Greenleaf Prototype Builds

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Welcome to the Greenleaf Prototype Builds Blog! The successor of Raj’s Prototype Builds, this blog allows us to provide DIYers with the most up-to-date hardware recommendations and test results for Greenleaf and unRAID servers.

Prototype designs that have proven themselves over time will be posted to the Recommended Builds section of the unRAID wiki. We’ve designed some of these servers with specific expansion paths in mind. You’ll notice that we repeat a lot of components in many of these designs; this makes testing for unRAID compatibility and reliability much easier, and it also allows for easy expansion along the paths I’ve outlined here.

All capacity calculations assume the use of 2 TB drives. All designs are also compatible with 3TB+ drives unless otherwise noted, although the use of 3TB+ drives requires unRAID beta software at the current time.

Here’s a few basic terms we throw around:

Budget Build – Intended to net you the highest drive capacity for the least amount of money. These servers are designed for basic unRAID usage, meaning data storage, media streaming, etc. They may or may not be fast/powerful enough to handle high-end add-ons such as video transcoding. These designs are the basis of the Greenleaf Eco servers.

Beast - Intended to be powerful multitasking servers. They cost more, but they will allow you to run any add-on you throw at them. These designs are the basis of the Greenleaf Pro servers.

Micro - These servers are intended to be as physically small as possible, also known as SFF (small form factor). Generally you will sacrifice some drive capacity when building this small. These designs are the basis of the Greenleaf SFF servers.

Mini - Also built with the intention of being physically small, but with more of an emphasis on striking a balance between size and drive capacity. These servers will have large drive capacities than the Micro builds, but not nearly as much as the Budget Build or Beast servers. These are not yet the basis of any Greenleaf servers, but they can be ordered as custom builds.

Both the Micro and Mini builds will generally use lower power components akin to the Budget Builds.

Quick Links
3-9 Drive Prototypes
10-15 Drive Prototypes
20-24 Drive Prototypes
Expansion Paths
Alternative, Misc, and Old Components

Notes
Yet again, the motherboard I have awarded the title of ‘budget board’ has been discontinued. I will start a new round of budget board testing soon (hopefully within a week or two). In the meantime, my old favorite the Biostar A760G M2+ has reappeared on eBay for $60 shipped. Note that this board takes DDR2 RAM (this will do nicely). All the other components I list in the Budget Box designs will work with this motherboard.

Regarding Norco SS-500 and SS-400 fan upgrades: The fans I recommend match the cooling power of the stock fans while producing less noise. I don’t consider the stock fans in the Norco drive cages to be too loud, but some folks do. If you are going to place one of these servers in a closet, garage, basement, or attic then you don’t need to upgrade the fans. If you are going to place the server in a noise sensitive area such as a living room, bedroom, or office then you may want to upgrade the fans to the quieter models I recommend.

Recommended Expansion Paths

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These are the expansion paths we recommend, but they certainly aren’t the only options. Don’t hesitate to skip steps or start in the middle – use these paths however you see fit.

3 Drive microServer –> 4 Drive microServer –> 6 Drive miniTower

The first step adds 4 TB and the second step adds 8 TB capacity to the server. Reuse mobo, RAM, CPU, PSU, and 3-in-2 hot swap. Waste single hot swaps and Rosewill case. If you plan to follow this path, I recommend that you get the Gigabyte case from the beginning so that you don’t waste the Rosewill case, and a single 3-in-2 from the beginning so as to only have one wasted single hot swap unit.

5 Drive Budget Box –> 10 Drive Budget Box –> 15 Drive Budget Box

Each step adds 20 TB capacity to the server. Reuse Mobo, RAM, CPU, and 5-in-3 hot swap. Waste the PSU. If you plan to follow this path, I recommend that you get the 500W PSU from the beginning so that you don’t waste the 430W one. If you do this, there will be no waste at all.

Alternative, Misc., and Old Components

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Keeping prototype builds current isn’t always easy as hardware options change quickly. Motherboards and server cases especially seem to come and go on a monthly basis. Instead of constantly attempting to keep each and every build current, I’ll just add some alternative components here. I’ll list the component I use first, then alternatives below.

Alternative Components
2 port PCIe x1 SATA expansion cards
Preferred:
SATA2 Serial ATA II PCI-Express RAID Controller Card (Silicon Image SIL3132)

Alternatives:
JMB362
Discussion here. Note that these cards ship from Asia and therefore take around 3 weeks to ship to the US.

SIIG SC-SA0E12-S1
Untested, but it should work

miniTower Cases
Preferred:
GIGABYTE GZ-X5BPD-500 Black

Alternatives:
GIGABYTE GZ-X2BPD-500 Black (120 mm fan)

GIGABYTE GZ-P5HA3W Black (slightly cheaper, 80 mm case fan)
GIGABYTE GZ-X6BPD-500 Black (120 mm fan)
GIGABYTE gz-KX9 Black (80 mm case fan)

Budget Box Cases
Preferred:
Xigmatek Utgard Window CPC-T90DB-U02

Alternatives:
Antec 902
Antec 900
Azza Helios 910
Thermaltake V6

Single Trayless Drive Bays
Preferred:
Mobile Rack for 3.5 inches SATA HDD – Open Frame (with Orange/Blue LED)

Alternatives:

Rosewill RX-C525 5.25″ SATA Trayless Hot Swap Mobile Rack (without LED)
SYBA SY-MR-35SOF 3.5″ Serial ATA hard drive SATA II HDD-ROM mobile rack  (without LED)

4-in-3 Drive Cages
Preferred:
Norco SS-400

Alternatives: (in order of costliness)
COOLER MASTER STB-3T4-E3-GP (if you are on a tight budget and can’t afford hot swap drive cages, this internal 4-in-3 is an inexpensive compromise)
AMS DS-3141SSBK
ICY DOCK MB974SP-B Tray-less 4 in 3
ICY DOCK MB454SPF-B
XClio SS034

Misc Components
Basic Locking SATA Cables
- Other pretty colors

Old Components
These are the components that we have used in past prototypes, but have since replaced them because they are either EOL’d (end of life’d), discontinued, or largely unavailable. However, if you happen upon any of these components, then by all means go for them! They are all good quality and proven in the unRAID community.

