My new signature says it all.

 

I just have the 2TB parity and one 1.5TB data disk installed at this point, parity sync in progress at ~55KB/s.  Once that completes I'll be able to copy my 1.1TB of existing data into unRaid and then reformat my other disk into the array as well.

 

Once parity is complete I'll be using my killawatt to measure power consumption and decide if I want to disable any of the 4 fans my case came with (a bit of overkill with my current disk count).

 

I'll be back to report transfer speeds and power consumption I'm seeing.

Even though you are starting small, you are starting with good quality components that will scale up nicely.

Thanks Rajahal, I was thinking so too.  The Antec 300 case is the most expensive case I've ever bought (and it didn't even come with a PSU  ), and I really like it.

 

 

Some random facts about my build:

I didn't do any preclearing for the first two disks - I'll look into that before adding my third.

My flash is a 256MB IBM thumb drive that I've had lying around forever.  Until I upgrade to a Plus license I don't see a need for a new one.

All my other machines are Linux (zoneminder box, laptop, xbmc) except one, so I'm planning to use NFS.

I did remember to 7-8 pin jumper my EARS drive.  I shouldn't need to jumper the 1.5TB EADS though, right?

As long as your EADS drive's label doesn't say anything about advanced format, you don't need a jumper for that one.

 

You also don't need to preclear your drives if they have been in use for some time and you trust them.  It never hurts to preclear drives, but it is really less important if the drives are already burned in.

You also don't need to preclear your drives if they have been in use for some time and you trust them.  It never hurts to preclear drives, but it is really less important if the drives are already burned in.

Once you assign a parity drive to your array you WILL want to pre-clear any drives you subsequently add to your array.

 

If you do not, unRAID will perform the clearing step for you, and while it does it, the array will be kept off-line.  The writing of zeros to a 2TB drive will take at least 5 or 6 hours.  (Don't do it and expect to watch a movie the same evening)

 

The pre-clear script does a lot more than just write zeros.  It also exercises the disk with a lot more activity than it would normally get in an attempt to identify disks prone to an early failure.  A pre-clear cycle of a 2TB drive takes between 30 and 36 hours typically.

Reading it entirely to allow its SMART firmware to identify un-readable sectors, writing it completely to allow SMART firmware the ability to re-allocate sectors if needed, then reading it entirely again and verifying the zeros were actually written.

(a) Do you turn on AHCI on this motherboard?

(b) If you do, what is the disk size BIOS report for the 2TB disk you have?

 

I am testing the C2SEE MB i received couple days ago with a Celeron 440 processor and i found in AHCI mode, disk size reported in BIOS is not correct. for 2TB disk, in AHCI mode, BIOS reported 200.0GB. However in IDE mode, it is correct.

Power consumption tests with two disks (parity: WD20EARS, data: WD15EADS) with my killawatt:

Startup spike: 75w

Boot process: 63w

Disks spun up: 43w

Disks spun down: 38w     Update: 35w with only the top 140mm fan and one front 120mm fan powered (the one covering my installed disks), along with the PSU fan of course.

Parity check: 50w (@ ~99000 KB/sec)

 

Within unRaid, the disks are reported thus:

parity  WDC_WD20EARS-00M_WD-WMAZA1057565 * 1,953,514,552 -

disk1   WDC_WD15EADS-00P_WD-WMAVU0891377 * 1,465,138,552 1,465,060,992

 

I had not originally changed anything in the BIOS other than setting the USB drive as first boot device.

The BIOS (v8.00.15, 3/11/09) defaulted to 'Compatible' and 'IDE' for sata1, my WD20EARS disk, and correctly reported the size as 2000.5GB.  Switching to AHCI mode and rebooting incorrectly showed 200.0GB for my parity disk and 150.0GB for my data disk, so seems to be a consistent mis-calculation.  Both my disks are WD Green drives if that makes any difference.

This doesn't seem to affect unRaid however - it still shows the full size once loaded.

 

I also switched the USB mode from the default "FullSpeed" (12Mbps) to "HiSpeed" (480Mbps) and bootup is much, much faster now.

 

 

 

If I had extra money, I'd be very tempted to try a picoPSU to power this box.  The 400w PSU I have is definitely a quality part, and is 80+ rated, but I'm not going to be breaking 100w during startup even after I add a third disk.  Everyone says getting a properly sized PSU is key to efficiency, I'd love to know how low I can actually go.  There just don't seem to be any "quality" PSUs below about 380w/400w these days, other than perhaps the picoPSU.

I'm impressed with the PicoPSU, but I don't really understand how it would work with a standard case.  How would you install the circular connector (that the power brick plugs into)?  Also, what would you do with the huge hole where PSU normally sits?  Seems like it would mess up airflow.

 

Also, assuming that you need to use one of the molex plugs w/ the included converter to power your motherboard's 4 pin port, you would have to run all your drives and fans off the only other molex plug.  That could require a lot of daisy chained power splitters, which seems like just asking for trouble...

