seanchronnery Posted December 4, 2010 Share Posted December 4, 2010 hello. i'm new here, and new to building computers, so please be gentle. thanks in advance. combing through the wealth of information on this forum, i have decided to build an unRAID server very similar to what 'jmos1277' has built in the 'pimp your rig' thread; http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2031.msg80041#msg80041 I live in Canada and will be using newegg.ca for the majority of components... Antec Nine Hundred Two Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129058 SUPERMICRO MBD-X7SPA-HF-O Mini ITX Intel Atom D510 processor Server Motherboard http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182234 CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-650HX 650W ATX12V v2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139012 G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Dual Channel Kit Laptop Memory Model F2-5300CL5D-4GBSA http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231135 QTY 2X Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARS 2TB 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136514 laying around my house I also have 2x 1tb WD drives and a 2tb samsung that i would like to incorporate I plan to add more drives in the future. my only dilemma now is cabling. I would like to buy the cables from newegg.ca so all the components would arrive at the same time but would not be opposed to order from monoprice.com either. As mentioned earlier I'm not experienced with building computers and would like some help choosing the lengths and types of cables I would need to purchase. If anyone could spare the time to link to some products on the sites stated previously I would be very thankful. -seanchronnery Link to comment
aiden Posted December 4, 2010 Share Posted December 4, 2010 As long as you make sure you jumper the EARS drives, it looks like you've got a great setup. As far as cables go, you should be able to make everything work with 0.5 meter SATA cables. If available you should try to get "latching" SATA cables, as they hold onto the motherboard connectors MUCH better than standard. Link to comment
seanchronnery Posted December 4, 2010 Author Share Posted December 4, 2010 thank you for replying, aiden. I just read up on the ears drives, thank you so much for pointing that out. I was unaware that they need to be jumpered/what it involved. Now i know. so all i need are sata cables? are the rest of the cables supplied with the power supply? Link to comment
aiden Posted December 4, 2010 Share Posted December 4, 2010 All your power connectors come with your power supply, and the case you selected is a standard configuration, so you shouldn't have any trouble with cable length. Enjoy your first build, and feel free to ask us any questions, no matter how dumb they may seem to you. Everyone started with no experience at some point in their life. Link to comment
Chris Pollard Posted December 4, 2010 Share Posted December 4, 2010 Check the model of your Samsung drive, it has recently come to light that there are some serious issues with the HD204UI Link Link to comment
seanchronnery Posted December 4, 2010 Author Share Posted December 4, 2010 thanks for the help and encouragement, Aiden. I'll be sure to post some pictures when it's done. @Chris... thanks for the link/heads up. I was planning on harvesting the drive from a Samsung Story enclosure (i imagine it will be a samsung drive inside) when all my components arrive. I bookmarked the thread so I can verify the model when i break into the enclosure. Link to comment
bigdog66 Posted December 4, 2010 Share Posted December 4, 2010 depends on how many drives you plan on eventually having you could or could have considered the Antec 1200 to give you 3 more bay but other than size and bays they are pretty much the same case so I love it My 1200 just shipped TODAY.....sorry i have had to plug that every chance i get because as im sure you are....I am excited as hell...lol will be a very good looking build....looking forward to the pics Link to comment
seanchronnery Posted December 5, 2010 Author Share Posted December 5, 2010 i think for my first build i'll stick with the 902. However, when it comes time to add more drives then the board supports (6) will i encounter any problems? If i add a pcie sata port multiplier and connect more drives, will unRAID be able to add them to my array? Link to comment
bigdog66 Posted December 5, 2010 Share Posted December 5, 2010 that's the beauty of your choice in unraid the pro license will support up to 20 array drives again....just depends on what your needs will be some will go with less drives and figure by the time they need more then bigger drives will be out and then they can swap smaller drives with bigger to make more space or if you know you will need as much space as you can get well then a 20 drive beast is what you plan for Although i did not want to drop Norco money all at once on a case over time the Antec 1200 can be a 20 drive monster and the case is the one piece that will not wear out or burn up unless the house comes down around it....lol Link to comment
aiden Posted December 5, 2010 Share Posted December 5, 2010 If i add a pcie sata port multiplier and connect more drives, will unRAID be able to add them to my array? The best way to add more drives beyond your motherboard capacity is to use the Supermicro SASLP-MV-8. It's well supported by unRAID and will give you 8 more drives. Link to comment
