Hello!

 

I've been watching this forum for a while now, and have been aware of unRAID for just as long.  It's always been interesting to me, so I figured I'd go ahead and pull the trigger to build one of these sweet little servers.

 

Here's the part list of what I'm planning on building.  One thing I've been trying to figure out is how to determine if the Gigabit Etherne (built into motherboards) run off the PCIe line or are dedicated?  I'd prefer dedicated, but will there be a huge performance difference? 

 

Without further delay, here's what I'm planning on building:

 

Case: CODEGEN 4U-500-CA Black Aluminum/Steel 4U Rackmount Case  (will buy - wanted to put into my Middle Atlantic rack)

Backplane: AMS DS-3151SSBK Aluminum 3.5" Black SATA SATA Backplane Module

Processor: Intel Pentium E2160 1.8GHz Socket 775 (will buy)

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-G33M-DS2R  (will buy)

Memory: Corsair Value Select PC2-5300 2GB VS2GBKIT667D2  (will buy)

Hard Drives: Seagate 300GB x 5 (already have - have a few more drives hanging out that I'll just plug in once I get it up and running)

Hard Drive: (Parity) - Seagate 750GB x 1 (will buy)  (Would you recommend going with a large parity drive like this and keep the rest at or below?)

Power Supply: Seasonic S12 650w

 

Am I missing anything here?  Anything you would change?  Is this overkill?  Am I asking too many questions? 

 

Thanks for your help.  I'm really looking forward getting this altogether so I can have one central location for all my media files.  My computers and extenders will be happy!  Which, by the way, are either running vista or are Xbox 360s.

 

Thanks!

 

 

Memory is overkill.  I bought 1GB and that is unlikely all being used.

 

There is no need to have parity bigger than the rest of the drives, though that would make upgrading a bit easier.

 

Mobo - just make sure it will boot off of USB and the ethernet is supported.  If someone else has one and can confirm it works, then you're fine.

 

 

Bill

 

 

I agree about the Memory and the Parity Drive.

 

There's no point paying for 1 x750gb.  Use one of your current 300's as parity until prices drop a little more then buy a pair.  Then you can use 1 for parity 1 for 750gb of storage and re-introduce the previous 300gb parity drive as a data drive.  It depends how much data you need to store.  Your mobo has 6 Sata connectors from what I can tell so you'll also need an additional sata card at some point.

 

Can I also suggest that if you can find a decent deal on them that locking Sata cables are a good thing.  I really wish I'd used them as mine often fall out when I'm tidying the "sata spaghetti" in my unraid.  I will get around to replacing them one day.

 

Mark.

The Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R motherboard uses the Realtek RTL8111B network chipset, so see this thread:  http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=967.0.

 

As to your 'PCIe line or dedicated' question, the RTL8111B chipset is PCIe-based, which is about as 'dedicated' as you can get, as far as I know.  The only way to be faster would be a better buffered chipset like some of the Intel Pro 1000 chipsets onboard, PCIe based.  Perhaps you were thinking of the loss of performance for PCI-based chipsets.

 

The Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R motherboard uses the Realtek RTL8111B network chipset, so see this thread:  http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=967.0.

 

As to your 'PCIe line or dedicated' question, the RTL8111B chipset is PCIe-based, which is about as 'dedicated' as you can get, as far as I know.   The only way to be faster would be a better buffered chipset like some of the Intel Pro 1000 chipsets onboard, PCIe based.  Perhaps you were thinking of the loss of performance for PCI-based chipsets.

 

 

You are correct.  I was thinking of loss of performance for PCI-based chipsets.  I read about it somewhere here on the forums.  I just want to make sure that if I'm pulling files from 3-4 different areas that I don't get sluggish performance.  If there are better Motherboard options out there, with better network options I'm all ears.  This one caught my eye, and I've been reading that Gigabyte has had some nice boards as of recent. 

 

Thanks for your help!

Perfect.  I'm still learning how unRAID works.  Here I go reading again, but I was focused on having  that large parity as everything else needs to be equal or lower than the parity.  But what happens if you go higher than the parity?  Sounds like I can rebuild without any data loss per your reply.  Man I need to brush up on my knowledge here!

