Woo Foo First Build - (Shopping list look ok?)

[Thomss]

Hi all,

First post here, but have been reading for a while.   

Very nice forum with some excellent info!

I was looking to build a freenas box but after looking further in to it unRAID looks the way to go!

This is the list of items I was looking to purchase (I already have 3x WD20EARS 2TB) I'm hoping to have a box that could get me up to about 10-12 hard drives over time, but 4TB of protected data would give me everything I need for the moment.

 

Please see my list below:

 

 

Western Digital WD20EARS 2TB Hard Drive SATAII 64MB Cache - OEM Caviar Green

£77.99

 

AMD Sempron 145 2.8GHz 45W Socket AM3 Retail Boxed Processor

£28.60

 

ASUS M4A785T-M 785G Socket AM3 DVI VGA HDMI Out 8 Channel Audio MATX Motherboard

190087 9 in stock £56.41 £56.41

 

Kingston 2GB (2x1GB) DDR3 1333MHz HyperX Blu Memory Kit CL9 1.5V Non-ECC Unbuffered

£34.43

 

Corsair 450W VX Series PSU - ATX12V v2.2

£55.30

 

Antec 300 Three Hundred Case

£47.99

 

 

total inc vat:£300.72

 

 

apart from a USB stick and buying unRAID, how does that look?

 

 

 

Thanks very much! 

[ohlwiler]

Everything looks good to me except for the case. I would recommend a Coolermaster 590 for about the same price. It makes drive mounting very versatile because you can use their 4 in 3 or a hot swap 5 in 3 if you want to spend a little more. Most important both both of these solutions will cool your drives better and allow you to swap drives easier.

[Thomss]

Great, that's the excellent info I was looking for, thank you very much for that - I will change to that case.

 

[Thomss]

Looks like the 590 is becoming hard to find.

How about the 690?

 

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-196-CM

 

Thanks!

 

 

Thomas.

[Thomss]

ah ha, found plenty of threads on here with the 590 VS the 690 so all good on that side of things thanks.

 

Will hopefully order the gear start of next week.

 

 

[Rajahal]

Do you already have jumpers installed on your WD EARS drives?  If not, then I'm afraid you have a long and annoying process ahead of you.  If you don't have the jumpers, let me know and I'll lay out the process for you.

[Thomss]

Hello Rajahal,

Thank you for your reply.

 

I currently do not have the jumpers on any of my drives (mostly 2TB EARS)

 

however I have only ordered the case so far and am hoping to order the rest of the items this week, so the system is not yet built!

 

I have seen something that I need to put a jumper on pins 7/8???

 

Did you think I had already built the system without the pins on? (Hence I would have a nightmare pulling the drives out to put the jumpers on) or is there something else I should be aware of?

 

 

Thanks for your help, very much appreciated!!!

 

 

Thomas

[Rajahal]

Yes, that was my fear.  Glad to hear that is not the case.  So all of these 2 TB EARS drives are brand new, with no data on them, correct?  In that case, the process is easy - just install a jumper on pins 7-8 of each drive.  That's it.  If you do already have data on them, then you need to get the data off before installing the jumper.

[Thomss]

Excellent thanks for clearing that up!

Most of the drives do have data on them, but I will put that data over to those drives BEFORE putting the pins on them and putting them in my new unRAID machine.

 

I'm super excited to get this started as I'm having some lan sockets put in my house at the same time.

 

 

Thanks, Thomas.

[Rajahal]

Be sure they are Cat5e or Cat6!  I would just go for Cat6 if possible, since it is the newer model (even though it is kind of overkill).

[wsume99]

I would just go for Cat6 if possible, since it is the newer model (even though it is kind of overkill).

I cannot agree more.  If you are going to fork out money to install a wired network in your home then by all means purchase Cat6 cable and sockets.  If you're paying someone to install the network there should be no difference in installation cost, at least there shouldn't be if you're using a good contractor.  The only difference is the h/w cost and the difference is not that big.  I personally ran Cat6 in my house about 18 months ago and for 500 ft of cable and 6 sockets IIRC it cost me about $50 more to run Cat6 vs. Cat5e.  It might even be less now.  Well worth the investment and peace of mind knowing that my wired network is good for a long time.