jmos1277 Posted December 6, 2010 Share Posted December 6, 2010 Hey seanchronnery ... I've been very happy with my build. The SuperMicro board is fantastic. I've been streaming my DVD and BluRay rips from the machine with absolutely no problems. I don't compress my BluRay discs when I rip them ... they are full quality 1:1 rips of the video/audio streams and they stream perfectly. Here are a few details you might want to consider. 1) The Antec Nine Hundred Two comes with two drive cages ... each can hold 3 hard disk drives for a total of 6. I plan on adding more hard drives to my setup over time, so I purchased a third drive cage directly from Antec. I'm not sure if you'll want/need this, but in case you do I've provided a link below (it says it's for an Antec 1200 case, but it works with the 902 as well). Link for drive cage 2) I'm sure most people here would agree with me that cables from Monoprice are almost always the way to go. The exact SATA cables that I purchased are linked below. They are 18" SATA2 cables in blue. Of course, you can choose other colors, but when I configured my machine it seemed like everything was blue (the LEDs, the power supply, etc.) so I chose the blue SATA cables as well. Link for SATA2 cables 3) For cable management, I highly recommend purchasing a 100 pack of zip ties (also from monoprice) along with some zip tie anchors. I've included links below for monoprice where you can pick up these items nice and cheap. Note that, despite the incredibly low price on monoprice, they are indeed packs of 100 (yes, only 44 cents for 100 zip ties). Link for zip ties Link for zip tie anchors 4) If you want to route the cables behind the motherboard in the same way that I did, you're going to need an extension cable for the 24-pin ATX power. Since I was wrapping all of my cables with black braided cable wrap, I wanted my extension cable to look nice as well. I purchased the following extension cable from my local MicroCenter (I'm lucky enough to have one locally). Link for ATX power extension cable If you look at my pics, you'll see the extender in the top left corner of the third picture. You can grab a slightly cheaper version without the black braiding from newegg here: Link to cheaper extension cable 5) Don't forget to add your jumpers to the WD Green drives BEFORE you even install them. I only needed 2 jumpers and didn't want to spend $15 for a 100 pack. Instead, I scrounged around in my basement looking for old components from which I could snag a couple of jumpers. I ended up grabbing them from a couple of old CD and DVD drives that I had in a box. I would be less concerned with ordering all the parts from Newegg, and more concerned with getting the right parts for a successful build. However, since you are in Canada maybe there are some importation issues (i.e. time delay) that you're trying to avoid. Since you'll be using pretty much the same components as my build, feel free to email me directly if you have any questions about my build. Though, the folks here are all pretty smart and can probably answer your questions just as well as I could. If it is an unRAID specific question (as opposed to a build question) they can certainly answer any question you might have better than I can. Good luck with your first build. Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted December 6, 2010 Share Posted December 6, 2010 I'd definately jump on shopbot.ca and check the pricing. For example, shopping around can find those drives for $92. See if Newegg will pricematch for you. Peter Link to comment
seanchronnery Posted December 7, 2010 Author Share Posted December 7, 2010 jmos; thanks so much for the detailed response! i'm glad your not upset that i'm 'biting your style'. I ended up buying everything you recommended except for the drive cage, but plan to pick it up in the near future with the card aiden recommended when the need arises. the only other thing left to acquire is the jumpers but i hope to find some laying around in the IT department at work. mr hutz; i used shopbot as per your recommendation and ended up buying components from newegg, bestdirect, monoprice, and tigerdirect. thanks for the tip, saved me a fair amount of loot. cheers. thanks again to everyone who has aided me in my first build! hopefully some pictures soon. -sean Link to comment
jmos1277 Posted December 7, 2010 Share Posted December 7, 2010 jmos; thanks so much for the detailed response! i'm glad your not upset that i'm 'biting your style'. I ended up buying everything you recommended except for the drive cage, but plan to pick it up in the near future with the card aiden recommended when the need arises. the only other thing left to acquire is the jumpers but i hope to find some laying around in the IT department at work. BAH ... what's there to be upset about. Glad to see that my build inspired you ... just as other folks' builds inspired me when I configured my machine. That's the great thing about the 'Pimp Your Rig' thread ... lots of inspiration. Good luck with your build ... looking forward to hearing how you make out with your first build. Link to comment
seanchronnery Posted December 23, 2010 Author Share Posted December 23, 2010 i have also posted this in the user customization board, but thought i might try here too. did you guys preclear your disks? I'm trying to preclear 3 wd20ears disks but so far am not having much luck following the instructions. This is where I'm at so far; I have put 'preclear_disk.sh' in the root of my flash drive through windows. I put my flash drive back in my mobo and boot up my unRAID box. After entering my username and password, I 'cd /boot'. From there, I can bring up the help by typing 'preclear_disk.sh -?'. I do not understand what all the '-parameters' really mean. These disks are new so I would like to preclear and then they will become my array (first build). Would someone be able to help me with the preclear script? Where do I find the name of my disk I wish cleared? I know it's obvious to most of you guys but I'm really new. To invoke this script you simply list the name of a disk you wish cleared as an argument to the command, as in this example: cd /boot preclear_disk.sh /dev/hdk thanks in advance sean Link to comment