Cooler Master Centrurion 590 – Oh how we all miss you. Simple, elegant, cheap. Nothing this good ever lasts forever.

Xigmatek Utgard Original CPC-T90DB-U01 – This case has been discontinued, but the replacements are pretty similar.

Xigmatek Utgard Mesh CPC-T90DB-U03 -  This case has been discontinued. The replacement has a large side window instead of mesh.

Thermaltake V5 – Another discontinued case. I was never a huge fan of the large handle on top anyway.

GIGABYTE gz-ph2a3 – This miniTower case has been discontinued and replaced with a few nicer-looking options.

Biostar A760G M2+ – The original 15 Drive Budget Board. Great while it lasted, but has been discontinued. Also worked well in smaller cases as it was a good 2 inches shorter than most MicroATX motherboards.

Supermicro MBD-C2SEE-O – The original 20 Drive Budget Board. At the end of the board’s production cycle many of us were lucky enough to pick one up for a mere $20 shipped. For nostalgic purposes, here’s the thread.

Supermicro MBD-C2SEA-O – Another 20 Drive Budget Board, just a slight variation on the C2SEE.

JetWay JHZ03-GT-LF (more info) – A great budget board for 20+ drive servers, unfortunately appears to be EOL’d.

JetWay JMA3-880GTV2-LF (more info) – A short-reigned budget board, it was discontinued about two weeks after I declared it the champion of my first round of budget board testing.

Intel Core i3 530 – The original 20 Drive Beast CPU. I haven’t seen this CPU for sale for many months so I assume it has been EOL’d. As of August 24, 2011 it is back in stock! Still, it is more expensive than the i3 540 so there’s no reason to choose it.

AMD Sempron 140 – The original Budget Box CPU. The Sempron 145 is marginally faster and is selling for close to the same price, so I’m not complaining.

AMD Sempron 130 – This CPU is marginally slower and marginally cheaper than the Sempron 140, but it should still work just as well for a budget box type of server. I prefer the Sempron 140/145 only because it ships with a heatsink and fan, whereas the Sempron 130 is just a bare CPU. If you already have a CPU heatsink/fan that you would like to use in your server, or if you plan to upgrade that component anyway, then don’t hesitate to use the Sempron 130 and save a few bucks.

COOLER MASTER R4-S2S-124K-GP 120mm Case Fan (4 pack) – I originally recommended these cheap fans as upgrades for the Norco rackmount cases, but since have revised my recommendation for some better quality fans that will provide better cooling for drives. These ones are still fine to use if you are on a tight budget.

3-9 Drive Prototypes

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All prices in this section are current as of January 11, 2012 unless otherwise noted.

3 Drive microServer
Mobo: ZOTAC GF6100-E-E
CPU: AMD Sempron 145
RAM: Kingston 2GB DDR2 800
PSU: CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 V2 430W
Case: Rosewill R101-P-BK
Cables: non-locking SATA x 2 (1 included with motherboard)
Hot Swap Drive Bays: Mobile Rack for 3.5 inches SATA HDD – Open Frame x 3
Hard Drives: Green drives (5400 rpm or 5900 rpm), such as WD Green, Hitachi CoolSpin, Samsung EcoGreen, and Seagate LP
Cost: $240 + shipping + cost of hard drives
Capacity: 4 TB
Expandability: Expandable to the 4 Drive microServer or the 5 Drive miniBox with replacement of hot swap bays. Expandable to 6 Drive miniTower with replacement of hot swap bays and case.

4 Drive microServer (same as above, just substitute a 3-in-2 for two of the hot swap bays)
Mobo: ZOTAC GF6100-E-E
CPU: AMD Sempron 145
RAM: Kingston 2GB DDR2 800
PSU: CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 V2 430W
Case: Rosewill R101-P-BK
Cables: non-locking SATA x 3 (1 included with motherboard)
Hot Swap Drive Bays:

Hard Drives: Green drives (5400 rpm or 5900 rpm), such as WD Green, Hitachi CoolSpin, Samsung EcoGreen, and Seagate LP
Cost: $275 + shipping + cost of hard drives
Capacity: 6 TB
Expandability: Expandable to the 5 Drive miniBox with replacement of hot swap bays. Expandable to 6 Drive miniTower with replacement of the single hot swap bay and case (but the 3-in-2 will still be used).

5 Drive miniBox (pics using a different 5-in-3 and a different mobo)
Mobo: ZOTAC GF6100-E-E
CPU: AMD Sempron 145
RAM: Kingston 2GB DDR2 800
PSU: CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 V2 430W
Case: Rosewill R101-P-BK
SATA Expansion Card: 2 port SATA2 Serial ATA II PCI-Express RAID Controller Card (Silicon Image SIL3132)
Cables: non-locking SATA x 4 (1 included with motherboard)
Hot Swap Drive Bays: Norco SS-500
Fans: Coolink SWiF2-801 80mm *optional (Norco SS-500 fan upgrade if quieter performance is desired)
Hard Drives: Green drives (5400 rpm or 5900 rpm), such as WD Green, Hitachi CoolSpin, Samsung EcoGreen, and Seagate LP
Cost: $290 + shipping + cost of hard drives
Capacity: 8 TB
Expandability: Expandable to the 6 Drive miniTower with replacement of the hot swap bays and case.

