Planning my first 16 drive unRAID server

Hello

I'm pretty far in the planning stage of my first unRAID server.  It's going to have a SSD cache drive, and the ability to have 15 spinning drives.

The MB was a hard choice.  Idle power consumption is important to me however.  Is there a well supported Haswell MB that supports IPMI?  I was considering the X9SCM-iiF as well.

How is this looking?  Any advice before I start making my purchases?

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

Motherboard: SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCM-IIF ($189.00)

CPU:  Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($225.48 @ SuperBiiz)

Memory:  G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($157.33 @ NCIX US)

Storage:  Samsung 840 EVO 500GB 2.5" Solid State Disk  ($309.00 @ Amazon)

Storage:  Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($182.99 @ NCIX US)

Storage:  Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($182.99 @ NCIX US)

Storage:  Seagate  4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($179.99 @ Newegg)

Storage:  Seagate  4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($179.99 @ Newegg)

Case: AZZA Solano 1000 Black ($114.99)

Drive Cage: Supermicro CSE-M35T-1B Mobile Rack x 3 ($345.00)

Controller: Velocity Solo x1 ($49.00)

PSU: SeaSonic X Series X650 Gold ($139.99)

Controller: IBM Serveraid M1015 SAS/SATA Controller 46M0831 ($100.00)

Fan Controller: NZXT Sentry Mesh Fan Controller w/ Five 30 watts Channels ($21.99)

Total: $2377.74

(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-11 18:41 EST-0500)

Just curious why you're planning to mix 5400rpm and 7200rpm drives ... and NAS-rated vs. consumer-grade drives?

Any of the drives can easily outperform a Gb NIC ... so for streaming it doesn't matter;  and for parity checks, the speed is limited by the slowest drive currently "involved" in the check (all drives in systems where they're all the same size) ... so a faster rpm drive doesn't matter.

Just looked up the ST4000VN000 Seagates -- these are, in fact, NAS-rated drives ... but they're also NOT 7200rpm drives (as you had listed).  They spin at 5900rpm (slightly faster than the WD Reds).

Ok, thanks for that info.

I'm mixing drives because I heard it was a good idea to mix drives and manufactures.  I figured I would get 2 of each, and then see which I like better and then stick with that for my next drive.

What I'm most curious about is any sort of motherboard suggestion that could support Haswell and IPMI.  I would like my system to be as low power and possible when idle.

Thanks.

Here's my updated build....I switched to the SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SLM+-F-O and Xeon E3-1240V3 which you recommended in a previous post:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1240V3 Haswell ($279.99)

Motherboard: SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SLM+-F-O uATX ($194.99)

Memory:  G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($157.33 @ NCIX US)

Storage:  Samsung 840 EVO 500GB 2.5" Solid State Disk  ($309.00 @ Amazon)

Storage:  Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($182.99 @ NCIX US)

Storage:  Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($182.99 @ NCIX US)

Storage:  Seagate  4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($179.99 @ Newegg)

Storage:  Seagate  4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($179.99 @ Newegg)

Case: AZZA Solano 1000 Black ($114.99)

Drive Cage: Supermicro CSE-M35T-1B Mobile Rack x 3 ($345.00)

Controller: Velocity Solo x1 ($49.00)

PSU: SeaSonic X Series X650 Gold ($139.99)

Controller: IBM Serveraid M1015 SAS/SATA Controller 46M0831 ($100.00)

Fan Controller: NZXT Sentry Mesh Fan Controller w/ Five 30 watts Channels ($21.99)

Total: $2438.24

(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-11 22:33 EST-0500)

Wrong memory.

You want unbuffered ECC modules:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148770

By the way, it certainly doesn't hurt to mix the drives -- although with a combination of WD Reds and Seagate NAS units you're not likely to like one any better than the other ... they're both superb units and will likely be VERY reliable.  (and both have excellent warranties)

I've used them both, and don't really have a preference.    The Seagate drives are marginally faster, but the WD Reds use a tad less power ... so it's really  a wash.

Thanks for the heads up about the memory Garycase.

At the advice of Doron I've changed the motherboard to the X10SL7-F, it looks perfect for my needs.  With that plus the Velocity Solo x1, I won't need an additional controller card.

Here is where I'm at now:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1240V3 Haswell ($279.99)

Motherboard: SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SL7-F-O uATX ($249.99)

Memory:  Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($186.61 @ OutletPC)

Storage:  Samsung 840 EVO 500GB 2.5" Solid State Disk  ($309.00 @ Amazon)

Storage:  Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($182.99 @ NCIX US)

Storage:  Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($182.99 @ NCIX US)

Storage:  Seagate  4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($179.99 @ NCIX US)

Storage:  Seagate  4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($179.99 @ NCIX US)

Case: AZZA Solano 1000 Black ($114.99)

Drive Cage: Supermicro CSE-M35T-1B Mobile Rack x 3 ($345.00)

Controller: Velocity Solo x1 ($49.00)

PSU: SeaSonic X Series X650 Gold ($139.99)

Fan Controller: NZXT Sentry Mesh Fan Controller w/ Five 30 watts Channels ($21.99)

Total: $2422.52

(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-12 08:47 EST-0500)

Looks good - be sure the memory modules you buy are ECC modules ... the description you listed doesn't include that; but the links to the vendors DO show that they're ECC modules now (unlike the earlier ones).

I posted my build on reddit, and someone suggested I look at this CPU:

http://ark.intel.com/products/75463/

I was wondering your thoughts about using CPU.

I'm asking because low power consumption on idle is important to me.

Thanks.

Both CPU's will idle at the same power consumption level. Using the 1265L v3 won't save you anything on your power bill and it also has an IGP which you don't need. Stick with the E3-1240 v3.

As dirtysanchez noted above, the "L" series CPU's don't really idle at lower wattage than their non-throttled cousins ... they simply will never exceed the rated TDP.    Think of this as a "governor" on an automobile engine ... it doesn't change the characteristics of the engine while it's running below the governed point;  but it won't let it exceed the settings of the governor.

I'd stay with your original choice of the 1240v3

Why 16gig of memory? Will this be an ESXi server as well as run unRAID?

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Those Seagate drives as part of your build?  Just saw this post they were on-sale today at NewEgg. 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=31356.0

Would the Supermicro X10SLM or X9SCM support full fan speed control and standby from within the unRAID scripts?

Don't forget to shop combos on your MB and CPU at Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1519373

That's about a $40 savings.

Also, why exactly do you need the Velocity Solo x1?  Or is that just to take advantage of a PCI slot instead of one of the Sata III channels on the MB?

You can compare CPU types very detailed and get a summary at cpuboss.com, here an example:

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Xeon-E5-2603-vs-Intel-Xeon-E5-1620

Any reason you're going with that tower case and the drive cages when you could get something like the Norco 4224? With that the you get 24 bays for drives and it'll cost you about $75 less. Since you're planning to virtualize those extra bays could come in handy for other VMs you may run. For instance, I run an OpenIndiana VM that runs a 4 disk ZFS pool that I use as the datastore, via NFS, for all my VMs.