSATA controller to one lane from the chipset, that means they can add the two ports on the MB and use the other two SATA connections for SATA SSDs without impacting the on SATA ports on the MB at all.  A really nice design!

Edited by Tybio
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  • 1 month later...

@Tybio So what temperature sensor did you have on your MB?

Did you get it working? - Sofar I cant get my temperature working in UnRAID (Dynamix Temp)

If you have it working and it somehow is tied into the Chipset which is the same, then I would love to hear what you did?

 

My build is otherwise performing as I hoped, also got the Plex IGP working but would like to try out my new P2000 just to see if I can see a difference?

But I don't want to mess with the working Plex docker - Do you know if I can just copy it and make a clone docker?Anyway I hope your server is also performing like you expected 

Edited by casperse
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...
On 2/26/2019 at 10:46 AM, jrd680 said:

How’s your server coming along? Any storage upgrades lately?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Been a while since I've been around, but it is humming along nicely.  The only issue I've had is the istar cages rattling (The front doors don't latch as snugly as needed).  To fix that I've used some electrical tape inside the unused bays.

 

I'm nearing 100G of capacity in the server now, but still have a lot of room to grow.

 

I've suffered with 2 drives having to be RMAed...well, one drive and then the RMA for that one had to be replaced.  

 

Parity rebuilds were seamless, temps never got that high and I was able to finish a 12TB parity rebuild in just (barely) under a day.

 

I'm currently debating a Quatro inn a VM for trans-coding so I can finally get rid of having two libraries...but I'm holding off until late fall when I see what Intel and AMD are brining to the table this year.

Edited by Tybio
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