cheap unRaid NAS build

[Thaddeus Smith]

I'm currently in the parts collecting phase, but figured I would start a thread to catalogue my budget build of an expandable NAS system for the storage of movies and music, which I stream to my oppo.

I currently have a Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ (traded a Nook color for it), which works well but is limited to: 4 drives total, max 2TB each. Older SPARC architecture which doesn't support many of the popular and useful add-ons which make owning a NAS worthwhile.

So I started looking into DIY NAS options and unRaid came up as both the most user AND home theater/media friendly. I can expand up to 21 drives, with no limitations on drive size or combination. I can install all sorts of media related add-ons such as Plex server, tools for automated content downloads and organization, content streaming (both locally and externally, to HT devices and my computers, iOS devices). http://lime-technology.com/

And of course, I'm on a budget.

So i managed to score a free Dell Poweredge SC1435. It's a 1U rackmount server with dual AMD processors and 8gb of RAM. It holds two hard drives and has one pci express slot. Not ideal, but not impossible to work with either. I can install two 2TB drives internally (which, I just so happen to be trading a guy my Netgear ReadyNAS for two 2TB drives) and throw in a pci-e card with two eSata ports for external drive enclosure.

Enter this item, and my only real expense aside from the unRaid license to support this many drives: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132016. It holds 8 drives, has great reviews, and even includes a pci-e eSATA card. wicked.

I just so happen to have eight 500GB drives I got from an IT buddy here at work. I'm pretty sure I can craigslist a couple of items to cover the cost of the above enclosure.Bonus.

So once I get everything put together I will have about 5.5TB of storage and complete flexibility in future expansion, with very little - if not any - out of pocket expense. Awesome.

Pics and updates to follow in the coming days/weeks.

[Guest " "]

sounds good. it seems every year I add storage. the new "thing" is always bigger and cheaper than what I have now. next up will be a g-raid mini which stores 1.5 striped and .75 mirrored. existing is 2 g-raid units at 1 T each. Cold stand by's are 3 segate 1T drives. As long as I have two copies and 1 original of everything I'm good.

[Thaddeus Smith]

sounds good. it seems every year I add storage. the new "thing" is always bigger and cheaper than what I have now. next up will be a g-raid mini which stores 1.5 striped and .75 mirrored. existing is 2 g-raid units at 1 T each. Cold stand by's are 3 segate 1T drives. As long as I have two copies and 1 original of everything I'm good.

your logic is sound - but that sure is a lot to keep up with.

[CECAA850]

You lost me at NAS. Let me know if whatever you're building needs a subwoofer.

[elitedemo]

I don't fully understand nas but get the concept and was considering something similiar. I was thinking about adding a htpc under my tv so I could keep storage and stream everything, but then I could already do that if I toss on some extra hd's to my existing pc. Went out yesterday and picked up a 2tb hard drive dedicated for tv shows and movies to rip on and stream to both xbox360s via a program called tversity, awesome little thing covers tons of formats. Everything I'm streaming is 720p for now until I get more storage as even 720p files are still HUGE. Although I guess it doesn't matter much as netflix and hulu both only carry 720p and seem to be narrow in content.

Both 360s are wired so all shows show up blazing fast with no delay and theres no goofy gui like netflix and hulu to have to sort through not to mention the subscriptions and the lag times. The lag in the gui and streaming seem to get worse by the day with both of those companies. I guess once I build up my collection a bit more those companies can hit the curb. I've been very disappointed in streaming thus far from both companies.

Wish I would have started this a while ago and definitely before the flood in taiwan that drove up hd prices. Downside is apparently xp only covers 2tb drives so I might have to upgrade this pc depending on how far I dive in, or maybe break down and do a nas setup as well

[Thaddeus Smith]

You lost me at NAS. Let me know if whatever you're building needs a subwoofer.

::begin nerd::

Network Attached Storage, buddy. So i can have my Music and Movies on a dedicated device, with all sorts of disk duplications. Keeps my data protected, while also making it possible to access my media on: Oppo/TV, iPad, laptops, etc. - both at home and while I'm out and about.