5 Drive Budget Box
Mobo: ASUS M4A78LT-M (more info; be careful when shopping around, as there is an LE version and a non-LE version of this motherboard. You want the non-LE version!) new budget board testing underway!
CPU: AMD Sempron 145
RAM: Kingston 2GB DDR2 800
PSU: CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 V2 430W
Case: Xigmatek Utgard Window CPC-T90DB-U02
SATA Expansion Card: 2 port SATA2 Serial ATA II PCI-Express RAID Controller Card (Silicon Image SIL3132)
Cables: non-locking SATA x 3 (2 included with motherboard)
Hot Swap Drive Bays: Norco SS-500
Fans: Coolink SWiF2-801 80mm *optional (Norco SS-500 fan upgrade if quieter performance is desired)
Hard Drives: Green drives (5400 rpm or 5900 rpm), such as WD Green, Hitachi CoolSpin, Samsung EcoGreen, and Seagate LP
Cost: $325 + shipping + cost of hard drives
Capacity: 8 TB
Expandability: Expandable to the 15 Drive Budget Box with replacement of the motherboard and the power supply.

6 Drive miniTower (Original Thread)
Mobo: ZOTAC GF6100-E-E
CPU: AMD Sempron 145
RAM: Kingston 2GB DDR2 800
PSU: CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 V2 430W
Case: GIGABYTE GZ-X5BPD-500 Black
SATA Expansion Card: 2 port SATA2 Serial ATA II PCI-Express RAID Controller Card (Silicon Image SIL3132)
Cables: non-locking SATA x 5 (1 included with motherboard)
Hot Swap Drive Bays: SNT SNT-SAC2131B 3×3.5″ Hard drive in 2×5.25″ Bay Hot Swap SAS/SATA Backplane RAID cage x 2
Hard Drives: Green drives (5400 rpm or 5900 rpm), such as WD Green, Hitachi CoolSpin, Samsung EcoGreen, and Seagate LP
Cost: $325 + shipping + cost of hard drives
Capacity: 10 TB
Expandability: Expandable to the Budget Box series with replacement of motherboard, case, and possibly hot swap bays and power supply…though by that point you are basically building a new server.

9 Drive Budget Box (inspired by WeeboTech’s rig)
Mobo: ASUS M4A78LT-M (more info; be careful when shopping around, as there is an LE version and a non-LE version of this motherboard. You want the non-LE version!) new budget board testing underway!
CPU: AMD Sempron 145
RAM: Kingston 2GB DDR2 800
PSU: CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 V2 430W
Case: Xigmatek Utgard Window CPC-T90DB-U02
SATA Expansion Cards:

Cables: non-locking SATA x 6 (2 included with motherboard, 1 included with PCI SATA Expansion Card)
Hot Swap Drive Bays: Mobile Rack for 3.5 inches SATA HDD – Open Frame x 9
Hard Drives: Green drives (5400 rpm or 5900 rpm), such as WD Green, Hitachi CoolSpin, Samsung EcoGreen, and Seagate LP
Cost: $385 + shipping + cost of hard drives
Capacity: 16 TB
Expandability: Expandable to the 10 Drive Budget Box with replacement of hot swap bays. Expandable to the 15 Drive Budget Box with replacement of the motherboard, the hot swap bays, the PCIe SATA expansion card, and the power supply.

10-15 Drive Prototypes

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All prices in this section are current as of January 11, 2012 unless otherwise noted.

10 Drive Budget Box
Mobo: ASUS M4A78LT-M (more info; be careful when shopping around, as there is an LE version and a non-LE version of this motherboard. You want the non-LE version!) new budget board testing underway!
CPU: AMD Sempron 145
RAM: Kingston 2GB DDR3 1333
PSU: CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 V2 430W
Case: Xigmatek Utgard Window CPC-T90DB-U02
SATA Expansion Card: Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 8-Port SAS/SATA Add-on Card
Cables:
0.5m 30AWG Internal Mini SAS 36pin (SFF-8087) Male w/ Latch to SATA 7pin Female (x4) Forward Breakout Cable x 1
non-locking SATA x 4 (2 included with motherboard)
Hot Swap Drive Bays: Norco SS-500
Fans: Coolink SWiF2-801 80mm *optional (Norco SS-500 fan upgrade if quieter performance is desired)
Hard Drives: Green drives (5400 rpm or 5900 rpm), such as WD Green, Hitachi CoolSpin, Samsung EcoGreen, and Seagate LP
Cost: $520 + shipping + cost of hard drives
Capacity: 18 TB
Expandability: Expandable to the 15 Drive Budget Box with replacement of the power supply.

12 Drive Budget Box
Mobo: Biostar A880G+
CPU: AMD Sempron 145
RAM: Kingston 2GB DDR3 1333
PSU: CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 V2 430W
Case: Xigmatek Utgard Window CPC-T90DB-U02
SATA Expansion Card: Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 8-Port SAS/SATA Add-on Card
Cables:

Hot Swap Drive Bays:

Fans: Coolink SWiF2-801 80mm *optional (Norco SS-500 fan upgrade if quieter performance is desired)
Hard Drives: Green drives (5400 rpm or 5900 rpm), such as WD Green, Hitachi CoolSpin, Samsung EcoGreen, and Seagate LP
Cost: $535 + shipping + cost of hard drives
Capacity: 22 TB
Expandability: Expandable to the 15 Drive Budget Box with replacement of the motherboard, the power supply, and the two single hot swap bays.
12 Drive Budget Box (alternate)
Mobo: Biostar A880G+
CPU: AMD Sempron 145
RAM: Kingston 2GB DDR3 1333
PSU: CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 V2 430W
Case: Xigmatek Utgard Window CPC-T90DB-U02
SATA Expansion Card: Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 8-Port SAS/SATA Add-on Card
Cables:

Hot Swap Drive Bays: Norco SS-400 x 3
Fans: Coolink SWiF2-801 x 3 *optional (Norco SS-400 fan upgrade is quieter performance is desired)
Hard Drives: Green drives (5400 rpm or 5900 rpm), such as WD Green, Hitachi CoolSpin, Samsung EcoGreen, and Seagate LP
Cost: $560 + shipping + cost of hard drives
Capacity: 22 TB
Expandability: Expandable to the 15 Drive Budget Box with replacement of the motherboard, the power supply, and the hot swap bays. However, this one really isn’t intended to be expandable. If you are thinking of expanding to the 15 Drive Budget Box, go with the original 12 Drive Budget Box instead (not this alternate model).

