I took the plunge and instead of waiting around I ordered what was available now

hopefully i didn't make some compatibility mistakes if so in this stadium i can still make changes.

Will get drives in local store when most of the system has arived. Have had bad experience with harddrives and postal orders.

 

 

 

 

 

OS at time of building: 4.7

CPU: Intel xeon x3440

Motherboard:  SuperMicro MBD-X8SIL-F-O

RAM: Kingston ValueRam Dual Channel 4 GB, PC3-10666, 1333 MHz, 9, ECC, Kit Of 2 (KVR1333D3E9SK2/4G)

Case: Zalman MS1000-HS1 Black

Drive Cage(s): 2x  Icy Box IB-555SSK - info seems copied from their 4 drive version, this one is 5

Power Supply: Seasonic X-660

SATA Expansion Card(s): 1 x  AOC-SASLP-MV8

Cables: Sata Cables included with Icy Box drive cage , 1x 3ware SFF8087OCF-05M and 1x 3ware SFF8087OCF-10M

Fans: Zalman included in case 2x 120mm

USB Stick Sandisk 8 GB USB Drive Cruzer Blade

 

 

Parity Drive:  1x 2TB Hitachi 7K2000

Data Drives:  3x 2TB WD EARS +  1x 2TB samsung F3  (+1 spare WD EARS) +2 WD EARX

Cache Drive:  -  1TB Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C (HDS721010CLA332) mainly used for transmission

Total Drive Capacity: 12  TB +1 TB (current max 14 drives)

 

Primary Use: fileserver for media streamer, backup, torrent downloads, maybe usenet

Likes: should be good components,plenty power, hopefully energy efficient. usb slot on MB, can add any drive whenever you need it. and last but not least..  Great Community!

Dislikes: price, max 16 drives.(case limit afaik) only one parity drive. not the fastest write speeds, I'm a Linux noob

Add Ons Used: unmenu, Transmission, clean powerdown, apcupsd, cache_dirs

Future Plans: adding a drive when space is needed and keep doing this till out of space

 

using a very cheap meter  (tested together with a 41w light bulb on/off)

currently:

3 HDD installed 2 in array

1case fan, 1 cpu fan, 1 cage fan active

 

idle 70- 73w (disks spun down)*

idle 83w (disks spun up)

building parity 85W (3 disks total now)

 

*had it running overnight with transmission working from the cache and the meter gave 50 watts

 

currently: parity check 5 drives, transmission active on cache drive, 2 drives preclearing= 110w

 

Boot (peak):TBD

Idle (avg):TBD

Active (avg):TBD

Light use (avg):TBD

 

 

added and APC back ups 650 to protect from power outages

 

 

 

 

 

 

Future plans

-possibly better fan for cpu or fanless

-extent MB powercables

 

I'm using that same flash boot device. Very inexpensive and all plastic but been working just fine.

 

If All goes well it will be sitting safe inside the case. i just hope it will last for many years. the way I understand it if you flash drive fails you have to repurchase your license with a new usbdrive.

before I was looking at the Super Talent Pico-C usb stick. but read some reports of it losing all its data and having to be reformatted.

I hope everything is delivered by next weekend. most things had to be back-ordered.

I haven't heard of anyone having to re-purchase unRAID. I think what happens is you send them an email explaining what happened with your serial and they'll send you a new key.

 

I dont think that's official though so LimeTech is far better off commenting on this

Picked up the case yesterday and wanted to see how the drive cages fitted.

Unfortunately the cage didn't fit because the case has some metal flaps sticking out to guide 5.25 inch devices. After trying a hammer and then a clamp I gave up and went out to get an dremel.

With my new toy it was easy to cut away metal the flaps from the outside of the case. i left some that could carry the cages.

here are some pics

 

now all i need is the rest of the stuff

 

 

Cool stuff. Since all this is new to me I banged down all my metal flaps. If I knew my hard drive cages wouldn't align on the other side I would have left some in there. But having 6 screws in on one side and the fit being really tight there's no where for the cage to move anyway.

Banging the flaps down was  the first thing i tried. the metal was hardly moving so it didn't seem like a viable solution.

I think i will have plenty of room for the motherboard judging for the screw holes.

The motherboard will reach the forth slot on the back of the case.

You will have about 1/3rd free on the bottom of the case

 

 

that makes sense, sound like there is plenty of room.  

 

just have to see how easy it is to guide the cables.

picked up my PSU today. now  it's just trying to figure out the optimal cooling configuration.

first of all I want more air to enter the case than to exit so there is a positive pressure.

The PSU is mounted fan side down. I expect the PSU fan to be turned off most of the time anyway.  This way it would prevent under-pressure if to many fans pull air out of the case.

