Only found this forum a few days ago but I'm already close to building a nice shiny unRAID rig to replace my Thecus NAS.

 

Just wanted some advice really on the build.  Pillaging other's posts I've thrown together the following spec, but not sure if all of these components will work well together (if at all  ), wondered if someone could cast their eye over it?  (for those in the UK all of this is from Scan)

 

LN22021

4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3, DDR3 PC3-10666 (1333) Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, DHX, 1.5V £77.67

 

LN23193

Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred Full Tower Case, Black with side window, w/o PSU £113.89

 

LN28008

AMD Athlon II X2 245, Regor Core, S AM3, 2.90GHz, 2MB Cache, HT 3600MHz, 65W, Retail £43.45

 

LN28199

Asus M4A785TD-M EVO, AMD 785G, AM3, PCI-E (x16), DDR3 1333/1600/1800, SATA 3Gb/s RAID, uATX, VGA £63.19

 

LN28248

2TB Seagate ST32000542AS Barracuda LP, SATA 3Gb/s, 5900rpm, 32Mb Cache, 16ms, HD £161.89

 

LN28538

650W Corsair Professional CMPSU-650HXUK, Modular PSU with 80PLUS Bronze Certificatio £97.11

 

LN29166

Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8, 8-Port SAS/SATA Card £181.58

 

 

I was also thinking about adding 4x Scythe Hard Drive Stabiliser X4.

 

So is this good, bad, any changes anyone would make?

 

The only thing I'm not sure about is the Antec 1200 case - looks good, and nice and big, but if any drives need changing it looks like a whole lot of arse ache and I'd prefer hot-swap bays?

 

Thanks

Matt

 

If you want 20 hot swap bays, a Norco 4220 or the new 4224 are far better values than the Antec 1200 + hot swap bays.  And now that the 120mm fan plate is available, you can make them nice and quiet as well.

 

At a glance everything else looks good.

Thanks

 

As much as I like the look of the rack mount cases, I can't imagine where on earth I'd put one of them!  Until I get a dedicated room for this kind of thing and other gadgets, it's going to need to sit in my office, so a tower case seems a much more practical proposition. 

 

If you want 20 hot swap bays, a Norco 4220 or the new 4224 are far better values than the Antec 1200 + hot swap bays.  And now that the 120mm fan plate is available, you can make them nice and quiet as well.

 

At a glance everything else looks good.

 

Actually, looking at the price comparison, the Antec 1200 with 4 of these ( http://www.xcase.co.uk/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=HDDKIT-XX-500&Show=ExtInfo ) looks like it works out cheaper than the Norco?

 

LN29166

Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8, 8-Port SAS/SATA Card £181.58

 

 

You may want to check with Scan that the cards come with the necessary breakout cables to connect the SATA drives - not sure that they do

 

Also, it looks like you have two 8-port cards there ? - does the MB support two and/or do you have sufficient HDDs to justify buying two cards now. You could save a few quid until you need another?

 

Cheers

 

 

 

You may want to check with Scan that the cards come with the necessary breakout cables to connect the SATA drives - not sure that they do

 

 

No need to check, they don't, you will need to buy some.

 

 

 

You may want to check with Scan that the cards come with the necessary breakout cables to connect the SATA drives - not sure that they do

 

Also, it looks like you have two 8-port cards there ? - does the MB support two and/or do you have sufficient HDDs to justify buying two cards now. You could save a few quid until you need another?

 

Cheers

 

 

 

That's a good point on the 2x cards - with 5 onboard SATA ports and the 8 in a single card, I'll have enough initially.  I'll be going with 12 HDD initially, all of them 2TB

 

Forgive my ignorance, but how do I find out if that board can support 2 cards, and what do I need the breakout cables for?  I assumed that I'd just connect the card ports directly to the HDDs?  I'm obviously missing something

If you don't need 24TB (22TB of data after parity) right away I strongly encourage you to hold off on starting with that many drives. Performance for stuff like parity rebuilds suffers the more drives you have, so don't rush to jam it full of drives you won't use right away. Not to mention that drives obviously get cheaper pretty quickly so the $100 2TB drives you buy today might be $70 drives 6 months from now when you really need them. Or maybe 3TB drives will be available for the same price. Either way, I suggest adding drives as you need them. If you need 22TB right away, then by all means...