15 Drive Budget Box
Mobo: ASUS M4A78LT-M (more info; be careful when shopping around, as there is an LE version and a non-LE version of this motherboard. You want the non-LE version!) new budget board testing underway!
CPU: AMD Sempron 145
RAM: Kingston 2GB DDR3 1333
PSU: CORSAIR Builder Series CX500 V2 500W
Case: Xigmatek Utgard Window CPC-T90DB-U02
SATA Expansion Cards:

Cables:

Hot Swap Drive Bays: Norco SS-500
Fans: Coolink SWiF2-801 80mm *optional (Norco SS-500 fan upgrade if quieter performance is desired)
Hard Drives: Green drives (5400 rpm or 5900 rpm), such as WD Green, Hitachi CoolSpin, Samsung EcoGreen, and Seagate LP
Cost: $635 + shipping + cost of hard drives
Capacity: 28 TB
Expandability: None.

20 – 24 Drive Prototypes

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All prices in this section are current as of June 16, 2012 unless otherwise noted.

20 Drive Budget Build (rackmount)
Mobo: ECS A885GM-A2 (V1.1)
CPU: AMD Sempron 145
RAM: Crucial 2GB DDR3 1333 (feel free to upgrade, pretty much any DDR3 1066 or 1333 RAM should work)
PSU: CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 650W
Case: Norco 4220
SATA Expansion Cards: Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 8-Port SAS/SATA Add-on Card x 2

  • IBM ServerRAID M1015 x 2 – Replacement Option (As the Supermicro cards are difficult to obtain outside of the US, unRAID forum user seanant is currently selling these M1015 cards internationally. They are reported to work well with unRAID, though I personally have not used them.)

Cables:

Fanplate: Norco 120mm fanplate *optional
Fans: (replacing the stock fans is optional, but recommended if quiet performance is desired)

Hard Drives: Green drives (5400 rpm or 5900 rpm), such as WD Green, Hitachi CoolSpin, Samsung EcoGreen, and Seagate LP
Cost: $830 (without the optional fans/fanplate) + shipping + cost of hard drives
Capacity: 38 TB
Expandability: None.

20 Drive Budget Build (tower)
Mobo: ECS A885GM-A2 (V1.1)
CPU: AMD Sempron 145
RAM: Crucial 2GB DDR3 1333 (feel free to upgrade, pretty much any DDR3 1066 or 1333 RAM should work)
PSU: CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 650W
Case: Antec 1200
Hot Swap Drive Bays: Norco SS-500 x 4 (Two alternatives are listed below. Both have their pros and cons. You can read my review of all three cages here.)

Fans:

SATA Expansion Cards: Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 8-Port SAS/SATA Add-on Card x 2
Cables:

Hard Drives: Green drives (5400 rpm or 5900 rpm), such as WD Green, Hitachi CoolSpin, Samsung EcoGreen, and Seagate LP
Cost: $985 (without the optional fans) + shipping + cost of hard drives
Capacity: 38 TB
Expandability: None.

20 Drive Beast (rackmount)
Mobo: Supermicro X9SCM-F-O
CPU: Intel Pentium G620 (feel free to upgrade to Intel i3 2100 or other Intel i3 2100 series CPUs)
RAM: Kingston 8GB DDR3 1333 (8GB of RAM may be overkill, but I can’t find any compatible 4GB kits!)
PSU: CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 650W
Case: Norco 4220
SATA Expansion Cards: Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 8-Port SAS/SATA Add-on Card x 2

  • IBM ServerRAID M1015 x 2 – Replacement Option (As the Supermicro cards are difficult to obtain outside of the US, unRAID forum user seanant is currently selling these M1015 cards internationally. They are reported to work well with unRAID, though I personally have not used them.)

Cables:

Fanplate: Norco 120mm fanplate *optional
Fans: (replacing the stock fans is optional, but recommended if quiet performance is desired)

Hard Drives: Green drives (5400 rpm or 5900 rpm), such as WD Green, Hitachi CoolSpin, Samsung EcoGreen, and Seagate LP
Cost: $1005 (without the optional fans/fanplate) + shipping + cost of hard drives
Capacity: 38 TB
Expandability: None.

20 Drive Beast (tower)
Mobo: Supermicro X9SCM-F-O
CPU: Intel Pentium G620 (feel free to upgrade to Intel i3 2100 or other Intel i3 2100 series CPUs)
RAM: Kingston 8GB DDR3 1333 (8GB of RAM may be overkill, but I can’t find any compatible 4GB kits!)
PSU: CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 650W
Case: Antec 1200
Hot Swap Drive Bays: Norco SS-500 x 4 (Two alternatives are listed below. Both have their pros and cons. You can read my review of all three cages here.)

Fans:

SATA Expansion Cards: Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 8-Port SAS/SATA Add-on Card x 2

  • IBM ServerRAID M1015 x 2 – Replacement Option (As the Supermicro cards are difficult to obtain outside of the US, unRAID forum user seanant is currently selling these M1015 cards internationally. They are reported to work well with unRAID, though I personally have not used them.)

