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post #31 of 226
1/17/13 at 3:50pm
Here's a list of the most popular add-ons for unRaid. http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/UnRAID_Plugins

I have been running mine 24/7 for over a year now with zero issues. When it comes to power consumption remember, unRaid spins down drives that are not in use. When I want to play a movie that is on a spun down drive it usually takes about 5 extra seconds to start.
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post #32 of 226
1/17/13 at 3:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dropkick Murphy View Post

Here's a list of the most popular add-ons for unRaid. http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/UnRAID_Plugins

I have been running mine 24/7 for over a year now with zero issues. When it comes to power consumption remember, unRaid spins down drives that are not in use. When I want to play a movie that is on a spun down drive it usually takes about 5 extra seconds to start.

I don't think that was necessarily meant to be a reply to my question, but if it was which ones are not achievable in W7?
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post #33 of 226
1/17/13 at 3:59pm
You can do so much more with a WHS server running Flexraid. It's not more $$$ either.
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post #34 of 226
1/17/13 at 4:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark_Slayer View Post

I don't think that was necessarily meant to be a reply to my question, but if it was which ones are not achievable in W7?

Does WHS have parity drives and drive pooling without additional software? Cache drives that write to the main array at a specific time(I love this)? Email when a drive fails? Different size drives in array? I can go on. Most of these can be added with additional software but at that point the cost is higher than Unraid Pro even. To each there own, I like unraid though.
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post #35 of 226
1/17/13 at 4:02pm
Flexraid works fine in w7 too.
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post #36 of 226
1/17/13 at 4:10pm
Thread Starter 
running WHS or w7 you need to have onboard raid on the mb dont you? unraid can do it via software.. thats my understanding at least. I am in the research phase right now. I cannot seem to find the correct hardware to build anything right and seems most ppl are suggesting to get a synology instead.
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post #37 of 226
1/17/13 at 4:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by djtoodles View Post

running WHS or w7 you need to have onboard raid on the mb dont you? unraid can do it via software.. thats my understanding at least. I am in the research phase right now. I cannot seem to find the correct hardware to build anything right and seems most ppl are suggesting to get a synology instead.

No, check out flexraid. Connect all your drives to sata ports (add more if you need through PCI cards) and software pool everything with parity protection

No need for mobo raid or additional raid card

Different size disks work just fine
Edited by Dark_Slayer - 1/17/13 at 4:22pm
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post #38 of 226
1/17/13 at 4:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by macks View Post

Does WHS have parity drives and drive pooling without additional software? Cache drives that write to the main array at a specific time(I love this)? Email when a drive fails? Different size drives in array? I can go on. Most of these can be added with additional software but at that point the cost is higher than Unraid Pro even. To each there own, I like unraid though.

Not without additional software, but I don't use an additional NAS or server either. I already had a full tower running w7, so it became the central storage unit for everything. I haven't installed flexraid yet, and I don't have any other type of parity protection. Snapraid offers this for free as far as I know, but I've never used it either. My drives are all pretty new, so I'm not too worried but I'll be adding this. From my standpoint, I've paid nothing extra yet until I shell out $60 for flexraid. I'm still able to keep this all in one case without needing an additional box runnning all the time
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post #39 of 226
1/17/13 at 4:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by djtoodles View Post

running WHS or w7 you need to have onboard raid on the mb dont you? unraid can do it via software.. thats my understanding at least. I am in the research phase right now. I cannot seem to find the correct hardware to build anything right and seems most ppl are suggesting to get a synology instead.

If only someone had taken the time to research and develop a set of guides answering these very questions...
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post #40 of 226
1/17/13 at 4:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by macks View Post

Cache drives that write to the main array at a specific time(I love this)?

Why a cache drive? Is unraid realtime or snapshot. I'd probably always run a snapshot raid with a daily parity rebuild
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post #41 of 226
1/17/13 at 4:33pm
From another thread a week or so ago...but may work for you as well
Quote:
Originally Posted by kevin g. View Post

HP Proliant N40L...RAID 0/1...out of the box. Pretty big userbase out there. WHS 2011//FREENAS, w/XBMC...Solaris...take your pick
Guys are running HD 5450/6450 to handle what the CPU cannot. I have a 5450/WHS 2011/PLEX running 24/7...(still setting up, mind you, but am very pleased) You can regularly catch some good combo deals at NewEgg, sometimes with a drive, sometimes RAM...I caught it with 2 extra gigs of RAM for 269.00
Quote:
Originally Posted by eaadams View Post

Yes I've been looking at those HP Proliant's for a while. I'm waiting for an update and may jump on that.

