My build, looking for advice and options for power supply

This is what I've come up with.  I want it to powerful enough to do unraid and I'm going to use it for other house management stuff so I might have a light web server and ssh running.  I'm trying to go for the lowest power for the biggest bang(both in cost and power).

 

For PSU's check out the reviews at SPCR.  I run a Corsair in mine which is very good and I like it very much.  If i had to change anything i would probably look into getting a modular PSU so that i could eliminate cable clutter.

Definitely look at 80plus.org then. The higher the efficiency rating at teh actual power you will draw the less heat and electricity it will use.

 

Smart research can save alot of money here.

A Corsair 400W or 450W would be good for something like 8 to 12 drives. They are fairly cheap too.

 

Check to ensure that processor will work in that motherboard. I don't think those are compatible. It seems about the only processor left that's worth considering with that board would be this one;

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103240

 

Also, there is a case CoolerMaster 590 that is cheaper. Not as nice but cheaper and quite usable. I've got one and would buy it again. I'd think the Lian Li has the advantage that it would be quieter but that Icy Dock fan will likely kill off any quietness advantage the Lian Li has.

 

Peter

The processor he picked out is most likely fine... at the most it would need a Bios update I think. As for powersupplies... you picked a good time to be looking for one:

 

First off go here - http://www.bing.com/search?q=newegg&go=&form=QBLH&qs=n click the link at the top that says 10% cashback at newegg (sign in or register for an account if you need one).

 

Then search for corsair 400w on newegg which should lead you to the Corsair CMPSU-400CX 400W PSU which is a fantastic powersupply and is only $30 right now after rebate. You'll get an additional $5 in cashback from Bing.com so you'll receive it for $25 in the end. I get charged 7% sales tax so I lose a lot of the cashback... but even at $30 that is an awesome buy.

 

I wouldn't hesitate though and just buy it now. It's been on sale since yesterday and it has gone out of stock before during one of these promotions.

Thanks!  I took some of the advice and made some adjustments to cut down on cost and power usage. How's this looking now?

 

Oh, and I have a Sony Micro Vault Tiny 2 GB USB Flash Drive (USM2GH/T2)  usb stick to run unraid off.

I would stick with a dual core CPU.  unRAID will not make use of it but if you decide to do anything else with it (PS3Mediaserver transcoding) then you will be happy that you have the extra horsepower.  Your also paying a premium for the 2TB drives, not sure i would be willing to do that but if you want to more power to yeah.  If it was me i would buy 3 of the Seagate LP 1.5TB drives for basically the same price and end up with 1TB more storage to start.

The reason I'm doing the 2TB is because they were green and 2 drives is less power than 3(or so I think).  How much extra power do the 1.5s draw over the "green" ones?  Is the power that much more on three drives over two?

 

If I add ~80 to the total I can get four 1.5TB and have 4.5TB of usable space with the parity drive right?

The reason I'm doing the 2TB is because they were green and 2 drives is less power than 3(or so I think).  How much extra power do the 1.5s draw over the "green" ones?  Is the power that much more on three drives over two?

 

If I add ~80 to the total I can get four 1.5TB and have 4.5TB of usable space with the parity drive right?

 

If you get the Seagate LP (Low Power) they will be fairly close to the WD Greens in power consumption.  And yes, you are correct that if you get 4 of the 1.5TB drive you will have 4.5TB's of parity protected storage.

The reason I'm doing the 2TB is because they were green and 2 drives is less power than 3(or so I think).  How much extra power do the 1.5s draw over the "green" ones?  Is the power that much more on three drives over two?

 

If I add ~80 to the total I can get four 1.5TB and have 4.5TB of usable space with the parity drive right?

 

If you get the Seagate LP (Low Power) they will be fairly close to the WD Greens in power consumption.  And yes, you are correct that if you get 4 of the 1.5TB drive you will have 4.5TB's of parity protected storage.

 

With unRaid would I see a different with the 5400?

The only drive that i would consider making faster would be the parity, perhaps going with a Seagate 7200 RPM drive instead of one of the LP ones that spin at 5900 RPM (if i remember correctly).  For playing back content from the server you will not see any difference

No.  Gigabit LAN is much slower than any hard drive, 'green' or otherwise.  The only thing you might want to consider is getting a 7200 rpm parity drive, since that will make your parity checks faster.  All your data drives can be 5400 or 5900 rpm, however.

 

E: you beat me to it, prostuff

The reason I'm doing the 2TB is because they were green and 2 drives is less power than 3(or so I think).  How much extra power do the 1.5s draw over the "green" ones?  Is the power that much more on three drives over two?

 

If I add ~80 to the total I can get four 1.5TB and have 4.5TB of usable space with the parity drive right?

 

If you get the Seagate LP (Low Power) they will be fairly close to the WD Greens in power consumption.  And yes, you are correct that if you get 4 of the 1.5TB drive you will have 4.5TB's of parity protected storage.

 

With unRaid would I see a different with the 5400?

Until recently, all drives were 5400RPM or slower...  You might see a difference in raw writing speed, but for normal operations, I don't think you will notice anything different at all, and certainly not bad performance.

 

It is a tough call.   a pair of 2 TB drives will give you 2TB of data storage.  Three 1.5TB drives will result in 3TB of storage.   You can shop around though... there are 7200RPM 1.5TB drives, just not as low-power, since they are spinning faster.