Cables:

Hard Drives: Green drives (5400 rpm or 5900 rpm), such as WD Green, Hitachi CoolSpin, Samsung EcoGreen, and Seagate LP
Cost: $1180 (without the optional fans/fanplate) + shipping + cost of hard drives
Capacity: 38 TB
Expandability: None.

22 Drive Budget Build (rackmount)
Mobo: ECS A885GM-A2 (V1.1)
CPU: AMD Sempron 145
RAM: Crucial 2GB DDR3 1333 (feel free to upgrade, pretty much any DDR3 1066 or 1333 RAM should work) 
PSU: CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 650W
Case: Norco 4224
SATA Expansion Cards:

Cables:

Fanplate: Norco 120mm fanplate *optional
Fans: (replacing the stock fans is optional, but recommended if quiet performance is desired)

Hard Drives: Green drives (5400 rpm or 5900 rpm), such as WD Green, Hitachi CoolSpin, Samsung EcoGreen, and Seagate LP
Cost: $875 (without the optional fans/fanplate) + shipping + cost of hard drives
Capacity: 40 TB + optional 2 TB cache
Expandability: None.

22 Drive Beast (rackmount)
Mobo: Supermicro X9SCM-F-O
CPU: Intel Pentium G620 (feel free to upgrade to Intel i3 2100 or other Intel i3 2100 series CPUs)
RAM: Kingston 8GB DDR3 1333 (8GB of RAM may be overkill, but I can’t find any compatible 4GB kits!)
PSU: CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 650W
Case: Norco 4224
SATA Expansion Cards: Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 8-Port SAS/SATA Add-on Card x 2

  • IBM ServerRAID M1015 x 2 – Replacement Option (As the Supermicro cards are difficult to obtain outside of the US, unRAID forum user seanant is currently selling these M1015 cards internationally. They are reported to work well with unRAID, though I personally have not used them.)

Cables:

Fanplate: Norco 120mm fanplate *optional
Fans: (replacing the stock fans is optional, but recommended if quiet performance is desired)

Hard Drives: Green drives (5400 rpm or 5900 rpm), such as WD Green, Hitachi CoolSpin, Samsung EcoGreen, and Seagate LP
Cost: $1090 (without the optional fans/fanplate) + shipping + cost of hard drives
Capacity: 40 TB + optional 2 TB cache
Expandability: None.

24 Drive Budget Build (rackmount)
unRAID currently supports a maximum of 22 drives, but you can add more drives outside the parity protected array via unMenu or SNAP
Mobo: ECS A885GM-A2 (V1.1)
CPU: AMD Sempron 145
RAM: Crucial 2GB DDR3 1333 (feel free to upgrade, pretty much any DDR3 1066 or 1333 RAM should work) 
PSU: CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 650W
Case: Norco 4224
SATA Expansion Cards:

Cables:

Fanplate: Norco 120mm fanplate *optional
Fans: (replacing the stock fans is optional, but recommended if quiet performance is desired)

Hard Drives: Green drives (5400 rpm or 5900 rpm), such as WD Green, Hitachi CoolSpin, Samsung EcoGreen, and Seagate LP
Cost: $900 (without the optional fans/fanplate) + shipping + cost of hard drives
Capacity: 40 TB + optional 2 TB cache + optional 4 TB extra space via SNAP
Expandability: None.

24 Drive Beast (rackmount)
unRAID currently supports a maximum of 22 drives, but you can add more drives outside the parity protected array via unMenu or SNAP
Mobo: Supermicro X9SCM-F-O
CPU: Intel Pentium G620 (feel free to upgrade to Intel i3 2100 or other Intel i3 2100 series CPUs)
RAM: Kingston 8GB DDR3 1333 (8GB of RAM may be overkill, but I can’t find any compatible 4GB kits!)
PSU: CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 650W
Case: Norco 4224
SATA Expansion Cards:

Cables:

Fanplate: Norco 120mm fanplate *optional
Fans: (replacing the stock fans is optional, but recommended if quiet performance is desired)

Hard Drives: Green drives (5400 rpm or 5900 rpm), such as WD Green, Hitachi CoolSpin, Samsung EcoGreen, and Seagate LP
Cost: $1075 (without the optional fans/fanplate) + shipping + cost of hard drives
Capacity: 40 TB + optional 2 TB cache + optional 4 TB extra space via SNAP
Expandability: None.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186031

Quiet Fan upgrades are now available!

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Quiet Fan server upgrades now available on most Tower and Rackmount server designs!  The following designs are eligible for the upgrade:

  • 12 Drive Eco
  • 12 Drive Pro
  • 15 Drive Eco
  • 15 Drive Pro
  • 20 Drive Eco Tower
  • 20 Drive Eco Rackmount
  • 20 Drive Pro Tower Green
  • 20 Drive Pro Tower Black
  • 20 Drive Pro Rackmount Green
  • 20 Drive Pro Rackmount Black
  • 22 Drive Pro
Note: The 6 Drive Eco, 6 Drive Pro, 9 Drive Eco, and 9 Drive Pro servers are not eligible for the upgrade.  Why?  Because they are already quiet!  No fan upgrade needed.
The upgrade costs $75, which covers parts, installation, and testing.  Fans included in a Quiet Fan server upgrade are covered under the same Greenleaf warranty as the rest of the server hardware.  We are currently working on a new shopping cart system that will allow you to add a Quiet Fan upgrade to eligible server designs.  We hope to have this new shopping cart ready by the end of the month, but in the meantime you can order a Quiet Fan upgrade with your server by simply requesting it in the ‘comments’ section of your order.
A special thanks goes out to ProfQ of the unRAID forums whose pioneering fan research and testing has influenced our own choice of fan upgrades!  You can read about his test results here.  We have replicated his tests in our own lab and come to the same conclusion – the Coolink Swif2-801 is the ideal choice of fan upgrade for any server that utilizes the Norco SS-500 or SS-400 drive cages.  Our rackmount server designs use different but equally quiet fans.
Coming soon: Silent Server upgrades!

