BillK

Thanks BRiT. Looks like I'll be purchasing the Supermicro SATA controller card after all...as well as upgrading to 4.5.6.

Thanks ohlwiler. Does this apply to all E3000 series Celerons? I saw a E3300 at my local Microcenter for only $39 today, but wanted to wait until I could ask.

Hmmm...I agree a Celeron E3200 would be slightly cheaper, and I know you say you're running one, but how can you tell from the MB's specifications? According to both Supermicro and Newegg, the C2SEA only supports: - Intel Core2 Extreme QX9000/QX6000 series - Intel Core2 Quad Q9000/Q8000/Q6000 series - Intel Core2 Duo E8000/E7000/E6000/E4000 series - Intel Pentium E5000/E2000 series - Intel Celeron E1000 and 400 series That would seem to leave out the Celeron E3200/3500.

Interesting....it certainly would cut cost. I wonder why Tom doesn't use them? Is it possible that 8 drives on one card, even if it is on a PCI-E bus, could become overwhelmed?

I'm a long-time unRAID user, but am now actively spec'ing out a new server. Why? Well....one part of me wants to say "why not"? ;-) But the real reason is that my current unit has not been as stable as I'd like. Too many funny glitches (see my postings under unRAID Server 4.3 and before), parity taking too long to build, and slooooow file transfers (from my PC to my unRAID server, not when streaming video which seems to work fine). So my primary goals are stability & speed. Here's my existing setup: MB: Asus P5PE-VM CPU: Intel Celeron D 2.53Ghz LGA 775 RAM: 1GB of Corsair ValueSelect 512MB 184-Pin DDR 400 (i.e., two sticks) Controllers: Two Promise SATA300 TX4 PCI SATA Controller Card - OEM HDD Enclosures: Two no-name 4-in-3 units PS: Enermax NoiseTaker II 600W (recently upgraded to a Corsair CMPSU-650TX 650W unit) HD: 8 SATA drives (mix of WD 1TB green drives to Seagate 500MB drives) And here's my proposed replacement: MB: Supermicro C2SEA, $124.99 CPU: Intel Celeron E1500 2.2 Ghz, $53.99 RAM: 4GB 1333 DDR3 (Two 2GB sticks), $87.98 Controllers: Two Adaptec 1430SA PCI-E cards, $209.98 HDD Enclosures: Two Supermicro CSE-M35T-1B, $199.98 PS: Reuse my Corsair 650W unit (single 12V rail) HD: Reuse my existing WD & Seagate drives Total cost (minus shipping & handling): $676.92 Most of the parts come from Tom's MD-1510 server specs. I initially found it odd he used two Adaptec 4-lane controller cards and one no-name single lane controller card, until I looked at the MB specs and realized there wasn't enough PCI-E slots to feed all 15 drives (I assume Tom's connecting quite a few directly to the MB). But that shouldn't be a problem in my case, as I can't see going above 8 drives (at least not yet). So...any recommendations or concerns? I noticed Intel Celeron E1500s are starting to get a little hard to find (newegg doesn't have any in stock), so I'm willing to migrate to a newer MB/CPU combination, particularly if there's more PCI-E slots. Thanks in advance. BillK

http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build-cheap-cloud-storage/ Let's see...4U in size...45 1.5TB drives...and all for under $8K! Now don't you want to be the first one on your block to own one of these bad boys!

If you know how to use those extra drives....go for it. I just didn't want you to be disappointed when unRAID wouldn't recognize them.

Well....I have to ask. Tom's "Pro" version of unRAID can address up to 16 drives. Why the push for 20+?

I don't, but have been trying to figure out how I can graphically monitor the health of the devices on my network. I just installed Nmap (http://nmap.org, which seems to do a decent job of discovering Linux resources, but not so hot for WIndows-based workstations (more experimentation to come). In addition, I don't believe it has a heartbeat mechanism, so the only way to tell whether a workstation is off or on (without walking upstairs and looking) is to rescan your network.

I'm not sure a fully loaded 10-12 disk unRAID box could fit your specification for either "low" or "ultra-low" power. I did a quick check on Western Digital's website and found the following specs for a single SATA drive: Raptor 150GB drive (high performance): Standby/Sleep: ~2.5 watts Idle: 9.2 watts Read/Write: 10.0 watts Cavier SE 500GB drive (mainstream): Standby/Sleep: 1.0 watts Idle: 8.4 watts Read/Write: 8.8 watts Cavier GP 500GB drive (power savings): Standby/Sleep: 0.3 watts Idle: 4.0 watts Read/Write: 7.5 watts So, unless I'm mistaken, a 10-drive unRAID server would draw 40 watts while idle and up to 75 watts during parity checks, even with WD's most efficient (power-wise) drives.

Having discovered that most rackmount cases pre-designed with built-in drive caddies are very expensive (as seen above), I went the DIY route: 1. I started with a relatively inexpensive 4U rackmount case (model S411/RA455A) for $139. 2. Added a large power supply (Enermax NoiseTaker II 600W) for $149. 3. And threw in two 4-in-3 SATA caddies (3141SATA Back Plane) for roughly $100 a piece (you can find similar ones at newegg). No, my case can't physically hold 16 drives (right now it's running with 8; 6 SATA, 2 IDE). But for $490 it can easily accommodate 10 drives by filling up the last two caddies, 12 if I didn't mind connecting another 2 IDE drives, or up to 14 if I went with twin 5-in-3 units. BillK P.S. I selected the 4-in-3 units (vice 5-in-3) because: a) availability/price, and b) the Promise controllers I was using could only handle 4 SATA drives, so I didn't see the need.

In your 4.1-beta1 to 4.1-beta2 bugfix list, I believe you're missing the word "allow" "Bug Fix: do not" allow "any user except 'root' log in to the console or telent." Other than that, I can't wait to download 4.1 and give it a whirl! BillK

Well....as in many things in life...the answer is "it depends". As Billped points out, these type of stacker units allow you fit more drives into a smaller space. And with more drives comes more heat and more noise. In addition, more drives put more load on your power supply, particularly when they first spin up. But here's where the "it depends" part of my answer kicks in. IF you have a large enough power supply (look elsewhere for best attributes) and your current level of heat/noise isn't a big factor (either because your case has plenty of airflow, you live in near the North Pole, etc.), then adding the stacker units shouldn't be a problem. I, for instance, use two 4-in-3 units in my rackmount case and like them a lot (6 of the 8 slots are filled with SATA drives and two IDE drives are mounted internally).

"if I wanted to run unRAID would these disks have to be formatted by unraid for it to work. Or would I be able to use these drives as is?" Yes, you would need to reformat the drives (unRAID uses the Reiser file system). "Thats the only concern I have right now, which is holding me back from purchasing." Well, you can always download the unRAID Basic software for free. It supports up to 3 disks (two data drives and one parity drive). If you pick up two new drives (one for data, one for parity) you can transfer the contents of one of the drives over after you have everything set up. Then transfer your new "extra" drive over to your unRAID server and repeat the process. Yes, I believe you can set up a unRAID server without a parity drive (temporarily reducing your purchase requirements to only one drive), but you lost any portion of the drive (corruption, bad sectors, etc.), the data would be lost.

I suspect the answer is "yes". Check on the Internet for software that allow you to establish a connection with your PC at home (PCanywhere, for example) - - assuming, of course, that your PC has access to your unRAID server.