[Thomss]

Thanks for the input guys, I've asked for a updated quote for Cat6 cable and sockets. 

 

[wsume99]

Just FYI - I did a quick search on monoprice.com and here is a quick comparison of the cost of Cat5e vs. Cat6.

 

Cat5e 1000ft bulk cable: $65.10

Cat6 1000ft bulk cable: $86.71

 

Cat5e keystone jack: $1.21

Cat6 keystone jack: $1.43

 

The prices I listed were for an order quantity of 1.  Each item has discounted prices if you order more than one.  You can get 1000 ft of cable and 10 keystone jacks for $100 using Cat6 vs. $77 for Cat5e. 

 

As I said before all the other hardware would be the same (wall plates and low voltage boxes) and there should not be any difference as far a labor is concerned.  So the difference in price from your installer should be pretty small.  Hopefully your contractor doesn't try to pull a fast one on you.

[Thomss]

Cool thanks for that, always better to be armed with this info. 

 

Thanks again guys! 

[Thomss]

Well, everything ordered now and I can't wait to start building the system (Never done before!) and installing the software.

 

I bought some Microstar standard jumpers to go on the EARS20 drives, lol had to purchase a 100x pack but they're pretty cheep so no problem.

 

I'll update once I'm up and running, thanks for the excellent help all. 

[BobPhoenix]

... had to purchase a 100x pack but they're pretty cheep so no problem.

Welcome to the club.  I bought 200 because I wasn't sure if I needed 2mm or 2.54mm so got 100 of each.  Still wasn't much.  Shipping was the biggest portion anyway.

[wsume99]

I bought 200 because I wasn't sure if I needed 2mm or 2.54mm so got 100 of each.

I was wondering that myself, which pitch was correct?

[BobPhoenix]

I bought 200 because I wasn't sure if I needed 2mm or 2.54mm so got 100 of each.

I was wondering that myself, which pitch was correct?

It might be different by manufacturer.  But for my Western Digital EARS it was 2.54mm.

[wsume99]

^^Thanks for the reply Bob.  You just saved me $1.29.

 

IIRC WD is the only mfg where you need to use jumpers to disable 4kb sectors.

[Thomss]

I ordered these ones:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/124147

 

Is that the correct kind of the EARS20?

 

they haven't been shipped yet so I can still change if needed, thanks!

[BobPhoenix]

I ordered these ones:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/124147

 

Is that the correct kind of the EARS20?

 

they haven't been shipped yet so I can still change if needed, thanks!

The model number implies it is 2.54mm so I think it is correct.  The specifications say 0.3cm so it should be correct by that - assuming it is rounding to 1 digit decimal accuracy.  The 2.0mm ones I got look different than the picture but the 2.54mm ones I got look the same as the picture.  I think you are good to go. 

[Thomss]

Awesome, thanks very much! 

[Thomss]

Ok guys, all the parts arrived, I've built the machine and installed the unRAID software on the USB stick.

The machine boots from the stock fine which brings me to  the terminal looking window now.

 

I haven't ran any of the pre-clean type of scripts on the hard disks (2X 2TB WD EARS at the moment but will be putting the 3rd one in tonight)

 

Can I plug the box in to my network and do the scripts etc from there or do I need to add these files to the USB stick? as judging from the forum I should pre-clear these drives before proceeding.

 

 

Many thanks, 

 

 

 

Thomas.

[wsume99]

Go ahead and install the drives in the server but do not add them to the array without preclearing them first.  At least I would not advise it.  Preclearing your drives before adding them to the array is a good practice and it minimizes the downtime of the server.  Since your server isn't running the downtime issue is not a concern but the health of the drives you are about to add should be.  To run the preclear process you need to add the script to the root directory of your boot drive.  The instructions on how to install and run the preclear script are in this post.

[Matt Foley]

Over the network is fine.  Whether you do it over the network or locally you should use screen to run them (or any long script) to avoid disconnect complications.