The search for a new budget board continues…

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The JetWay JMA3-880GTV2-LF served as a budget board for all of about two weeks before being discontinued. Unfortunately this seems to be par for the course; the market for inexpensive motherboards is competitive and ever-changing. I quickly resumed my search for a new budget board right where I left off the first time. To recap, my research originally lead me to this list of options:

ASUS M4A78LT-M LE
ECS A785GM-M7
JetWay JMA3-880GTV2-LF
ASRock 880GM-LE

The first round of testing eliminated the ASRock board as I received two DOA boards in a row. The JetWay board is now discontinued so it is also off the table. In this second round of testing I therefore turned first to the ECS board as it was the less expensive of the remaining options.

I started testing the ECS A785GM-M7 with one red flag in mind – the board uses the Atheros AR8131 NIC. Atheros NICs in general are known to be hit and miss when used with unRAID, but I had no knowledge going in if this particular NIC would prove worthy or worthless.

I started running the ECS board through my normal set of tests and the preliminary results looked good. Memtest for 24+ hours passed and the board was able to boot into unRAID with the normal BIOS modifications (changing boot order, disabling all unnecessary components such as parallel and serial ports, and setting video memory allocation to the minimum amount). After these tests I would normally begin testing the motherboard’s SATA controllers, but in this case I decided to run the NIC tests first as I expected the NIC to be the motherboard’s weak point.

I test a board’s NIC by first building an unRAID array (running parity sync and a subsequent parity check) and then transferring at least 100 GB of data across the network both to and from the server. The client computer involved runs Windows 7, all cables involved are Cat5e or Cat6, and both my router and switch are Gigabit-LAN capable. I use TeraCopy on the Windows 7 computer with the automatic CRC checks enabled. This ensures that the data transferred from the computer to the server and back again with no data corruption or other problems.

The test results were very clear: the ECS board’s Atheros AR8131 NIC was incompatible with unRAID 4.7. The transfers would consistently fail in some way or another – sometimes the network connection would drop out, sometimes the CRC checks would find mismatches after the transfer. Both of these are common symptoms of an incompatible NIC. Interestingly enough, the exact same tests run on unRAID 5.0beta10 (the latest beta available at the time of testing) showed none of the same incompatibility. Despite repeated and redundant testing, I was not able to make the Atheros AR8131 NIC fail even once when using unRAID 5.0beta10. This indicates that there must have been some change between unRAID 4.7 and unRAID 5.0beta10 that added support for this NIC. The unRAID 5.0 beta release notes don’t indicate any specific Atheros NIC drivers added to unRAID since 4.7, but it is possible that one of the Linux Kernal updates included one.

I suggest that if you have the ECS A785GM-M7 motherboard and are having trouble with the NIC in unRAID 4.7, upgrading to unRAID 5.0beta10 (or newer) may help. Of course you will also need to take careful note of the other risks involved in running a beta version of unRAID. Regardless, even if the ECS board does work perfectly in beta versions of unRAID, I won’t endorse a board as an ‘unRAID budget board’ unless it runs in both the latest stable and the latest beta release. Hence, the ECS board is out. We are left with only one contender – the ASUS M4A78LT-M LE.

I started shopping around for the best deal on the ASUS M4A78LT-M LE when I noticed something interesting. Contrary to my original research, the LE version of the board was now more expensive than the non-LE version! ‘LE’ at the end of a motherboard’s model number generally indicates that the board is an ‘economy’ model of non-LE version. Often the LE boards will use the same chipset but a cheaper NIC or have few DIMM slots for RAM expansion. In some cases the LE board are better suited for unRAID, and in other cases the non-LE boards are a better choice even if they are slightly more expensive. It is very rare that a non-LE board would be less expensive than its LE counterpart, but at the time I was shopping for these boards that was the case! The ASUS M4A78LT-M LE was available at Newegg for $77 after shipping. The ASUS M4A78LT-M (non-LE version) was available at Newegg for $65 after shipping! A better quality board for less money? Why not! Today the LE board is still at $77 (ignoring a $10 rebate currently available) and the non-LE board is at $70.

Because of this change in pricing, the focus of my testing shifted to the ASUS M4A78LT-M which wasn’t even on my original list. I paired this board with an AMD Sempron 140 processor and 2 GB of DDR3 1333 RAM by Kingston (model number KVR1333D3N9/2G). I ran it through my normal suite of tests: memtest for 24+ hours, check boot from unRAID flash drive after BIOS modification, run at least one pass of preclear on each SATA port simultaneously to check the SATA controller, build and check parity, transfer at least 100 GBs of data to and from the array over the network using TeraCopy’s CRC checks. The board also proved itself compatible with the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 and SIL3132 SATA controllers that are used in our 15 Drive Eco server designs (also known as the 15 Drive Budget Box from Greenleaf Prototype Builds). This board passed all of these tests without a single hiccup. Its these kind of positive results that make for a reliable budget board…and a boring conclusion to a blog post ;) . I’m pleased to endorse the ASUS M4A78LT-M as my latest recommendation for the unRAID budget board.