 

I did read in that Gigabyte manual that it can boot via USB per the BIOS settings.  There were several "USB" options in there, but can't recall them exact except for "USB - FDD", which I would assume is it, right?  What seems to be the "Top 3" motherboards here to use with unRaid?

 

Thanks for the tip on the locking SATA cables.  I'll definitely get those.

 

So, 2GB of memory is overkill.  Sounds good to me!   

 

A couple more questions...

 

1) Is the processor fast enough to handle HD streams...say backups of Blu Ray and/or HD-DVD?  And MCE HDTV recordings?

2) Is it possible to set the unRAID server to be my "master recorder" in Vista MCE?  Or should I just record to my dedicated HTPC and off-load to the server for all to enjoy on my network?

 

Thanks to the both of you for your help!

 

 

 

 

 

Memory is overkill.  I bought 1GB and that is unlikely all being used.

 

There is no need to have parity bigger than the rest of the drives, though that would make upgrading a bit easier.

 

Mobo - just make sure it will boot off of USB and the ethernet is supported.  If someone else has one and can confirm it works, then you're fine.

 

 

Bill

 

 

 

 

I agree about the Memory and the Parity Drive.

 

There's no point paying for 1 x750gb.  Use one of your current 300's as parity until prices drop a little more then buy a pair.  Then you can use 1 for parity 1 for 750gb of storage and re-introduce the previous 300gb parity drive as a data drive.  It depends how much data you need to store.  Your mobo has 6 Sata connectors from what I can tell so you'll also need an additional sata card at some point.

 

Can I also suggest that if you can find a decent deal on them that locking Sata cables are a good thing.  I really wish I'd used them as mine often fall out when I'm tidying the "sata spaghetti" in my unraid.  I will get around to replacing them one day.

 

Mark.

I Handn't appreciated that the board you have chosen uses the same 8111B chipset as my mboards.  I'd hold off for now on that, I get next to no network performance beyond unRaid 4.0 due to driver issue.  I know Tom is working on it, as posted in my thread on that link, but until it's resolved I wouldn't buy a 8111b nic chipset Mobo.

 

Perfect.  I'm still learning how unRAID works.  Here I go reading again, but I was focused on having  that large parity as everything else needs to be equal or lower than the parity.  But what happens if you go higher than the parity?  Sounds like I can rebuild without any data loss per your reply.  Man I need to brush up on my knowledge here!

 

No, parity needs to be at least as big as the other HDDs.  The point was that if you buy an expensive 750gb HDD now you'll still only be protecting up to 300gb (or whatever your largest data drive is.  Better to use one of those 300gb HDDs for the parity and not buy the 750gb for now as prices only ever seem to go one way.  When you need more space buy 2 x 750gb HDDs at a hopefully cheaper price later, then swap the current parity HDD with one of the new 750's and use the other for data.  The previous parity HDD can be reintroduced to the array as an additonal 300gb of data storage.  Of course I don't know how much stuff you have to store right now.  I store archived CCTV footage, business data and well as my media so I need LARGE unraids.

 

So, 2GB of memory is overkill.  Sounds good to me! 

Absolutely, I have 512mb in one and 1gb in the others and can't tell the difference.

 

A couple more questions...

 

1) Is the processor fast enough to handle HD streams...say backups of Blu Ray and/or HD-DVD?  And MCE HDTV recordings?

 

I'm not familiar with these data streams but as a principle the CPU won't be the deciding factor on data streaming rates, theres no processing of streams by the unraid, it merely delivers them.  Your CPU won't make ANY difference from my understanding.  I have a 2.3 Celeron in most of mine mine from memory.

 

2) Is it possible to set the unRAID server to be my "master recorder" in Vista MCE?  Or should I just record to my dedicated HTPC and off-load to the server for all to enjoy on my network?

 

I've no experience here either, but writing to the unraid isn't as fast as writing to your PC due to the fact the parity is also being calculated real time.  I'd record to the PC them archive to the unraid afterwards.  It's what I do with CCTV footage.

 

One thing I do however is I have all my family itunes account store their contents directly to the unraid for protection & convenience and they write just fine, a little slower but not an issue.

 

Good luck,

 

You will love your unraid I'm sure,

 

Mark.