Installing the circular connector is easy enough if you have a drill, and it's easy as a piece of metal plate or even just duct tape to cover the PSU hole if you want it closed (ventilation is a good thing, right?).  Maybe you could even mount another drive cage there with a bit of modding.

 

And what's wrong with daisy-chaining power splitters?  There supposed to be only a single 12v rail anyway, so it's either split inside the PSU or spit on the end of the cable.  Same difference in my book.

 

 

However.... I added a spare 320GB drive (non-Green) to my box just to try it and power at startup jumped up over 100w.  So other than an all-WD-Green-drives box (and probably less than 6) I doubt a picopsu would provide enough power.  And finding a good 120w power brick to supply the pico120 isn't an easy task.

 

In my particular situation, I'm looking real hard at the UnRaid on ESXi thread right now.  I want to add in a PCI camera capture card and run two VMs - one UnRaid with Raw Device Mapping access to my disks and another with raw access to the PCI card for ZoneMinder (and maybe XBMC).  All that will push me beyond a picoPSU I think even if I don't move beyond the Free unraid license.  Now if someone was making a 250w 80+ ATX PSU out there....... but nobody seems to be doing so.  Two PicoPSUs, one for mobo and cards, one for disks? 

 

 

However.... I added a spare 320GB drive (non-Green) to my box just to try it and power at startup jumped up over 100w.  So other than an all-WD-Green-drives box (and probably less than 6) I doubt a picopsu would provide enough power.  And finding a good 120w power brick to supply the pico120 isn't an easy task.

 

In my particular situation, I'm looking real hard at the UnRaid on ESXi thread right now.  I want to add in a PCI camera capture card and run two VMs - one UnRaid with Raw Device Mapping access to my disks and another with raw access to the PCI card for ZoneMinder (and maybe XBMC).  All that will push me beyond a picoPSU I think even if I don't move beyond the Free unraid license.   Now if someone was making a 250w 80+ ATX PSU out there....... but nobody seems to be doing so.  Two PicoPSUs, one for mobo and cards, one for disks?   

 

What about this - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817103047

 

 

Dual +12V at 8 and 13 A 

 

http://www.sparklepower.com/proPCPS_ATX.html

What about this - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817103047

 

Hm, what do I say when someone finds what I was looking for but I still don't like it.... hm....  

• The internal fan is not 120mm, and is likely to be noisy compared to a higher quality component from Antec or similar.
  
• It doesn't even have a power switch?
  
• Wires are not sleeved
  
• It doesn't have a single 12v rail, which is often pointed out as a "good thing"
  
• I can't even tell how many connectors it has, even after looking it up on the manufacturer's site.  It looks like 1x24pin mobo power, 2xSata, 2x4pin cpu connector, 2xMolex, and 1xfan -- but I'm not sure.
  
• I'm not getting a good vibe on quality here.
  
• About the same price as my Antec 400c
  

 

So I'll revise my wishes

I wish Antec or SeaSonic or someone similarly reputable would make a 250w 80+ PSU, either fanless or with a very quiet 120mm fan, ATX form factor, with 6 sata connectors - something perfect for a 6-disk UnRaid based on WD Green disks or similar low power disks.

 

And while bcbgboy13 is providing, i'll wish for free USB thumb drives from the sky too

Sparkle actually does make pretty good quality PSUs (despite the imagery that the name may conjure up), but I still wouldn't use on in an unRAID server.

Hehehe, I believe you can still find this one:

 

http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/p_spec.php?pno=st30nf&area=usa

 

It has a switch but now I have the impression you will add another requirement regarding the price...

 

Regarding the previously posted "sparkle" and the dual rail - I do not think (from a price point) that this is a true dual rail design - but they may have used a tiny gauge wires.However one will have to order one and to open it to confirm that.

 

 

 

 

 

Update:

Completed my data move of about 775,000 MB of video files, averaged approx 12 MB/sec over GbE going through two switches.  This seems a bit low, but not a big issue for me at this time.  I don't need to add my second 1.5 TB disk yet as the original disk wasn't full, so my only-one-data-disk unraid also isn't full.  I'll be doing some experimentation to find the best way to organize my files etc before moving the final disk into the array - right now I'm doubly redundant with my original files on one box in Ext3 and also backed up in unraid with parity.

I'm currently using NFS since my other boxes are linux.  I'm learning about UnRaid's NFS limitations in the process, so I may change to samba or look into other rsync options rather than just direct NFS mount and 'cp' for backups.

 

In other news, turns out that my system was too low-specced for VMWareESXi, which requires 2GB of free RAM to install in v4.1.  I had hoped to at least experiment with a VM for UnRaid with Raw Device Mapping (RDM) to my disks, and another VM for ZoneMinder and possibly XBMC.  But it's not a priority for me right now so I'm not going to shell out for extra RAM at this time (though I can't stop myself looking for good deals on 2x2GB kits).