3 TB Compatibility Testing

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At the time of writing, the current stable release of unRAID is unRAID 4.7. While 4.7 is a great product, one of its limitations is that it uses MBRs and not GPTs. In layman’s terms, that means that it is incompatible with any hard drive larger than 2.2 TB. As 2.5 TB and 3 TB drives are on the market today at attractive price points, many unRAID users have switched to using the latest unRAID beta (currently unRAID 5.0beta11), which has both MBR and GPT support. This means that any capacity drive can be used as a parity, data, or cache drive in the latest unRAID beta. I recently got my hands on 15 of the fabulous 3 TB Hitachi DeskStar 5K3000 CoolSpin hard drives. These are green drives that spin at 5400 RPM and use a SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) interface. I took the opportunity to test as much hardware as I had available to me for 3 TB hard drive compatibility. Here is the hardware I tested:

Supermicro X7SLA-H with a built-in Intel Atom CPU and 2 GB of DDR2 533 RAM (2 x 1GB)
ZOTAC GF6100-E-E with an AMD Sempron 140 CPU and 2 GB of DDR2 800 RAM (1 x 2GB)
Biostar A880G+ with an AMD Sempron 140 CPU and 2 GB of DDR3 1333 RAM (1 x 2GB)
Supermicro X8SIL-F-O with an Intel i3-540 CPU and 4 GB of DDR3 1333 RAM (2 x 2GB)
Asus M4A78LT-M with an AMD Sempron 140 CPU and 2 GB of DDR3 1333 RAM (1 x 2GB)

I also tested the 2 port PCIe x1 SIL3132 card that we use in certain GreenLeaf builds. I decided not to run any thorough tests on the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 controller as it has already been well established as being fully compatible with 3 TB drive through tests conducted by other members of the unRAID community.

All tests were performed using unRAID 5.0beta10 (which was the latest beta available at the time) and Joe L.’s preclear script 1.12beta (which is the only version of preclear currently available that supports 3 TB drives). A hardware component passed the test if it precleared successfully and was recognized by unRAID as an array drive. Here are the results:

Motherboard Backplane SATA Controller Result Duration (HH:MM:SS)
Supermicro X7SLA-H Norco SS-500 Onboard PASS 48:49:35
Supermicro X7SLA-H Norco SS-500 Onboard PASS 47:41:13
Supermicro X7SLA-H Norco SS-500 Onboard PASS 48:28:24
Supermicro X7SLA-H Norco SS-500 Onboard PASS 48:55:51
Supermicro X7SLA-H Norco SS-500 SIL3132 PASS 54:47:52
Supermicro X7SLA-H Norco SS-500 SIL3132 PASS 53:24:05
ZOTAC GF6100-E-E Kingwin 3-in-2 Onboard PASS 41:29:50
ZOTAC GF6100-E-E Kingwin 3-in-2 Onboard PASS 42:06:13
ZOTAC GF6100-E-E Kingwin 3-in-2 Onboard PASS 40:28:49
ZOTAC GF6100-E-E Kingwin 3-in-2 Onboard PASS 43:02:11
ZOTAC GF6100-E-E Kingwin 3-in-2 SIL3132 PASS 46:49:55
ZOTAC GF6100-E-E Kingwin 3-in-2 SIL3132 PASS 47:30:24
Biostar A880G+ Top Dock Onboard PASS 41:58:44
Biostar A880G+ None Onboard PASS 42:25:21
Biostar A880G+ None Onboard PASS 41:36:09
Biostar A880G+ None Onboard PASS 42:44:09
Supermicro X8SIL-F-O None Onboard PASS 42:12:56
Supermicro X8SIL-F-O None Onboard PASS 42:09:42
Supermicro X8SIL-F-O None Onboard PASS 41:22:09
Supermicro X8SIL-F-O None Onboard PASS 37:45:11
Supermicro X8SIL-F-O None Onboard PASS 38:29:49
Supermicro X8SIL-F-O None Onboard PASS 41:11:57
Asus M4A78LT-M None Onboard PASS 49:01:51
Asus M4A78LT-M None Onboard PASS 48:44:29
Asus M4A78LT-M None Onboard PASS 48:38:10
Asus M4A78LT-M None Onboard PASS 48:01:27
Asus M4A78LT-M None Onboard PASS 47:44:05
Asus M4A78LT-M None Onboard PASS 45:58:00

The good news is that every single piece of hardware I tested is fully compatible with the Hitachi 3 TB drives. However, as you can see from the duration results above, some of the preclear cycles were slower than others. At first I thought that certain SATA controllers were slower than others. Here’s a quick analysis of that hypothesis:

Motherboard SATA Controller Average Duration (hours)
Supermicro X7SLA-H Onboard 47.75
Supermicro X7SLA-H SIL3132 53.50
ZOTAC GF6100-E-E Onboard 41.50
ZOTAC GF6100-E-E SIL3132 46.50
Biostar A880G+ Onboard 41.50
Supermicro X8SIL-F-O Onboard 40.17
Asus M4A78LT-M Onboard 47.50

The slowest set of hardware was the Supermicro X7SLA-H and the SIL3132 controller with an average duration of 47.5 hours. This happens to the be motherboard with the slowest CPU and slowest RAM as well. The fastest set of hardware was the Supermicro X8SIL-F-O with an average duration of 40.17 hours. This also happened to be the motherboard with the fastest CPU and the most RAM. I believe these test results show that when preclearing 3 TB drives, the speed of the CPU and the RAM installed matters more than the SATA controller being used. Given this revised hypothesis, here’s the take-home analysis of this data:

CPU Amount of RAM RAM Speed Channels Average Duration (hours)
Atom 2GB DDR2 533 Dual 50.63
Sempron 140 2GB DDR2 800 Single 44
Sempron 140 2GB DDR3 1333 Single 44.5
i3-540 4GB DDR3 1333 Single 40.17

If you plan to preclear a lot of 3 TB drives, more RAM and a faster processor can help speed up the process by as much 10 hours.

