First unRAID Build (Australia)

[MrFryRye]

Hi,

I’ve decided to give unRAID a go after a Mate put me onto it. Any advice on the parts below would be greatly appreciated. Please keep in mind that I live in Australia and don’t have the luxury or Amazon, Newegg, etc yet.

 

What is your budget?

 

Excluding the HDDs, GPU and unRAID license I’m trying to keep it around the $2K (give or take ~$200) AUD.

 

How many drives?

 

8 is plenty for now. I currently have 5 Seagate Barracuda 3TB (ST3000DM001) HDDs from an old NAS that I plan on using along with 2 Samsung 850 EVO 500GB SSD that I’ll need to purchase. So with 1 parity drive I should have 12TB of total storage with 500GB of mirrored cache, right?

 

Is expandability important to you?

 

No, not really. I plan on getting a pretty future proof Server. The only thing I plan on upgrading is the EVGA GeForce GTX 460 (01G-P3-1370-KR) GPU that I’m moving over from my old PC. I might add an M.2 SSD drive as dedicated storage form my Windows 10 VM and maybe 1 more 3TB drive but that’s it.

 

Are you interested in running any unRAID Add Ons?

 

YES! I plan on using unRAID for many different purposes.

- As a NAS: This build will replace my current 15TB LaCie 5big NAS as a backup solution for various machines, stream all my Media files and host content on ownCloud.

- As an Application Server: I plan on using Plex Media Server, SABnzbd, Transmission, Sonarr, CouchPotoato, ownCloud and PS3 Game Server (PS3netsrv).

- As a Virtualization Host: This will be one of its primary roles. I’d like this to replace my old PC and run a Windows 10 VM for my day to day use. Alongside this, I’d like it to setup VMware Server (or ESXi) as a Test Environment that should be able to run several other VMs simultaneously.

 

 

Do you want to run green/low power drives or faster 7200 rpm drives?

 

I would love to but I already have my drivers.

 

Do you have any spare parts laying around that you would like to apply towards your build?

 

As previously stated, only the 5 Seagate Barracuda 3TB HDDs and an EVGA GeForce GTX 460 GPU. The rest will be new.

 

PARTS LIST

 

I’m trying to build a powerful, quiet, low power server with 'relatively' cheap parts available in Australia.

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1245 v5 ($450.45)

CPU Cooler: Do I need one? Is the stock one quiet and good enough? If so, I’d probably get the Noctua NH-D15 for $129.80.

Motherboard: Supermicro X11SAE ($439.00) [Alt: X11SAE-M for $335.38]

Memory: 2 x Crucial 16GB PC4-17000 ECC Unbuffered 288-pin EUDIMM ($328.02)

HDD: 5 x Seagate Barracuda 3TB (ST3000DM001) (N/A)

SSD: 2 x Samsung 850 EVO 500GB SSD ($478.96)

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 460 (N/A)

Case: Fractal Define R5 ($167.79)

Power Supply: Seasonic SS-400FL2 Platinum 400W Fanless Power Supply ($192.39)

EDIT New Power Supply: Seasonic SSR-650RM G-650 650W Power Supply ($162.84)

USB: SanDisk Ultra Fit 32GB ($13.20)

TOTAL: $2,049.26

 

Will this build work? Is there anything I’ve overlooked or should consider before purchasing this hardware?

Edited February 24, 2017 by MrFryRye

[garycase]

Looks like a very nice build with one exception:  A 400w power supply is lower than I'd recommend with a mid-range GPU card (or higher).   The GTX 460 specs recommend a minimum of a 450w system power supply; and in a server that will also have more hard drives than a typical desktop I'd go a bit above that => ESPECIALLY since you plan on using an even higher-power GPU eventually (you indicated you plan to upgrade your GPU).    With your current components, a 550w unit would be fine; but I'd bump that up somewhat depending on just what your GPU upgrade plans are.

 

Also, the stock cooler for an E3 series Xeon is fine.   No need for a 3rd party cooler.

[MrFryRye]

Thanks for the replay Mate. I completely overlooked the GPU power requirements! In that case I might go for the Seasonic SSR-650RM G-650 650W Power Supply. Turns out it’s cheaper as well! $162.84.

Good news about the cooler.

Thanks again.

[garycase]

You're most welcome.   The 650w Seasonic is an excellent choice.

