Another new build - will it work (UK) thread :-)

[segaboys]

Mr Grumpie,

 

I bought 3 of the 5in3 X-case  drive cages you are looking at. I am currently running 5 HDD in a single cage. A mixture of WD green HDD's and some faster smaller drives. My aim was to make the UnRaid server as quiet as possible and I feel I have accomplished that, its barely audible, except when its rebuilding the parity disk, which I have done a few times as I replaced every drive in the array to prove to myself the system was working.

 

I replace the stock fan in the cage with these http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/80mmfans/s-flex801000

They are incredibly quiet with the following specs 3.4.5 dB(A) / 1000 RPM / 14.3 CFM

My parity drive hovers at about 37 degrees

The hottest drive in there reaches about 45 degress when heavily active.

They all drop to about 27 degrees when not in use before spin down

If they have all spun down and I spin up the array, they come online at about 22 degrees

 

That said , my case has two 140mm vertical extraction fans undervolted to 7volts and a 120 mm horizontal fan undervolted to 5volts.

My dual core intel CPU has a passive heatsink.

 

Its a new build and I have had it running for a week while monitoring temps etc...

 

I will post pics of my rig and details soon.

Thanks to UnRaid for great software and I feel I have done it justice with a great hardware build.

 

 

[Kode]

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...

 

Good luck getting that in the UK, better off with an X8SIL-F which is available from scan (and is the motherboard i have) http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductID=1111843 but its a lot more expensive than the motherboard he has picked.  On the other hand, you get what you pay for.

[MrGrumpie]

In real terms, what benefits are there in spending another £100 on that motherboard, over the one I've picked?

 

 

[MrGrumpie]

Mr Grumpie,

 

I bought 3 of the 5in3 X-case  drive cages you are looking at. I am currently running 5 HDD in a single cage. A mixture of WD green HDD's and some faster smaller drives. My aim was to make the UnRaid server as quiet as possible and I feel I have accomplished that, its barely audible, except when its rebuilding the parity disk, which I have done a few times as I replaced every drive in the array to prove to myself the system was working.

 

I replace the stock fan in the cage with these http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/80mmfans/s-flex801000

They are incredibly quiet with the following specs 3.4.5 dB(A) / 1000 RPM / 14.3 CFM

My parity drive hovers at about 37 degrees

The hottest drive in there reaches about 45 degress when heavily active.

They all drop to about 27 degrees when not in use before spin down

If they have all spun down and I spin up the array, they come online at about 22 degrees

 

That said , my case has two 140mm vertical extraction fans undervolted to 7volts and a 120 mm horizontal fan undervolted to 5volts.

My dual core intel CPU has a passive heatsink.

 

Its a new build and I have had it running for a week while monitoring temps etc...

 

I will post pics of my rig and details soon.

Thanks to UnRaid for great software and I feel I have done it justice with a great hardware build.

 

 

 

Interesting, 45 degrees sounds quite high though?  What other cooling do you have in the case?  I guess the fact that these are in cages negates any other cooling that the case may contain?

 

I've bought 4 of the cages to go into an Antec 1200, however initially I'll only have 11 HDDs - in fact I can't see me needing more than that for a couple of years! - So I think I'll spread them out across all of the cages.

 

 

[Kode]

In real terms, what benefits are there in spending another £100 on that motherboard, over the one I've picked?

 

Well IPMI is useful for being able to control your server without the need for a monitor, you can do it over the network (even bios over the network) so if your server is tucked away, thats handy.

 

Its a server class motherboard so you can pretty much guarantee its going to be stable.

 

If you pair it with a Xeon processor such as the x3430 (thats what im using) or x3440 then you can take advantage of the ECC capabilities of the RAM.

 

All of its ports can be used for expansion, with the motherboard you chose i'm not sure if the x16 is only available for graphics.

[MrGrumpie]

Just looked at the price of the processor, and with the motherboard you're talking circa £310 vs my build which is £110 - almost 3 times the difference   I run a twin monitor setup so hooking up a monitor isn't the end of the world.

 

The problem with these things is it's far too easy to let you wallet run away from you, with the licence this build has come in under £1000 and originally I didn't want to spend more than £600!

 

Only thing worrying me now is that with the 5 in 3 cages, my HDDs might run a bit hot which I really want to minimise...

[Kode]

well you can pair it with an i3 which is much cheaper, if you have other services running on the machine like sabnzbd then the i3 or xeons provide a LOT of power.

[MrGrumpie]

lol now you're beginning to make me doubt my build  :'(  To be honest I'll only be using the server for one thing and one thing only - media streaming, and possibly - if it can be done - CCTV image recording from IP cams. 

 

There's nothing wrong with my build is there? 