The search for a new budget board

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I love the diversity in the unRAID community.  Some users like to build frankenservers based on scraps and spare parts, others treat their servers like you might a fine wine; they are made of only the finest ingredients, and stored in a climate-controlled environment.  I strive to develop server designs to meet every user’s disparate needs at a price to match every pocketbook.  The keystone of any budget-minded build is an inexpensive yet capable motherboard.

During the 2+ years I’ve been an active member in the unRAID community, I’ve seen many budget boards come and go.  My favorites were the Supermicro C2SEE and the Biostar A760G M2+.  Both boards cost around $50, accepted very low power and efficient processors, and worked with inexpensive RAM.  The Biostar board was about 2 inches shorter than most microATX motherboards, which opened up lots of avenues for creative designs such as Queeg’s TinyTen, which packs 10 drives into a very compact space.

All good things must come to an end, and budget boards are no different.  We are in a new era of budget motherboards designed for HTPC applications.  The majority of today’s boards use the 880G chipset and have built-in HDMI.  Naturally little of this matters to the unRAID user, so we are constantly challenged with finding a motherboard that meets the perfect criteria for use in an unRAID server:

  • 6+ onboard SATA ports
  • Built-in Gigabit LAN
  • At least one PCIe x16 slot, ideally at least one PCIe x1 slot as well
  • Compatible with inexpensive and efficient processors and RAM
  • Fully compatible with unRAID
  • Inexpensive (ideally around $50, but at very least less than $100)
Small physical size is always a fringe benefit as well, as it allows for more compact server designs.  As we’ve had a bit of a dry spell over the past few months, I endeavored to find a new budget board suited for 15 drive or smaller builds as a labor of love for the unRAID community.  Once a suitable board is identified, I publish my findings in my Prototype Builds thread and in the unRAID wiki’s Recommended Builds section.  The purpose of this blog post is to document the process of the search, not just the results.
And away we go…
I started by zeroing in on only the motherboards that met or exceeded all of the minimum criteria.  The list was short indeed, only four boards made the cut.  They were:
I compared the various tech specs of all four boards and weighed them against their price.  The ASRock was the cheapest at $55, then the Jetway at $60, and the Asus and ECS boards were both tied at $70.  Not only was the ASRock the least expensive, but it also had the best match with the necessary criteria.  It was the clear choice, so I ordered the ASRock and put the rest on the back burner.
The ASRock board arrived promptly and just as quickly proved to be a big disappointment.  I was never truly able to test it for unRAID compatibility because I received a defective motherboard!  Twice!  Both the original ASRock board I received as well as its replacement simply would not POST.  I went through all the standard troubleshooting procedures, but the boards wouldn’t output any video or emit any beep codes even with different CPUs, RAM, PSUs, etc.  Enough hardware passes through my hands that I know I’m likely to see dead and defective components with some regularity, so I’m never put off by a DOA part.  Still, two DOA parts in a row is a bit much to stomach, so I gave up on the board after the second dud.  It is entirely possible that the ASRock board is the ideal unRAID motherboard, but unless somebody else wants to gamble on it, we may never know.
Going back to the list, the Jetway board was next in line as being less expensive than both the Asus or ECS boards. Spec-wise, the Jetway was the best choice.  The ECS board uses an Atheros NIC, which is notoriously troublesome with unRAID.  The Asus board looks good on paper, but I’ve had issues with Asus boards in the past showing odd and inconsistent incompatibilities with certain hardware, such as SATA expansion cards.
The Jetway board came with one small point of compromise – it featured only one PCIe x16 slot and no PCIe x1 slot, which sets it apart from every other board on the list.  If being used for a server that supports 14 or few drives, this would not matter one iota.  But for the popular 15 drive server design, that final drive would have to be relegated to the slower PCI bus.  I always aim to avoid using the PCI bus whenever possible, but in this case I decided to go with it.  While the PCI bus is considerably slower than the PCIe bus, a single hard drive is not capable of using up all of the bandwidth a PCI bus has to offer, so there would be absolutely no performance bottleneck.  If two or more drives were placed on the PCI bus, then I would expect some performance issues might be identified.  However, since my goal was a budget board that would support up to 15 drives, the lack of a PCIe x1 slot ends up being no big deal.
I ordered the Jetway board and got started on my suite of tests.  The purpose of these is to test the board for general reliability and hardware compatibility, as well as full compatibility with unRAID software.  My tests include:
  • Installing a CPU, RAM, and PSU and verifying that the board will POST.
  • Verifying that the board will beep when no RAM is installed.
  • Editing BIOS settings and verifying that the changes stick after a reboot.
  • Booting and rebooting from an unRAID flash drive.
  • Installing hard drives and verifying they are recognized by both BIOS and unRAID.
  • Preclearing multiple known-good drives simultaneously and checking for errors.
  • Building an unRAID array and running a parity-sync.
  • Running a parity check and checking for errors.
  • Removing a drive and allowing unRAID to rebuild it onto another drive.
  • Copying hundreds of GBs of data to and from the array over the network and verifying the data with CRC and/or MD5 checks.
  • Installing various SATA expansion cards and verifying that drives connected to them are recognized by the card’s BIOS and unRAID.
  • Running all of the above unRAID tests on drives connected to the SATA expansion cards.
The Jetway board passed all of the tests with flying colors.  I had no problems with it, not a single incompatibility or issue to report.  The board is Level 1 tested (I’ll post my results on this later this week).  I stopped here, there was no reason to test either the ECS or Asus boards as the Jetway was a better option anyway.  So I’m happy to announce that my latest recommended unRAID budget board is the JetWay JMA3-880GTV2-LF.
Ironically, the price of the Jetway motherboard has increased since I purchased it, so it is now on the edge of being too expensive.  It is currently selling for $77 after shipping, whereas I originally paid $60 for it.  Hopefully the price will come back down, or unRAID users can catch the board on sale.