The problem with many commercial options is that they are typically quite expensive, and often times you don't have the flexibility to expand your storage capacity as you add more media. So I'm going the DIY route to both future proof my expansion capabilities and give myself the flexibility in which software I use to connect all of my devices.

::end nerd::

[CECAA850]

Ahhhh. Interesting. Not a DIY I'd tackle.

[Mallette]

I've done away with dedicated NAS as three of my six home PCs have RAID built in and adequate room for drives. Further, I am seeing no performance deference between that and a dedicated NAS.

Of course, it has to be on all the time, but that isn't a problem because I put my 6tb RAID share drive in my Windows Home Server which stays on all the time anyway...

Dave

[Thaddeus Smith]

I've done away with dedicated NAS as three of my six home PCs have RAID built in and adequate room for drives. Further, I am seeing no performance deference between that and a dedicated NAS.

Of course, it has to be on all the time, but that isn't a problem because I put my 6tb RAID share drive in my Windows Home Server which stays on all the time anyway...

Dave

seems reasonable in that scenario. we're a laptop/iOS house, so not as feasible.

[Rudy81]

I like the idea. Coincidentally, I am about to build a similar system for my home. I have all the parts waiting for me at home since I am away on business. I have been wanting to add a networked NAS system to store and backup my files from various home computers. So, my plan is to build a FreeNAS based storage system that will also serve as a media server for my HTPC.

I am using my current HTPC motherboard as the basis of the new FreeNas machine. It has an AMD Athlon 2 processor on an Asus M2N SLI Deluxe board. I am bringing the memory up to 8Gig in order to take advantage of Raid5. Although the board has hardware Raid, my research has convinced me that software Raid is safer to run than hardware based. I will be using three enterprise 1TB drives to store all the data. That machine will be in my office. For the new HTPC, I am using an Asus EM35M1-M Pro board with passive cooling for noise control. That too will have 8GB of memory since it is so cheap.

The plan is to install Win 7 in the HTPC and stream my music from the FreeNas server to the HTPC in .flac lossless. Just to be on the safe side, I am upgrading the local network to Gigabyte LAN capabiltiy to ensure I don't have any transfer speed problems. The new HTPC should be practically silent if I can keep the case fan as quiet as possible. I have been using Win XP for my lossless music, but the system has to be 'massaged' in order to bypass the Windows Kmixer and allow lossless streaming. Win 7 should allow the WASAPI interface to easily transfer lossless music to my preamp using JRiver Media Center as the front end.

I am very excited about getting this system up and running.

Let me know how your build goes.

[Rudy81]

BTW, why are you streaming to your Oppo vs. your preamp? I also have an Oppo and had planned on streaming the music ( I don't keep movies in storage) directly to my Integra pre/pro.

[Rudy81]

I'm really glad I ran into your post. I'm researching unRAID right now and like the system. From my cursory review, it looks like it provides more space compared to Raid5, has similar fault tolerance to Raid5, but is a little slower in performance than Raid5. It seems installation and maintenance is simpler than FreeNas and allows for the substitution of various sized drives as well as the addition of more drives to the array....very interesting.

Thanks for bringing this issue to the forum.

[Thaddeus Smith]

Sounds like you've got a good plan, and I think unraid will be much better suited to your home needs over freenas. Glad I could help.

I've actually changed my plan a little bit. I've decided to separate the media streaming/access function from the storage piece. I have a second AMD desktop just being unused, so I'm going to throw that hardware into a high density drive case and set it up for NAS. The dual proc, 8gb ram 1u server will have all of my various streamers, downloaders, media converters, etc. These too will be talking over gig-e Ethernet.

My avr is from 2007 and the only integrated media support it has is for rhapsody, which is slow and crappy at best. So everything will be presented through my oppo, due to its wide media support and the fact that I can do blu-ray, music, Netflix, and digital movies all in a single device.

[Rudy81]

My streaming plan was to stream the NAS box to my HTPC, use the media center front end and then HDMI the contents to my pre/pro. I will have to research what I can do with the Oppo as an alternative. I do use VUDU and BD on the Oppo, but had not looked into using it to access the NAS.