 

If using standard setting this would mean the drive cages would draw in the air while the top and back fan would blow out the air.

an alternative would be to turn around all the case and cage fans, having the case fans pulling all the air in. and the cage fans blowing out.

this way it will be easier to use dust-filters. (credits to lionelhutz for making me think out of the box   )

the only thing i have to test is whether turning around the cage fans the cooling will remain as good.

in the picture you can see where the air is drawn in in the back of the cage. I wonder how turning the fan around will affect cooling of the drives that will sit on the right.

 

 

changed to a different shop that had stock on the retail version of the MB, hopefully both the cpu and MB will be delivered tomorow, fingers crossed.

 

UPDATE

cpu delivered, MB delayed till tomorow

 

UPDATE 2

-MB + CPU + MEM installed -memtest passed

-get the system to see the hardrives   -success

-installed unmenu

-installed screen

-preclearing - all good

-changed idletimes to reduce headpark count form 8 to 300 sec -likely not an issue on datadrives  but better safe than sorry (link and link)

-added data drives to array

 

 

current step:

thinking out strategy for split levels and shares

 

 

 

 

 

 

next steps:

-copy data

-setup parity drive

- security ?

- add extra drive (to cache or not to cache)  and/or for torrent/usenet

-?

-?

 

future:

experiment with fan directions

clean up the case

 

any tips or corrections welcome

 

By the way, you might want to change the title of this thread, as the X8SIL-F is actually a different motherboard from the X8SIL-F-O that you used.

 

Comparison

 

I recommend the X8SIL-F-O as it has more expansion slots (and the price is the same).

are you sure?

that's weird, the super-micro site only seems to make distinction between the X8SIL and the X8SIL-F both actualy have  2 (x8) PCI-E 2.0 slot and  1 (x4) PCI-E (using x8 slot)

 

on the supermicro site X8SIL-F is either listed as X8SIL-F-O (retail) or X8SIL-F-B (bulk)

 

is it a mistake by newegg ? or is there a version not listed on the supermicro website?

 

i'll change it since in the end  did get the retail version instead of the cheaper bulk that was out of stock

 

cheers!

 

 

 

Perhaps it is a mistake on Newegg's end, I don't know.  The specs are different though (at least according to Newegg).  The X8SIL-F has no PCIe x4 slot, whereas the X8SIL-F-O does.  The RAM compatibility appears to be different as well.

I guess we'll never know , no reason for anyone to take a risk and order an possibly inferior MB

some more pics

 

 

 

Is there a reason that 5n3 has 10 Sata Ports on the back?

Pretty.  I do like the looks of those Icy Box trays.  Where did you purchase them?  Newegg doesn't carry them.

 

kizer: One set of SATA ports are for SAS drives, the other are for SATA drives.

Uh, LOL I didn't even think of that. Looking at their website they have dealers in

Aus

Thiland

I purchased them in Holland some shop had a deal on them

Saw them first at www.xcase.co.uk when i was looking at the norco cages.

 

think the icy box are originally from taiwan like so many things in the world of computers.

original site ? here

european site here

 

from the manual

C.  Connecting the SATA Cable

 

1) SATA HDD: take the blue connector.

2  SAS HDD:

   - take the blue connector for single channel.

   - take the blue and green connector for dual channel.

 

so far I Can't find any links to an US shop they may well be sold under a different brand name.

 

 

 

 

It looks like there are very small slots for airflow, not to mention no slots for the drives to the right. Are all of the 5in3 setups like this?

yes indeed it seems like that. but in practice the airflow seems to be good in normal use.

when you fill it up with drives it will be easier to pull air in from the far corner.

here are some pics from the inside, not as beatifull done as some but it does the job

All the sata connectors  from the Mobo are connected

not sure why the mobe uses an  FEBADC patern for sata connectors  I rather have an ABCDEF.

also you can see that this mobo is a bit better suited for rackmount cases or cases with the PSU on the top. Here i have to cross the entire motherboard to connect the power.

 

Nice build. I would exchange the CPU fan with one mounted vertically and blowing to the back so that airflow is streamlined.

was investigating the possibilities for replacing the cpu fan.

on page 2-2 of the manual it states " If you buy a cpu separately, make sure that you use an intel-certified  multi-directional heatsink only"

not sure what that means but I think it means the fan has to face the mobo.

 

apart from that the cpu is placed a lot lower than it would be on a "normal" mobo were it would be in the top left corner.

 

also I'm not Really sure what aftermarket cooler would fit without hitting components on the mobo or even the power or sata cables.

 

that being said the cpu cooler is currently probably the loudest component in the server and would be happy to replace it.

^^ Multi-directional as in more than one direction There are several aftermarket coolers that perform much better than the stock HSF and orientations vary.