Apologies if I've posted this in the wrong place, I couldn't find a dedicated area for new system questions.

 

Could you guys take at look at my proposed plan and tell me where I might improve/change things before I press ahead. I'm inexperienced in Unraid and would really appreciate some feedback.

 

Overview

I work as a small business IT specialist and my wife as a commercial photographer, we both work from home (separate offices to maintain sanity) and share one heavily loaded server running several roles and nearing it's disk space and CPU capacity.

 

Backup is currently taken care of via CrashPlan, this backs-up the critical business and personal data to an office a few miles away and works great.

 

I intend to keep the current server as it runs our CCTV security software (BlueIris) for our IP-cams and allows fast (90Mbps/sec) file access that is ideal for my wife's photography work and the Virtual machines that I use. The goal is to offload the video,music,backups and non-business roles such as SabNZB,Sickbeard,CrashPlan and webserving to Unraid . This should free up the server disk space and CPU cycles for business use and CCTV.

 

I would also like to make the Unraid server a CrashPlan receiver so we can backup locally in addition to our off-site backup.

 

Does this all sound reasonable? I've been lurking in these forums for a couple weeks formulating my plans but wanted someone to give me an "all clear"' or "don't do X because ..."

 

Hope that all makes sense and appreciate any feedback,

 

Dan

 

Current Server roles on Windows Server 2008 (RAID5 4.5TB)

 

• DHCP server with static mappings
  
• CCTV software for 6 IP cameras
  
• SabNZB + SickBeard -> Move to Unraid
  
• AirVideo (for sharing video to our Ipads and Iphones) -> Move to Unraid (or too processor intensive?)
  
• VPN endpoint (we both access the server remotely for work)
  
• Abyss Web Server (with PHP) -> Move to Unraid
  
• VMWare server
  
• CrashPlan (initiator and reciever) -> Move to Unraid
  
• Lots of shares - Biz1(600GB) Biz2(1.1TB) User1(150Gb) User2(200GB) TV(900GB) Movies(>1TB) Music(40GB) Abyss-Web(2GB) -> Move Video, Music and backups to Unraid freeing up fast storage for business use
  

 

Proposed Unraid server roles

• Unraid Plus version 4.6
  
• Setup Shares (TV / Movies / Music / CrashPlan-BACKUPS / DiskImages)
  
• Install Crashplan as a reciever
  
• Install SabNZB + Sickbeard
  
• Install Web-Server (LAMP) ?
  

 

Proposed Unraid Server Spec <- Any show stoppers here?

• MB: Abit NF-M2S (recycled)
  
• CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ (recycled)
  
• RAM: 4GB (recycled)
  
• SATA interface: Adaptec 1430SA (need to disable runtime BIOS)
  
• 5 x 2TB WD Green EARS drives (Need to set jumper across pins 7-8 before pre-clear)
  
• 1 x 2TB WD Green EARS drive for Parity
  
• USB: Sandisk 1GB Cruzer
  
• CACHE DRIVE: 150GB WD RAPTOR 10000RPM (recycled) <- may not be necessary as we don't need fast access
  
• 4u Rackmount case
  
• 2 x IcyDock 5-in-3 enclosures
  
• LAN: RealTek GB
  

 

 

Proposed Unraid Server Spec <- Any show stoppers here?

• MB: Abit NF-M2S (recycled)
  
• CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ (recycled)
  
• RAM: 4GB (recycled)
  
• SATA interface: Adaptec 1430SA (need to disable runtime BIOS)
  
• 5 x 2TB WD Green EARS drives (Need to set jumper across pins 7-8 before pre-clear)
  
• 1 x 2TB WD Green EARS drive for Parity
  
• USB: Sandisk 1GB Cruzer
  
• CACHE DRIVE: 150GB WD RAPTOR 10000RPM (recycled) <- may not be necessary as we don't need fast access
  
• 4u Rackmount case
  
• 2 x IcyDock 5-in-3 enclosures
  
• LAN: RealTek GB
  

 

 

I don't know anything about the compatibility of unraid with the mobo and sata card you've listed here.  I'd say search the forums and see if others were able to get unraid working with these.

 

You listed six of the exact same hard drives (WD20EARS) in your proposed build.  It is recommended to use a mix of drives from different manufacturers instead of using all the same make/model drives.  This is because it's possible for multiple drives (same model from same manufacturer) to fail at the same time.  Mixing drive models from various manufacturers reduces the likelihood of having more than one drive fail at the same time.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Proposed Unraid Server Spec <- Any show stoppers here?

• MB: Abit NF-M2S (recycled)
  
• CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ (recycled)
  
• RAM: 4GB (recycled)
  
• SATA interface: Adaptec 1430SA (need to disable runtime BIOS)
  
• 5 x 2TB WD Green EARS drives (Need to set jumper across pins 7-8 before pre-clear)
  
• 1 x 2TB WD Green EARS drive for Parity
  
• USB: Sandisk 1GB Cruzer
  
• CACHE DRIVE: 150GB WD RAPTOR 10000RPM (recycled) <- may not be necessary as we don't need fast access
  
• 4u Rackmount case
  
• 2 x IcyDock 5-in-3 enclosures
  
• LAN: RealTek GB
  

 

 

The board should be OK, but before you trust it with any data run a full day memtest along with doing some md5 checksums on data you transfer over.  The southbridge on that board is an nForce 405, which is from the 4 series and may have corruption problems.  Check out the Hardware Compatibility Page for more info.

 

The Adaptec card should work just fine, but I would personally put in the Supermicro SASLP card.  It should work in your PCI-e x16 slot and give you 8 extra SATA ports at full speed.  You will need slightly different cables to hook the card up to the IcyDocks, but it should not be to hard.

Regarding the nforce4 chipsets...

 

See here in the wiki: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Hardware_Compatibility#Motherboards_.2F_Processors

It is recommended to use a mix of drives from different manufacturers instead of using all the same make/model drives.

 

I do not agree with this. Some will advocate not purchasing all of your drives from the same source, but I find that piece may be up for debate as well.

 

An EARS parity drive should have the jumper in as well.

Thanks for the great advice guys.

 

Seven: I purchased the drives from different suppliers over a period of 6 weeks, they all have different date codes. I see your point about using multiple manufacturers though - wish I'd considered this. That said I've managed to pre-clear all of the drives (6 of them) using the Adaptec controller - it took around 23 hours doing 3 at once.

 

prostuff1: I've ordered a Supermicro SASLP card + cables as suggested - should be here tomorrow.

 

Joe L: Thanks for pointing that out. I need this server to be completely reliable and don't want to risk stability because of a crappy motherboard. I'll look for something more suitable on the HCL.

 

ohlwiler: They all have the jumper set - took a while to find 6 jumpers though, the drives shipped bare!

ohlwiler: They all have the jumper set - took a while to find 6 jumpers though, they drives shipped bare.

 

I went to my local Microcenter and asked one of the staff guys there.  They sell the packs for 3 bucks or so, but I told them I only needed 5 so they gave me some that were sitting around in the back room.

to any/all, i will (within reason) ship some in a standard envelope if needed. PM me preferably or write back on this...