 

[BetaQuasi]

Good to see another Aussie on board!  By the way, we can now order from Newegg.  The shipping prices are (relatively) reasonable on some items that are cheaper with the exchange rate, and I can say from personal experience that their RMA process is very simple, they even have a local warehouse for shipping faulty goods back to, and they ship replacements out very quickly.

 

 

[MrFryRye]

... Seriously! You Sir, have changed my life!! How long does shipping usually take? I swear, half the time I order parts from several sites to "save money" and end up paying more in shipping.

 

Thanks heaps for the info Mate!

[garycase]

Great news that you guys can now use Newegg.

 

Does Amazon also have an Australian presence (yet)?

[I know they're planning on it -- just not sure if it's there yet]

 

[BetaQuasi]

From memory, they have a normal shipping option, which takes ~5-6 business days, and a priority shipping which takes 2-3.  Something like that.. it's quite quick.  The hard disk I ordered from them wasn't packed in anything more than a couple of air pillows, so surprise surprise, it arrived faulty.  The RMA'ed drive was properly packaged though, so YMMV.

 

Amazon is quite close to opening here I believe.  I still find bargains ordering from the US site though - as long as it's direct shipped from Amazon US, the shipping is typically $12-$15, and the price difference works out cheaper than buying here.  They don't have a local RMA centre though, and when you advise them how much it will cost to ship a faulty item back, they just tell you to keep it haha.

[MrFryRye]

Wow, that’s quick! From what I hear, we’re meant to get our very own Amazon warehouse “first quarter of 2017” but that’s not looking likely. They are actively searching for employees in Sydney so it really can’t be too far off. I stopped using US Amazon after they refused to ship my first order then when I got one of those “US Address” services, AU customs told me I had to pay tax on my purchase (it was +$1K). I’m interested to see how competitive the AU Amazing prices will be for this type of Hardware.

[MrFryRye]

Hey Guys,

 

Thought I'd give you a quick update. I made a few minor upgrade to the build including an E3-1275 (not E3-1245), the larger X11SAE Motherboard, different model RAM, but still 32GB nonetheless, added 2 more 3TB HDDs, added an extra front fan for HDD cooling and changed from 2 x 500GB SSD's to 1 500GB NVMe SSD. All in all this build has exceeded expectations. 

 

As for the actual setup, I have 6 3TB Data Disks, 2 3TB Parity Disks, 1 500GB Cache M.2 SSD, 1 4TB USB Backup Device and everything works perfectly & quietly (except the GTX 460's, I'll explain later). The NVMe cache drive is insanely fast and 500GB is more than enough space for it. 

 

A few things Ive learned if you, like me, have OCD be very careful upper/lower case naming your shares. I named one of mine "BAckup" and eventually changed to to "backup" and it was not happy!!

 

Now the GPU Issues. Day 1 was spent diagnosing problems with a 2nd hand GTX 590 that was faulty from the start... And if it wasn't faulty before, it sure as hell is now. Day 2 was spent trying to get my 2 GTX 460's to working on a Windows 10 VM. It took me a long time to realize that the Win 10 VM BIOS was set to OVMF which requires UEFI compatible GPUs, not a feature in the 460's. I have got one of the cards to boot on Linux but as the sun was coming up I thought I better call it a night.

 

Is there anything I can look for in a GPU (besides UEFI compatible) that would help me pick a more compatible card? Or is it just research, the KVM VGA Passthrough spreadsheet and trial & error? Ive been considering purchasing on of Low Powered GTX 950 from EVGA (75W TDP!!) for a while now. It's 100% powered through the PCIe slot.

 

Hope you guys have a good weekend.

 

Regards,

 

Mr. F Rye

Edited April 11, 2017 by MrFryRye

[HellDiverUK]

ST3000DM001 are the famously terrible drives from hell.  See any article about BackBlaze.

 

I wouldn't prop the door with them.

[MrFryRye]

Yeah, I know. I had 10 of them lying around so it was either use them or shell out $1,000s on better ones. I have 2 spare, 2 in Parity and they all have past the Preclear so I plan to swap them out one by one as it becomes necessary. The beauty of unRAID!

[MrFryRye]

But you do bring up a good point. Would it be better to keep my drives spinning, or spin them down after some amount of time?