But it isn't too much of a HTPC. I'd like minor HTPC use also.
.
There are a lot of guys using as HTPC duty...I guess it depends on how you intend to utilize it. It may not be a conversion or transcoding BEAST, but for file transfer, and storage...it works for my needs. The GPU in the 5450 will take the load off the CPU for video/audio...
I have spec'd a couple of builds using Assassin's guide, and this was my least expensive route...(I already had the 5450, and a 1tb drive...) I would still love to build a nice rig, but cannot justify spending the extra.
Right now, waiting to get the warranty repair on my Onkyo 807, so I can put my theater back in order, and see how it looks on my projector.

Recently (last week) on sale with a RAID card combo and a MFR mail in rebate...
Overclockers Forums have an over 500 page thread on the N36 and N40...Modded with up to 7 drives...(the ODD area can fit an additional 2-3 drives, and the bios can be modded to give the ODD port full SATA speed...right now it is in IDE for ODD...)
Edited by kevin g. - 1/17/13 at 4:42pm
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post #42 of 226
1/17/13 at 5:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark_Slayer View Post

Why a cache drive? Is unraid realtime or snapshot. I'd probably always run a snapshot raid with a daily parity rebuild

It's a write cache drive. When you copy something to the array it doesn't write it until a prescribed time. It does this by having another drive that spins up and stores this data. Let's say I decide to rip dvd's all day Saturday. With the cache drive my array only spins up at midnight. If I didn't have a cache drive then it would be spinning all day. Reads are only done on the drive that the data is stored but writes spin up the whole array to write parity.

In essence it should extend the life of my drives. It also might make writes a little faster, probably not though.

I used an old laptop drive for this.

I haven't ever ran flexraid or snapraid but I'm sure they are both good programs.

I thought WHS offered mirroring of folders/files but not an actual parity drive.

In my experience most electronics seem to fail in the first year or are fine for many years. YMMV

I believe I just used the guide on unraid's wiki. I'm sure Assassin's guide is good too.
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post #43 of 226
1/17/13 at 5:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by macks View Post

It's a write cache drive. When you copy something to the array it doesn't write it until a prescribed time. It does this by having another drive that spins up and stores this data. Let's say I decide to rip dvd's all day Saturday. With the cache drive my array only spins up at midnight. If I didn't have a cache drive then it would be spinning all day. Reads are only done on the drive that the data is stored but writes spin up the whole array to write parity.

I see now. Flexraid would accomplish this in snapshot mode. You schedule a snapshot parity rebuild at midnight, all of the writes you perform are to an individual disk (as are reads)
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post #44 of 226
1/17/13 at 5:45pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by kevin g. View Post

From another thread a week or so ago...but may work for you as well
Recently (last week) on sale with a RAID card combo and a MFR mail in rebate...
Overclockers Forums have an over 500 page thread on the N36 and N40...Modded with up to 7 drives...(the ODD area can fit an additional 2-3 drives, and the bios can be modded to give the ODD port full SATA speed...right now it is in IDE for ODD...)
Not 100% on it but look at it say the max size drive it will take is 2TB drives. I wonder if thats due to the bios issue with drives 3tb and larger. that might be a deal breaker....

Is there any basic settings to follow for building a nas server? I wonder if i can build a box similar to the DS1512+ for a lot cheaper.
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post #45 of 226
1/17/13 at 5:48pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by macks View Post

It's a write cache drive. When you copy something to the array it doesn't write it until a prescribed time. It does this by having another drive that spins up and stores this data. Let's say I decide to rip dvd's all day Saturday. With the cache drive my array only spins up at midnight. If I didn't have a cache drive then it would be spinning all day. Reads are only done on the drive that the data is stored but writes spin up the whole array to write parity.

In essence it should extend the life of my drives. It also might make writes a little faster, probably not though.

I used an old laptop drive for this.

I haven't ever ran flexraid or snapraid but I'm sure they are both good programs.

I thought WHS offered mirroring of folders/files but not an actual parity drive.

In my experience most electronics seem to fail in the first year or are fine for many years. YMMV

I believe I just used the guide on unraid's wiki. I'm sure Assassin's guide is good too.
I work in IT but I am not too involved in the storage side but it sounds more like a SAN solution with the cache options. It should actually make the iops for moving files significantly faster. its causing it to pre-write before its stripping across the drives.
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post #46 of 226
1/17/13 at 5:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by djtoodles View Post

Not 100% on it but look at it say the max size drive it will take is 2TB drives. I wonder if thats due to the bios issue with drives 3tb and larger. that might be a deal breaker....