You were right, unRAID is excellent for our needs. The more I read on the subject, the more I like the implementation of their NAS solution.

[Thaddeus Smith]

Gotcha, my 1u server will serve a similar function as your htpc, it just won't be connected to the tv. Instead it will be the gateway between the data on the NAS and all off my various devices. S the server will run DLNA software which will allow the oppo to have native access to the files, th en transmit over hdmi to my receiver for output to the tv and speakers.

Simple enough, eh?

[Rudy81]

I understand your setup proposal. Should work very well. In the interum I was looking into how Oppo handles network access to music libraries. It seems one issue that will sway me away from using the oppo is the way it presents the music library. I am very used to the flexibility of my JRiver Media Center and the way it presents your entire library. Extremely easy access. Looking forward to your build.

[Rudy81]

After several days of weighing the advantages and disadvantages of FreeNas and unRAID, I have settled on unRAID. Thank you again for posting this thread. I like the system's flexibility and I think it will be perfect for a home media server and secondary backup for my network machines. If you don't mind, I will post my build on this thread so we can compare notes as the systems develop. If you would rather, I can start a separte thred. I don't want to hijack your build thread.

[Thaddeus Smith]

no wadded panties in my pants, sir. Add and contribute as you see fit - this isn't a dedicated build thread, so much as a discussion topic not often seen here on this forum, so I wanted to call it out and provide my own examples.

My updates are:

I now have two free computers to put to use. So server one is a basic Gigabyte (brand) AMD motherboard with gig-E network, 4 on board sata controllers, and a pci-e 16 slot to add an additional Sata controller that will support 8 more drives. It has 2GB of memory and a 1.8Ghz AMD processor. This is more than enough to run the basic function of unRAID. It is, however, slightly underpowered for all of the additional media related functions I wish to have. So I'll be adding this case and power supply to make a nice stable disk array and nothing else.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352017

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139020

Server two is the 1U Dell server - 2 physical processors, 8GB of memory, gig-E network, and a solid computing architecture - but severely limited in it's internal disk capacity. So this work horse will be the media front end server which accesses the unRAID box over a gigabit connection and serves it out to my various set top and portable devices.

I had hoped to cram it all into a single piece of hardware, but this will allow me to have even more flexibility, a little bit more future-proofing, and to fully utilize the items I already have. My cost will then only be the items linked above, the unRAID license, and incremental drive upgrades.

[Rudy81]

Looks like a very good plan. As far as cases, it needs to be all about airflow for all those drives. I have also decided to upgrade my LAN to gig-E in order to reduce any potential for bottlenecks in the sever access. I have Verizon Fios, so just to have the whole thing gig-E capable, I ordered the latest verizon router that is Gig capable.

This is going to be fun. I should get working on this project tomorrow evening. It seems the longest part of the build is 'preclearing' the drives. I expect to have 4 1TB drives and to 500Gig drives. I love the capability to add different sized drives to the array. Currently I plan on one 1TB drive for the parity drive and one 500Gig drive for the cache drive. Anything else I have lying around will be used for storage. The system will be the Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe, AMD Athlon X2, 6Gig ram, Corsair case and PSU.

One question for you. Are you planning on unRAID 4.7, the last stable build, or are you going with the 5.12 Beta? Many folks seem to be comfortable with the Beta versions, they are apparently faster in read and write. Who knows how long before they release an official 5.x stable build.

[Thaddeus Smith]

that case will allow me to cram 16 drives inside (but my current motherboard/controller capacity is limited to 11) and has space for 6 fans (3 included), with all sorts of sound deadening material. should be pretty wicked. and it doesn't have all that game-dragon flames-LED everywhere-with a giant plexiglass port hole to the inside crap.

i'm planning on the 5.12 beta. It seems pretty rock solid in spite of the "beta" classification and locks in a bunch of modern features and functionality - upgrading to an eventual 5.x stable build should be pretty simple and not result in any data loss or extra work.

Rudy, next time - just pick up one of these and plug it into an available port of your existing router. It would save you the cost and hassle of dealing with your ISP for just a feature upgrade.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156251