mbryanr Posted December 23, 2010 Share Posted December 23, 2010 Easiest way is through the devices page of the server management utility The configuration tutorial should get you started: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Configuration_Tutorial#Preclear_Hard_Drives Link to comment
seanchronnery Posted December 23, 2010 Author Share Posted December 23, 2010 thanks you so much, mbryanr. Link to comment
seanchronnery Posted December 23, 2010 Author Share Posted December 23, 2010 while my disks are preclearing, I'm reading up on ways to transfer my old data stored on external hard drives to my unRaid box. I have found this thread; http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Mounting_an_external_USB_drive_having_an_existing_NTFS_file_system_in_READ/WRITE_mode_to_transport_files_from/to_unRaid_server the only problem being that my drives are formatted as Mac OS extended (journaled). Do I have any other options beside transferring data over my network using an app like ultracopier? If it matters I have ~4TB of data to transfer to my unRAID machine. thanks in advance, sean Link to comment
prostuff1 Posted December 23, 2010 Share Posted December 23, 2010 I just did a check on my 5.0b2 box and it appears that the hfsplus filesystem is not supported in unRAID. You would need this to be able to mount and transfer files from a USB drive to your unRAID array internally. EDIT: there is a an hfsplus fs in /lib/modules/2.6.24.4-unRAID/kernel/fs/ Check out this thread for a little bit of background. Link to comment
Joe L. Posted December 23, 2010 Share Posted December 23, 2010 You are probably limited to performing the copy over the LAN. Link to comment
prostuff1 Posted December 23, 2010 Share Posted December 23, 2010 You are probably limited to performing the copy over the LAN. Check out my edit and link above Joe L. I think this may work, though I have never tried it myself. A line could probably be added to to the unmenu.conf file as a MOUNT_OPTIONS so that hfsplus filesystems could be used with unMenu. Please correct me if I am wrong. Link to comment
Joe L. Posted December 23, 2010 Share Posted December 23, 2010 You are probably limited to performing the copy over the LAN. Check out my edit and link above Joe L. I think this may work, though I have never tried it myself. A line could probably be added to to the unmenu.conf file as a MOUNT_OPTIONS so that hfsplus filesystems could be used with unMenu. Please correct me if I am wrong. I think you are right. I'll add it now. It will make it very easy if you use unMENU. I'll post back to this thread once the newer version is uploaded to google.code. Otherwise, if you don;t want to wait, or do not want to use unMENU, you'll need to basically follow the directions in the other thread and do everything on the command line. Joe L. Link to comment
Joe L. Posted December 23, 2010 Share Posted December 23, 2010 unMENU will now load the hfsplus module and mount the hfsplus file system. (Use the "Check for/Install Updates" buttons on the user-scripts page to have it download the newer version of itself) Once you have the newer version installed, you can use the "Disk Management" page to mount (and if desired share) the hfsplus disk. Initially it will be mounted as read-only. There is a button to re-mount it as writable if absolutely necessary. (I'd leave it read-only for the transfers to load unRAID. At a later time you can experiment writing to the hfsplus file-system on a disk where the contents are expendable.) You'll need to use "mc" or native linux copy commands to migrate the contents. otherwise, they'll travel across the LAN twice copying from unRAID to your PC and back. Another possibility is to install unRAID-web through the package-manager of unMENU and use AjaxExplorer to copy your files to the unRAID disks. It will at least then not be copied over the LAN twice. Joe L. Link to comment
seanchronnery Posted December 23, 2010 Author Share Posted December 23, 2010 thanks prostuff1 and Joe L. i can update unMENU and mount an hfs+ disk but i'm not sure how to use Midnight Commander. could someone link a tutorial on how to install/use? thanks again for everyone's help sean Link to comment
Joe L. Posted December 23, 2010 Share Posted December 23, 2010 thanks prostuff1 and Joe L. i can update unMENU and mount an hfs+ disk but i'm not sure how to use Midnight Commander. could someone link a tutorial on how to install/use? thanks again for everyone's help sean It is already part of unRAID. Log in as "root" via telnet and type mc to invoke it. The disks will all be mounted under /mnt It is very similar to the ms-dos command of years ago. If you use "putty" as your telnet client the function keys and mouse will work. If not, Escape-1 (escape followed by numeral 1) is equivalent to F1. Escape-2 = F2, etc. Google "midnight commander tutorial" more details. here is one tutorial http://www.trembath.co.za/mctutorial.html Oh yes... the telnet client on MACs identifies itself as xterm-color. unRAID does not know that terminal type, so before invoking "mc" type: TERM=xterm export TERM Joe L. Link to comment
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