Is there any basic settings to follow for building a nas server? I wonder if i can build a box similar to the DS1512+ for a lot cheaper.

The betas of unraid support 3TB drives(they are very stable). I never bought the 3TB drives b/c the 2TB drives were a much better option when I built my server.
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post #47 of 226
1/17/13 at 6:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by assassin View Post

If only someone had taken the time to research and develop a set of guides answering these very questions...

If you had a dollar every time you plug your guides you wouldn't have to sell them
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post #48 of 226
1/17/13 at 6:10pm
Thread Starter 
so what do you guys recommend as a pc build for me if I do my own?

only thing I have found so far that seems like a good case is http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112339

not really sure if the build needs ATX or ITX.... but thats a nice case. I would prefer an intel build as well. focus on previously mentioned task with low power, low noise..
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post #49 of 226
1/17/13 at 6:25pm
Unless you are concerned with looks I would go with a heavy steel case. If you want to run a transcoder on Unraid then I will leave the cpu suggestions to someone else. I would suggest at least looking at a micro atx motherboard so it is possible to expand your hdd's in the future.
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post #50 of 226
1/17/13 at 6:29pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by macks View Post

Unless you are concerned with looks I would go with a heavy steel case. If you want to run a transcoder on Unraid then I will leave the cpu suggestions to someone else. I would suggest at least looking at a micro atx motherboard so it is possible to expand your hdd's in the future.
I am not married to either to be honesst. They make a similar case that is for micro atx. I honestly dont see myself expanding past 5-7 drives. if that ever happens I would just buy a new case.

TBH i dont really care if it does transcoding or not. As i said my samsung tv can do direct play so it doesnt need transcoding. Sure it would be nice, but not needed.

I am just curious what the pricing to do it myself would be vs a synology. that will be my deciding factor.
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post #51 of 226
1/18/13 at 4:33am
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131841 $99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116407 $79

Here is a mini-itx mobo with 6 sata and a 35W processor since you are concerned with efficiency. This will be much faster than the various NAS solutions mentioned above.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352027 $89

A lot of people complain about finding a psu that will fit in the Lian Li case. This one looks very similar but fits a "real" ATX PSU.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151086 $39

Seasonic has a high reputation for making some of the best PSU's. This is an extremely efficient PSU.

Memory: Doesn't matter much spend less than $20.

Preconfigured unraid plus flash drive: $89

Total $410

Going with a micro-atx config would bring this down a bit. Going with an atom config would bring this down a bit too(might lose sata ports though).

There are many much cheaper ways to do this.
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post #52 of 226
1/18/13 at 5:09am
Quote:
Originally Posted by djtoodles View Post

Not 100% on it but look at it say the max size drive it will take is 2TB drives. I wonder if thats due to the bios issue with drives 3tb and larger. that might be a deal breaker....

Is there any basic settings to follow for building a nas server? I wonder if i can build a box similar to the DS1512+ for a lot cheaper.

I don't have any 3tb drives, but I have read they work fine...
WHS, however, does not support larger than 2tb drives...so if that is still in the running for your OS, you may want to re-think that
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post #53 of 226
1/18/13 at 5:37am
well its not only servers that can't do 3 or 4 TB drives I tried one on a new win8 pro with intel chipset and newest intel drivers.
new asus Z77 and an H77 mb and flashed new bios on the H77 and still sees a 2tb and a 1tb and can't do anything with the 1tb partition.
The 4TB was mass confusion to the system. plugged it in and it saw a 2tb and an unformatted no size given area. it was confused.
Edited by etrin - 1/18/13 at 5:42am
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post #54 of 226
1/18/13 at 6:26am
I'd get a cheaper simpler case. Good cooling and good amount of HDD is all you need. $50 or less. Antec 300 like model.

I'd get an ATX or mATX board. Whichever is cheaper. Size is important with servers. They aren't on display a d can often be hidden away. Bigger is better cause you can get more inside and it's easier to build and work with. Look for a mid ATX cheap tower at minimum.

For motherboard i I would look at an AsRock 77 board under $80.

CPU I'd get a $55 g860 3.0ghz from superbiz.

You don't need a SATA card (yet)

PSU = $19.99 Coolermaster 460 watt on sale newegg now. That's the ultra cheap option.
Otherwise perhaps a 29$ Antec neo 400 watt is next step up in quality.

You should check out my server thread. I'm about a year ahead if you. I'm going on me second rebuild. First build was an ultra cheap build get my feet wet. Now I am trying to do it right.