[Kode]

How many HD's are you going to start out with?  How many do you want to be able to expand to?  Where about in the UK are you?

[MrGrumpie]

Starting out with 9 drives probably - was tempted to go with 11 but on reflection I don't need 11!  They are all Seagate Barracuda 542s (2TB low power ones, 5200rpm).

 

Expansion wise it will be setup to accomodate 20 HDDs, although I won't need that many for a while (although I've learnt my lesson from ditching my 2nd NAS due to space issues - and that it a 7 bay one!).

 

I'm in Cambridge

 

 

[Kode]

Starting out with 9 drives probably - was tempted to go with 11 but on reflection I don't need 11!  They are all Seagate Barracuda 542s (2TB low power ones, 5200rpm).

 

Expansion wise it will be setup to accomodate 20 HDDs, although I won't need that many for a while (although I've learnt my lesson from ditching my 2nd NAS due to space issues - and that it a 7 bay one!).

 

I'm in Cambridge

 

 

 

Bare in mind that the more drives you have running the higher the risk of one or more of them failing, so if you have 11 x 2TB drives but only say 7TB of space used you would probably be better off having 4 or 5 data drives installed and 1 parity, and having the rest precleared, but not part of the array.

 

If you are a member of avforums or bit-tech both of those have marketplace forums, so you might be able to get some good deals on those.

 

If you had been in the midlands area you could have had some of the bits I have spare to keep costs down initially, but you aren't Plus they probably wouldn't have been suitable for your needs (I have a Thermaltake Armour which has 11 x 5.25 bays, so your could only fit 18 drives with 3 x 5 in 3's and 1 x 3 in 2)

[MrGrumpie]

You make a good point - my current storage needs run to 13TB, which will necessitate all 9 drives being used (1 x parity, 1 x cache, 7 x data).  I'll have the other two pre-cleared but not part of the array as you suggest.

 

I am known to frequent AVForums, under the guise of Smurfin - I'll be starting a "monster server build" thread once I've got it finished, as most people stick to RAID or FreeNAS over there.  Although I've not tried it yet, I must say unRAID looks like it's criminally overlooked.  The only downside is dual drive failure protection (but let's face it, most people only run a RAID5 anyway) which will be a killer feature if it's introduced, and write speed which isn't the end of the world - though it may take me a while to transfer 13TB of data :eek:

[Kode]

To be honest I'd prefer unraid over even Raid 6, IIRC with proper raid (though I'm sure i will be shot down over this so please correct me if its untrue) the probability of another drive failing during the rebuild of a replacement drive is a lot higher.  So if one drive fails, theres a higher chance of another failing during the rebuild, then another during that rebuild, so now you have 3 failed disks.  Not sure where i read that though.  With unraid if 3 disks fail, its a pain, but only those 3 disks are gone.  With Raid 6 your whole array is gone!

[Kode]

I didn't read it on wikipedia, but a quick scan of wikipedia shows a mention in the second paragraph

 

*edit* link would be helpful http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID#Problems_with_RAID

[starcat]

lol now you're beginning to make me doubt my build  :'(  To be honest I'll only be using the server for one thing and one thing only - media streaming, and possibly - if it can be done - CCTV image recording from IP cams.  

 

There's nothing wrong with my build is there?  

 

Have you seen the AirVideo ffmpeg based on-the-fly streaming server available for unRAID?! May need some serious CPU and memory and is a great streaming solution for iPad's and other clients.

[MrGrumpie]

I have no idea what you're talking about

[PeterB]

Having been bitten by a RAID failure on a W2k server system, some years ago, where it seemed to be impossible to recover any of my data, it will take a very strong argument to persuade me to ever again consider a filing system in which individual files are routinely split across more than one physical drive.

[MrGrumpie]

Ouch!  The more I think about unRAID the more I think it makes sense vs traditional RAID setups.

 

Anyway, the first of my shipments arrived from Scan today, 2 more boxes to arrive tomorrow and then I'll be set

[MrGrumpie]

Well everything's arrived now  

 

I have severel boxes full of goodies....I just need to build the damn thing!  Moving house this Friday so it looks like I won't get to pull it all together for at least a week or more.

 

I also bought I usb header card so I can plug the usb drive directly into the motherboard, so no risk of the little one killing the server 

[Rajahal]

...no risk of the little one killing the server...

I think you underestimate the little one...

[MrGrumpie]

Thank you all so much for your help and for anyone interested, I've posted my experience on AVForums in the UK:

 

http://www.avforums.com/forums/networking-nas/1347547-smurfs-monster-40tb-unraid-nas-build.html#post13295916

 

Must get my pics up in the "pimp my rig" geek-a-thon thread 

[starcat]

He, Smurfin, welcome to unRAID :-)

[MrGrumpie]

I seem to be following you around on forums