Drive - and CPU - advice needed

[pepar]

I am trying to put a parts list together for an unRAID media server.  Western Digital has their Green line and also drives specifically for media servers.  All are low power consumption, low noise and low heat generation.  Would these be a good choice?

 

Also, in the CPU category ... is there any benefit to using some whizbang quad core or would a low power processor work just as well?

 

My usage will be, primarily, stream Blu-ray's to my home theater.  DVD's, too, for the few that I have left.

 

TIA!

 

Jeff

[BRiT]

unRAID itself does not need a fast cpu.

 

The Intel i3 530 CPU with an H55-based motherboard is very energy efficient while providing massive computing power should you ever need to transcode or encode videos to different formats. It idles as low as the Intel Atom systems, around 35 watts total with drives spun down. The CPU has integrated graphics so you don't need to add or worry about a graphics card. The price is a little more than the budget AMD system, but provide significantly more computing power should it be needed. I think the i3 530 + H55 system is the sweet point. Most motherboards come with 6 onboard sata and provide 2 PCI-Express expansion slots, when paired with 8-port SATA cards provides for 22 drive capacity easily.

 

I use WD Green 2TB drives (EADS) and they suit my purposes, streaming 1080p/720p/480p media to XBMC / WMC / Win 7. You do not need their other drives series marked specifically for media servers. If you pickup an WD EARS drive, be sure to install the jumper on pin 7-8 for maximum performance.

 

Others use the Hitachi 2TB drives with great success.

 

The Seagate drives require forced-firmware update to maximum stability, which can be a hassle but is a one time thing per drive. I did the update on my Seagate 5900RPM LP 2TB drive and it's been performing fine as my Parity drive.

 

[pepar]

5400RPM seems to be popular.  32MB cache v. 64MB cache?

[Joe L.]

5400RPM seems to be popular.  32MB cache v. 64MB cache?

It probably makes very little difference given the way unRAID uses disks.  Most of the files you read or write are WAY bigger than the cache on the disk.  (given the two, the larger is probably better, as long as it is not priced at a premium)

[pepar]

Thanks!

[SCSI]

unRAID itself does not need a fast cpu.

 

The Intel i3 530 CPU with an H55-based motherboard is very energy efficient while providing massive computing power should you ever need to transcode or encode videos to different formats. It idles as low as the Intel Atom systems, around 35 watts total with drives spun down. The CPU has integrated graphics so you don't need to add or worry about a graphics card. The price is a little more than the budget AMD system, but provide significantly more computing power should it be needed. I think the i3 530 + H55 system is the sweet point. Most motherboards come with 6 onboard sata and provide 2 PCI-Express expansion slots, when paired with 8-port SATA cards provides for 22 drive capacity easily.

 

I use WD Green 2TB drives (EADS) and they suit my purposes, streaming 1080p/720p/480p media to XBMC / WMC / Win 7. You do not need their other drives series marked specifically for media servers. If you pickup an WD EARS drive, be sure to install the jumper on pin 7-8 for maximum performance.

 

Others use the Hitachi 2TB drives with great success.

 

The Seagate drives require forced-firmware update to maximum stability, which can be a hassle but is a one time thing per drive. I did the update on my Seagate 5900RPM LP 2TB drive and it's been performing fine as my Parity drive.

 

 

Great advice BRit! What transfer speeds are you getting with your WD EADS? My two 2TB WD20EADS only maxes out at 12-15 MBs on my gigabit network. My Hitachi 2TB 7200rpm drives always get 30-35MBs transfer to disk shares. I haven't figured out how to increase the speeds on the EADS yet.

 

As for setup, I am using a low power Sempron 140 with a BIOSTAR MB.

[mbryanr]

Also, in the CPU category ... is there any benefit to using some whizbang quad core or would a low power processor work just as well?

 

My usage will be, primarily, stream Blu-ray's to my home theater.  DVD's, too, for the few that I have left.

 

TIA!

 

Jeff

 

A higher powered CPU is only needed if you plan to transcode using ps3ms, or if you plan to rip your BD/DVDs with Handbrake.  Otherwise, a single core is plenty of power.

[JetShred]

I highly recommend the AMD Sempron 140.  If you put it on the right motherboard you can actually unlock the second core.  I'm running it this way and I'm able to stream HD video to my HTPC while AirVideo is streaming/transcoding another HD video to my wife's iPad while Sabnzbd and Sickbeard are running.  I haven't encountered any hiccups yet and I don't usually come near 100% CPU.

[BRiT]

How can you advise people to put their data at risk by unlocking/overclocking any part of their system? That is absolutely horrible advice. The CPUs come core-locked for a reason, usually due to defects or not passing AMD's field tests. What a user needs in a fileserver is absolute stability and peace of mind, not some random dice roll with each and every bit of data it handles.

[JetShred]

How can you advise people to put their data at risk by unlocking/overclocking any part of their system? That is absolutely horrible advice. The CPUs come core-locked for a reason, usually due to defects or not passing AMD's field tests. What a user needs in a fileserver is absolute stability and peace of mind, not some random dice roll with each and every bit of data it handles.

 

I didn't so much recommend it.  I was just stating that it was possible and it's how I do things.  Without core unlocking the Sempron 140 is still a very efficient and capable processor.