You can make a server for $300 easily that will give you tons of room to grow and expand.

If you want a link let me know
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post #55 of 226
1/18/13 at 6:31am
Btw- in skimming this thread I see a lot of " can't" "Won"t" "beta". "Limited" etc..

All talking about NAS box limitations.

That doesn't happen when you build a server.

NAS ready made boxes are noob. They only make sense for noobs that value the set up of them more than the limited options/ performance.

There is not really a price advantage.

I'd challenge anyone post a for sale NAS box and I'll post a better server build for same price.
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post #56 of 226
1/18/13 at 6:46am
NAS ready made boxes are noob. They only make sense for noobs that value the set up of them more than the limited options/ performance.

NAS boxes have there place and they do a very good job in that place.

PSU = $19.99 Coolermaster 460 watt on sale newegg now. That's the ultra cheap option.
Otherwise perhaps a 29$ Antec neo 400 watt is next step up in quality.

The PSU is a component that I am always happy to pay an extra $20 to get a high quality model.
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post #57 of 226
1/18/13 at 6:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by etrin View Post

well its not only servers that can't do 3 or 4 TB drives I tried one on a new win8 pro with intel chipset and newest intel drivers.
new asus Z77 and an H77 mb and flashed new bios on the H77 and still sees a 2tb and a 1tb and can't do anything with the 1tb partition.
The 4TB was mass confusion to the system. plugged it in and it saw a 2tb and an unformatted no size given area. it was confused.

My understanding is that all UEFI motherboards support 3TB and 4TB drives. Some manufacturers claim they can get these drives to work on an old-fashioned bios with a software utility. I would guess you don't have an UEFI bios and need to use a software tool to make your 3TB and 4TB drives work.

On another note: I highly doubt that WHS doesn't support 3TB+ drives. There is even software to use 3TB+ drives on winxp.
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post #58 of 226
1/18/13 at 7:12am
The 2tb cap is a limitation of the backup technology...no one is saying you "can't use" a 3tb (or larger) drive, but WHS will bust it up into it's own partitions. And partitions that are not equal , or do not seem to make logical sense. There may be a workaround...I am not "server savvy" enough to know...YMMV
A quick google will tell you all you want to know.
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post #59 of 226
1/18/13 at 8:08am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by macks View Post

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131841 $99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116407 $79

Here is a mini-itx mobo with 6 sata and a 35W processor since you are concerned with efficiency. This will be much faster than the various NAS solutions mentioned above.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352027 $89

A lot of people complain about finding a psu that will fit in the Lian Li case. This one looks very similar but fits a "real" ATX PSU.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151086 $39

Seasonic has a high reputation for making some of the best PSU's. This is an extremely efficient PSU.

Memory: Doesn't matter much spend less than $20.

Preconfigured unraid plus flash drive: $89

Total $410

Going with a micro-atx config would bring this down a bit. Going with an atom config would bring this down a bit too(might lose sata ports though).

There are many much cheaper ways to do this.
THank you for this. What is that CPU comparable too? I thought everything now adays was either atom or i3, i5 or i7.

Do I gain an advantage 1 way or another going matx or mini itx?

Also you said I dont need a sata card now... is that just because it already has 6 slots? i am guessing 1 of those needs to be used for freenas or unraid so I will be able to have 5 useable drives for storage?
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post #60 of 226
1/18/13 at 8:16am
Quote:
Originally Posted by macks View Post

NAS ready made boxes are noob. They only make sense for noobs that value the set up of them more than the limited options/ performance.

NAS boxes have there place and they do a very good job in that place.

PSU = $19.99 Coolermaster 460 watt on sale newegg now. That's the ultra cheap option.
Otherwise perhaps a 29$ Antec neo 400 watt is next step up in quality.

The PSU is a component that I am always happy to pay an extra $20 to get a high quality model.

That's why I listed seasonic made neo as next step up.

I've used that coolermaster $20 PSU in my older server. It's now in my brothers HTPC. I don't mind matching a cheap PSU to a cheap motherboard and system. I have the Neo Antec in my own HTPC. My server has 120$ Rosewill now.

I have an 80+ gold Rosewill now that's considerably more money when I upgraded my server.

Thera a place for $20 PSU in a $40 motherboard system with $40 CPU and $20 ram.

I've owned three of those PSUs and never had a problem. They are all still working great.

I have a $200 PSU in my desktop.

I'm not afraid to spend when it makes sense but I'm not sure if OP has budget.

I think that $20 PSU from Coolermaster is significantly more reliable than your average NAS box. They been sell thousands for years.
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