[Deviant Khan]

I'm about to start purchasing for the unRAID NAS server and wanted to see if there's anything I'm overlooking here. I've read the unRAID build thread and I'm trying to construct what will eventually be a (16) 2TB NAS server supporting 30TB (2TB for parity).

I didn't really like the Antec case, and I really liked the sleek design of the Lian Li case. It appears to come with the fans and the bay conversion is fairly limited. It has (10) 3.5" bays and (5) 5.25" bays. I'd use a 4-in-3 and two converter bays to give the extra (6) 3.5" bays. That'd give the room for the (16) HDDs. Based on screen shots it already comes with a single 5.25" to 3.5" converter. I am interested in potentially a cheaper option for the extra single 5.25 to 3.5" converter, but I didn't want to sacrifice quality.

[Case] $169.99 LIAN LI PC-A70F USB3.0 Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower Computer Case
[MOBO+iGPU] $54.99 ASRock Socket AM3/AMD 880G/Hybrid CrossFireX/A&V&GbE/MATX Motherboard 880GM-LE
[CPU] $39.99 AMD Sempron 145 Sargas 2.8GHz Socket AM3 45W Single-Core Desktop Processor SDX145HBGMBOX
[PSU] $39.99 CORSAIR Builder Series CX500 V2 500W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply
[RAM] $8.99 Crucial 1GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) Desktop Memory Model CT12864BA1067
[USB] $13.98 Patriot Xporter XT Boost 8GB Flash Drive (USB 2.0 Portable) Model PEF8GUSB
[BAY] $15.98 SNT SNT-125B Black 3.5" SATA Hard drive to 5.25" Bay SATA Mobile Rack Removable Hard drive kit
[BAY] $23.11 Cooler Master 4 in 3 HDD Module Device - (STB-3T4-E3-GP)

The MOBO has (6) SATA2 ports. The PCI-E SATA2 controller card gives (2) SATA2 ports. The PCI-E x4 card gives (2) SAS ports. Using two of the 1:4 breakout cables gives me 6 (MOBO) + 2 (PCI-E) + 8 (PCI-E x4).

For the power connectors the PSU has (5) SATA connectors. It also has (4) peripheral connectors. I'd use three 4-pin to (4) SATA connectors. That gives me (12) additional SATA connectors for a total of (17), which covers the HDDs.

[MOLEX] $9.81 (3) 24inch 4pin MOLEX Male to (4) 15pin SATA II Female Power Cable (Net Jacket)
[MOLEX] $3.29 NSI LK-13813 1x4-pin Molex male to 3x4-pin Molex Female Power Cable Splitter - 6inch
[SATA] $2.37 (1) 36inch SATA 6Gbps Cable w/Locking Latch (90 Degree to 180 Degree) - UV Red
[SATA] $32.40 (15) 36inch SATA 6Gbps Cable w/Locking Latch (90 Degree to 180 Degree) - UV Blue
[SATA] $18.46 (2) 0.5m 30AWG Internal Mini SAS 36pin (SFF-8087) Male w/ Latch to SATA 7pin Female (x4) Forward Breakout Cable - Black

I'd need to buy two SATA2 controllers using the PCI-E and PCI-E x4 slots. I'd likely wait to purchase the PCI-E x4 until I absolutely needed it.

[PCI-E] $12.04 SATA2 Serial ATA II PCI-Express RAID Controller Card (Silicon Image SIL3132)
[PCI-E] $115.98 SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8 PCI Express x4 Low Profile SAS RAID Controller

Hard drives I'm pretty much screwed short-term on with the flooding in Thailand. I was planning on getting all WD20EARS, but I'm questioning that when factoring on price and the warranty reduction. Thoughts?

[BuRNiN_BoNeS]

I don't know, but I'd say you better put more ram in it than a single 1gb stick... if you are going to have that much HD and use it for a NAS its going to need some thinking power beyond 1gb, nonetheless a single stick.. I have never really had good luck with a single bank in any build

[PANiCnz]

Using two of the 1:4 breakout cables I lose (2) ports, but gain (8) more. 10 - 2 + 8 = 16.

You realize that's a SAS card right and not a SATA card? Yes you can get cable that convert one SAS port to four SATA ports but there's no way you'd plug any consumer grade harddrive directly into the ports on the card. Your logic is flawed.

[tantal]

Have you looked at the recommended builds on Lime's forum? I would at least use 4 gb of ram (because ram is cheap) and you will likely add new packages over time that use more ram. The big thing though is you should consider the 8 port sata card, http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name...dd-on-Card. This is the one I use, and many others do as well.

Check out this thread:http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=7998.0

I recently built a server with a G620 and a supermicro m/b with 8 onboard sata ports, allowing me to support 16 drives with just the add-on card and the m/b ports. The 620 is a bit more money, as is the board, but this board can take another card and eventually support 24 drives. Note; this board requires a vid card, but an old ati rage 8 mb is cheap and consumes little power. Here's my build, in case you are interested:

mb - Supermicro C7P67
cpu - Intel G620
ram - 4 gb of cheap microcenter DDR3 1333 ram
SATA controller - AOC-SASLP-MV8, PCIe x4
video card - 8 mb ati rage =), PCI

[Deviant Khan]

You realize that's a SAS card right and not a SATA card? Yes you can get cable that convert one SAS port to four SATA ports but there's no way you'd plug any consumer grade harddrive directly into the ports on the card. Your logic is flawed.