The only drive that i would consider making faster would be the parity, perhaps going with a Seagate 7200 RPM drive instead of one of the LP ones that spin at 5900 RPM (if i remember correctly).  For playing back content from the server you will not see any difference

Not sure why you would say this...  The commands to "read" a sector is issued in parallel to both a drive being written AND the parity drive prior to writing a sector.  The last one that responds dictates the overall speed.  It will really depend on chance, as the read head might be exactly where it is needed, or the disk may have to spin a whole revolution to get to the sector.  At worst case, the 5400 RPM drive will take longer to spin around once than the 7200 RPM drive.

 

Then, after reading their respective sectors, a "write" command is issued in parallel to both drives.  Now, we know the disk must make at least one revolution for the disk head to be over the same sector... in this case, the 7200RPM drive will write its block first, but the entire operation will not be complete until the 5400 RPM drive writes its block.  Yes, there are buffer caches involved, but in general, we will still be waiting for the 5400 RPM drive.

 

all that said, the network is the big bottleneck... the disk I/O speeds are way faster than the network.

 

when doing parity checks (and not writing data) having a 7200RPM parity disk does not speed anything up unless all disks are 7200 RPM.  We must read the equivalent sector from all the disks, and do the calculations, and compare to what is read from the parity disk.  as long as the read-ahead buffers are not full, the process will have to wait for the slowest drive to read its sector... it is not dictated by the fastest drive.

 

As you said, when playing your files, any disk is fast enough...  the network is way slower.

 

Joe L.

So if that's the case I should just get the 5400 ones, they're $10 cheaper.

So if that's the case I should just get the 5400 ones, they're $10 cheaper.

And, will probably use less power than the faster spinning drives too.

As you said, when playing your files, any disk is fast enough...  the network is way slower.

 

Joe L.

 

That is exactly what i was trying to say.  Was that he would not see any benefit from playing content on the server over the network with a 7200RPM drive vs a 5900RPM drive.

The only drive that i would consider making faster would be the parity, perhaps going with a Seagate 7200 RPM drive instead of one of the LP ones that spin at 5900 RPM (if i remember correctly).  For playing back content from the server you will not see any difference

Not sure why you would say this...  The commands to "read" a sector is issued in parallel to both a drive being written AND the parity drive prior to writing a sector.  The last one that responds dictates the overall speed.  It will really depend on chance, as the read head might be exactly where it is needed, or the disk may have to spin a whole revolution to get to the sector.  At worst case, the 5400 RPM drive will take longer to spin around once than the 7200 RPM drive.

 

Then, after reading their respective sectors, a "write" command is issued in parallel to both drives.  Now, we know the disk must make at least one revolution for the disk head to be over the same sector... in this case, the 7200RPM drive will write its block first, but the entire operation will not be complete until the 5400 RPM drive writes its block.  Yes, there are buffer caches involved, but in general, we will still be waiting for the 5400 RPM drive.

 

all that said, the network is the big bottleneck... the disk I/O speeds are way faster than the network.

 

when doing parity checks (and not writing data) having a 7200RPM parity disk does not speed anything up unless all disks are 7200 RPM.  We must read the equivalent sector from all the disks, and do the calculations, and compare to what is read from the parity disk.  as long as the read-ahead buffers are not full, the process will have to wait for the slowest drive to read its sector... it is not dictated by the fastest drive.

 

As you said, when playing your files, any disk is fast enough...  the network is way slower.

 

Joe L.

 

wow, thank you. All this time, I was planning to get a 2TB 7200RPM to replace my 2TB 5400RPM parity drive. Now, I know better.

I had time to look it up and that dual core you listed is in the CPU list for that board. So, it's a personal decision if you need the dual core or not. unRAID itself won't ever come close to using the dual core. I'd expect the single core to be utilized at maybe 1% to 2% at the most running just unRAID so if you don't stick anything else CPU intensive on the server then a dual core is probably overkill.

 

Your second list is pretty much the parts I'd pick except I'd likely do 1.5T drives since they seem the cheapest per gig right now.

 

Peter

 

The commands to "read" a sector is issued in parallel to both a drive being written AND the parity drive prior to writing a sector.  The last one that responds dictates the overall speed.  It will really depend on chance, as the read head might be exactly where it is needed, or the disk may have to spin a whole revolution to get to the sector.  At worst case, the 5400 RPM drive will take longer to spin around once than the 7200 RPM drive.

 

Then, after reading their respective sectors, a "write" command is issued in parallel to both drives.  Now, we know the disk must make at least one revolution for the disk head to be over the same sector... in this case, the 7200RPM drive will write its block first, but the entire operation will not be complete until the 5400 RPM drive writes its block.  Yes, there are buffer caches involved, but in general, we will still be waiting for the 5400 RPM drive.

 

all that said, the network is the big bottleneck... the disk I/O speeds are way faster than the network.

 

when doing parity checks (and not writing data) having a 7200RPM parity disk does not speed anything up unless all disks are 7200 RPM.  We must read the equivalent sector from all the disks, and do the calculations, and compare to what is read from the parity disk.  as long as the read-ahead buffers are not full, the process will have to wait for the slowest drive to read its sector... it is not dictated by the fastest drive.

 

As you said, when playing your files, any disk is fast enough...  the network is way slower.

 

Joe L.

 

Thank you Joe.  I initially wanted to argue the point, because I have always thought that a lower latency parity drive would make a difference, but I can't refute your logic.  The primary principle is that the parity drive is *always* used in tandem with one or more other drives, and therefore every operation involving the parity drive has to wait on the slower of the drives involved, most especially, the full platter rotation of the slowest drive.

 

We have been recommending that the parity drive be the fastest drive.  We should revise that slightly to be:  the parity drive should be *as fast as* the fastest data drive.  You can still justify a faster parity drive, if you know you will be adding faster drives in the future.