 

Forgive my ignorance, but how do I find out if that board can support 2 cards, and what do I need the breakout cables for?  I assumed that I'd just connect the card ports directly to the HDDs?  I'm obviously missing something

 

Yep, you are missing the fact that the cards have 2 ports on them that need cables that split 4 cables off a single port.

 

You will need something like 2 of these http://www.ebuyer.com/product/131990

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone so far for your help, the support on here is excellent 

 

I've managed to get my build cost down to £520 so far (I already have 9 x 2TB drives) which is a bargain!  Just need to know if the mobo I've listed above will take 2 SATA cards?

 

I'm so used to RAID5 my perspective with disc size is a bit off, my 9 drives is going to give me 16TB useable, so I'm over the moon!  As we need is dual drive failure recovery and hot swap, then it'll be the perfect system!

 

 

Just need to know if the mobo I've listed above will take 2 SATA cards?

 

The MB you listed (Asus M4A785TD-M EVO, AMD 785G, AM3, PCI-E (x16), DDR3 1333/1600/1800, SATA 3Gb/s RAID, uATX, VGA      £63.19) wont support two SM controllers.

Chances to find any uATX MB with two or more PCIe x 16 connectors are slim to none. You should look into the ATX size for suitable motherboards with integrated video.

 

What you need is at least two PCIe x 4 connectors (often the manufacturers will use the standard PCIe x16 connectors but electrically only 4 or 8 lines are wired and you will see them as PCIe x 4 or PCIe x 8 in PCIe x16 slot) - all these in theory should work.

 

This one looks to fit the bill for you - http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-M4A89GTD-PRO-AMD-890GX-S-AM3-PCI-E-20-%28x16%29-DDR3-2000%28OC%29-SATA-6Gb-s-SATA-RAID-ATX

 

Regarding the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 for £181.58 - I do not know how much this translates into US$ but I think some people buy them relatively cheap from EBay.

 

PS. I edited this post and changed the motherboard as the first one does not have integrated video. You have a very poor choice at Scan - only Asus and Gigabyte brands - the Asus usually will have only 5 SATA slots and I do not want to recommend the Gigabyte as it may be subject to HPA.

The new one uses the latest chipsets, Sata 6Gbits etc. and I usually do not want to use them as you may hit some glitches here and there due to the fact that Unraid uses older Kernel. It is up to you to decide to use it or to search another store

Actually just found this one which is uATX  - http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/DFI-LanParty-JR-790GX-M3H5-AMD-790GX-AM3-PCI-E-20-DDR3-1600-SATA-RAID-mATX-On-Board-Graphics

They are no indications on Scan regarding the LAN chip used so you must first consult the manual to see if it is Realtek or Intel (both will work) before purchasing

If I may run into issues due to 6Gb SATA, are there any other motherboards/processor/RAM combos that people could recommend?

 

The usual UK websites are:

 

www.scan.co.uk

www.overclockers.co.uk

www.ebuyer.co.uk

 

One thing I didn't mention is that power consumption is also quite important - I really want something that's not going to suck too much juice as it will be running 24/7

 

Thanks 

Anyone got any comments on this one?

 

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-M4A88T-M-AMD-880G-S-AM3-PCI-E-20-%28x16%29-DDR3-1866%28OC%29-SATA-RAID-mATX-On-Board-Graphics

 

I get a bit confused with the expansion ports, can this take 2 x SATA cards?