I based that off THIS THREAD where eskro has the following listed:

also needed, a 8 Port PCI-Express x4 Sata Card ($100)
also needed, a Internal Mini SAS 4 Plugs Forward Breakout Cables ($11,25)

How would my setup differ from what eskro posted?

[Deviant Khan]

The big thing though is you should consider the 8 port sata card, http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name...dd-on-Card. This is the one I use, and many others do as well.

Is that not what this one is? I just found it off of NewEgg instead of the other vendor site.

[PCI-E] $115.98 SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8 PCI Express x4 Low Profile SAS RAID Controller

I will read through the links to see about any changes or tweaks. Also, I'll definitely update my original post shortly to include more memory. Any thoughts on the HDD dilemma?

[spartan711]

Sorry to pile on, but are you sure you even want to build a server right now? With current hard drive prices, there's no way you will use it effectively within the year. I would buy an old tower/comp on craigslist, put 1 or 2 hard drives in it, and call it a day (or year). When hard drive prices fall, then you can build the server. That's what I would do.

P.S. - I was about to launch a server store where people could buy everything they need to build their own servers, or purchase them pre-built by me, but with the hard drive situation I decided to put it off. Would anyone be interested?

[T800]

I don't know, but I'd say you better put more ram in it than a single 1gb stick... if you are going to have that much HD and use it for a NAS its going to need some thinking power beyond 1gb, nonetheless a single stick.. I have never really had good luck with a single bank in any build

My 20TB movie server has only 1x1GB ram in it. Never had any problems. I don't run Sickbeard/SAB etc on it though only UPS and unmenu.

[tantal]

Is that not what this one is? I just found it off of NewEgg instead of the other vendor site.

I will read through the links to see about any changes or tweaks. Also, I'll definitely update my original post shortly to include more memory. Any thoughts on the HDD dilemma?

I'm sorry, I didn't see your reference to the 8 port card; I guess I stopped reading after looking at your SATA config. Regarding the HDD choice, it is a personal one. Personally, I prefer a mix of drives; I don't like the idea of buying a number of them all at the same time from one manufacturer - too risky. WD is my least preferred manufacturer, but again, this is personal preference. I have 3 wd drives and one of them refuses to be controlled by the wdidle program and will thus fail early - I will be lucky to get a year out of it. This idle problem causes me to simply not buy wd drives right now.

Regarding your server setup; you are spending a lot of money on it, and this is the reason I would not buy the cheapest mb you could find. You want reliability and flexibility. I chose my supermicro for several reasons - the first is they have a great reputation with unraid. The second is that this board has two pciex4 slots, so I can support 16 drives off only the 8 port SATA cards. The third is that the board has 8 SATA ports on the board. There is one downside to this (and many current) m/b - it has the realtec nics (2 of them) that require you to use a recent unraid beta. I'm using beta13 and it is absolutely fine, but keep this in mind. Unraid is supposedly near the end of their beta cycle, so this should go away. I am about to post my level 1 and level 2 certification of this board running 5.0b13, so stability is not an issue, and I have copied about 7 tb to the array as configured.

Just a few thoughts for you. Good luck.

[Deviant Khan]

Sorry to pile on, but are you sure you even want to build a server right now? With current hard drive prices, there's no way you will use it effectively within the year.

That is a concern and I'm considering an incremental setup. In other words, I may not buy the 8-port SAS card, 4-in-3 bay converter, or 1-in-1 bay converter to begin with. I'd instead opt to add those on at a later time when the HDD prices come down, and I am able to start to reach the limits without them.

However, some of those components are not likely to decrease that much in price. It may end up that I decide to build everything except the HDDs just so I pop them in when I get good prices; I haven't decided. That and making sure I'm not missing anything in my overall plan is what prompted the thread.

As it stands I have a couple HDDs running on my gaming machine, and I'd like to free that up. I'd really only have to buy one more as a parity drive to support the configuration.

This idle problem causes me to simply not buy wd drives right now.

How common is the idle problem where it won't take the wdidle change? I actually wasn't even aware of the need to do this before, and will try to do it on my existing WD20EARS HDDs when I get home.

Regarding your server setup; you are spending a lot of money on it, and this is the reason I would not buy the cheapest mb you could find. You want reliability and flexibility.

In regard to flexibility I only really need whatever the case itself will support, which is up to the 16 HDD. Having 8 SATA2 ports and 2 PCI-E x4 slots seems like it's overkill for what I'd be using. It would be great to support a 24 HDD setup though. Do you have a link to this other MOBO that you're recommending? I'm always interested in comparing if for no other reason than to make me comfortable with my decision.

Reliability is a big concern. This MOBO has extremely good ratings on Amazon, Newegg, and a Google products search. Price, for me, is a product of necessity. If I scale down the MOBO to only support what I need then it will be less expensive, but I want to avoid introducing needless risk by sacrificing quality.

[tantal]

Here is the mb I bought - I picked it up at my local microcenter.

http://www.microcenter.com/single_produc...id=0360066

And Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/C7P67-Desktop-Moth...B004TR7Y4A

However, I paid only $110, so it looks expensive here.

Rajahal has a number of good options and I recommend checking out his experimental builds (your mb may well be on his list). I built with expandability in mind, because as I use my server there is more and more stuff I want to put on the thing!

Finally, another reason I chose this board and forgot to mention is that I really wanted to use the G620 due to its incredible low idle power, its dual core, and it is fast when you need it - I would like to run some unraid apps on my server as I learn what I am doing with it.