 

1 x PCI (32 bit)

2 x PCI-E 2.0 x1

1 x PCI-E 2.0 x16

 

Thanks

The AOC-SASLP-MV8 cards are x4, that board has 2 times x1 slots and a single x16, so potentially you could fit a single card in the x16, but it depends if the slot accepts non gfx cards in that slot, which it might not.  Probably not a great board for Unraid.

Thanks, I re-read an earlier post in this thread and noticed there needs to be 2 x either PCIe x 4 or x16 to support 2x SATA cards, so that board is definitely out.  Can you recommend any others?

Right then folks, i think I have my final build, any comments before I press the button tomorrow?

 

https://secure.scan.co.uk/aspnet/Shop/SavedBasket/SavedBaskets.aspx?Id=110dba8b-9cb0-41ea-b566-5e5b3f213de4#BasketDetails

 

I'm also planning to buy these hotswap cages:

 

http://www.xcase.co.uk/hotswap-stoarge-kit-p/hddkit-xx-500.htm

 

Thanks

Matt

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone so far for your help, the support on here is excellent 

 

I've managed to get my build cost down to £520 so far (I already have 9 x 2TB drives) which is a bargain!  Just need to know if the mobo I've listed above will take 2 SATA cards?

 

I'm so used to RAID5 my perspective with disc size is a bit off, my 9 drives is going to give me 16TB useable, so I'm over the moon!  As we need is dual drive failure recovery and hot swap, then it'll be the perfect system!

 

 

 

Do you know if it's a forward or reversed breakout cable that I need?  http://www.xcase.co.uk/product-p/cables-3ware-8087-sata.htm

 

Thanks

Forward.

 

Cant see your scan link, need to be logged in as you or something

 

We need to know who you are. Please login to view your saved baskets.

oops, here's the individual links:

 

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/650W-Corsair-CMPSU-650TXUK-SLi-XfireSingle-12V-Rail-80plus-Efficient-120mm-Quiet-Fan-ATX12V-v22

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-M4A785TD-V-EVO-AMD-785G-AM3-PCI-E-20%28x16%29-DDR3-1800%28OC%29-1600%28OC%29-SATA-II-SATA-RAID-VGA

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-Athlon-II-X2-245-Regor-Core-S-AM3-290GHz-2MB-Cache-HT-3600MHz-65W-Retail

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-%282x2GB%29-Corsair-XMS3-DDR3-PC3-10666-%281333%29-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-CAS-9-9-9-24-DHX-16V

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Antec-1200-Twelve-Hundred-Full-Tower-Case-Black-with-side-window-w-o-PSU

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/3Ware-CBL-SFF8087OCF-10M-SFF-8087-to-discrete-forward-breakout-cable

http://www.xcase.co.uk/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=Raid-SM-AOC-SASLP-MV8&CartID=1

http://www.xcase.co.uk/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=HDDKIT-XX-500&CartID=2

 

That little lot comes to almost £900, so with the pro license just under £1000 without drives.

Get this

 

Supermicro X8SIA-F server mobo

http://www.supermicro.com/xeon_3400/Motherboard/X8SIA.cfm

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182235

 

huge performance, built in IPMI, a lot of PCIe, Intel GigE interfaces, etc, etc...

Get this

 

Supermicro X8SIA-F server mobo

http://www.supermicro.com/xeon_3400/Motherboard/X8SIA.cfm

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182235

 

huge performance, built in IPMI, a lot of PCIe, Intel GigE interfaces, etc, etc...

 

Drool....

That's just killed the budget and remember I'm in the UK...supermicro kit isn't easy to get over here

 

Any thoughts on my build?

Yeah, would get those if you plan on cooling your drives properly (and quietly):

http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product/product06.php?pr_index=285&cl_index=2&sc_index=5&ss_index=12&g=f

I can't see what those do that the X-case ones don't?

120mm fan + there are OPENINGs at the back of the cage where the hot air can get out! Then you get 4 instead of 5 drives each 3x 5.25", i.e. more room between the drives to cool drives properly with low-CFM fans.