[Guide] NAS Killer 4.0 - fast, quiet, power efficient, and flexible - starting at $125

Interested in starting with a Dell PowerEdge T110ii but have a few questions.

  • The guide says it has 5 3.5" bays but all the documentation and photos I’ve found only show 4. Can anyone confirm it has 5?

  • My understanding is that it has 5 internal SATA ports. Can all of them be used with UNRAID? Another thread suggested that they could’t be used because they’re provided by an integrated RAID controller and that a SAS expander should be purchased.

Thanks

I am currently using a Dell PowerEdge T110II as my unraid box, it only has 4 3.5" bays, but you can likely find a drive cage for the 5.25" bay, or what I did was just velcro an SSD into the gap below the DVD drive for my cache.
Yes it has 5 internal SATA ports. The default config has 1 of them for the DVD, but I’m currently using all 5 for drives in unraid. You can easily disable the built in RAID via bios.

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By drive cage do you mean a single cage that holds multiple drives? It looks like the tower only has 2 external 5.25" bays and most HDD cages take up 3?

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In this case if you just wanted to make use of the 5th SATA port with a mechanical hard drive you could get a 5.25" to 3.5" bay converter kit that holds 1 drive. If you were thinking of adding a SAS card there are modules that covert 2 5.25" to 3 3.5" drive bays. Some of them are even hot swapable.

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Decided to build my own. What do you guys think of the Intel S1200BTL? Xeon and Core i3, 2 x SATA3, 4 x SATA2, ECC UDIMM only, ATX, 3 x PCI-E VGA only, dual NICs. There are several on eBay for $30.

I just finished a Micro-ATX build recently using the SuperMicro x9scm. There are SuperMicro models x9scm, x9scm-f, x9scl & x9scl-f. These boards require ECC DDR3 ram, it’s best to also verify that someone has flashed the bios to Rev 2.0. That would allow you to use the E1200v2 series Xeon processors. If the board bios revision is below 2.0 then you are limited to E3-1200v1 model CPUs and DDR3 1333 ram not 1600. I just did a build with one of these in the Fractal Design Node 804 case. You can see my build here: [Build Complete] - NK4.0 Node 804

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Hey everyone, stumbled upon this place while looking to update my home storage. Already convinced the 4.1 killer and HP 290 is the right setup for me. Digging through available hardware and could use some advice.

Already bought the 4.1 combo 4 rack server. Looking for a case and power supply. If available, I probably would have purchased the Rosewill RSV-L4500. Just not an option anymore. What I do see for cheap is the RSV-L4000C
I’m wondering If I can combine it with 3 hot swappable HDD cages and mount it in somehow. Something like lsv-cage or generic-cage.

So something like $64(case) + $75(enclosures) plus whatever mod time. I noticed even the front end on the 4000c looks different, just raw sheet metal. Missing a filter? Not quite sure the difference there.

My gut feeling is that I’ll get nickled and dimed to death on this and is not worth the effort. Not sure what else is available in that price range that would compare either though. Thanks

Hey! I have a Q77H2-AM with the cooler master 350 case.

I’ve literally been unable to screw the mobo in because the screws i got with the case are not long enough for the mobo to be screwed in…

What screws would you recommend?

You need to install the standoffs into the case before screwing the motherboard down.

Yeah. Woops, i have already done that now, stupid question lol.

Sadly the PSU doesnt have any labels on its wires and i’m trying to figure out how to connect the CPU to the motherboard (mobo does not have anything either)… They usually come with manuals, but these were eBay steals so I have to figure out how to do everything now. I literally do not see a CPU power input on the motherboard.

It also looks like the PSU has a loottt of wires (ig to be compatible with everything?), so I’m trying to figure out which ones I need for this mobo… Also, i dont know where the restart/power/hdd led/etc (of that batch) go, is there any harm in trial an error?

if I can find a cheap Intel X540-T2 DUAL PORT
intstead of the proposed MNPA19-XTR 10GB MELLANOX
is better isnt’t it?

To start, thanks for putting all these various build guides together and taking the time to engage with the community! I’m not sure on everyone else, but I’m in need of a dual purpose box: mostly media server (for my local LAN only) but it needs to be a Windows box with dual monitors for remote work purposes. I know this defeats some of the groundwork laid out around here (I think around talk of unRAID and the like) but I think I could still manage a build with the hardware suggestions here including the RAID cards. The real part where I don’t have experience: can you install “normal” Windows on the server grade boards/CPUs or would I be stuck/better off looking at the suggested consumer grade components?

In general I would assume you need to vet all components work together with your os and you have access to drivers for whatever you are trying to do. I personally find enterprise gear desirable but even with home gear my advice would be the same. I went windows and did what I am suggesting down to changing out a motherboard after I ordered because of driver support. You always have the option of running windows in a vm. Not sure of your use case.

What’s the difference between a native and non-native hard drive bay? Is it just that I need to buy an extra rack to install in the case?

Yes, you are correct. A “Native” bay is a 3.5" HDD slot that is built in to the case. A “Non-Native” bay is a 3.5" HDD slot that can be added to the case through the use of an additional component. Most often this would be through the use of 1 or more adapters that turn the 5.25" bays that are built in to the case in to 3.5" bays that can be used to install more HDDs.

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For the “Ultimate Rackmount build” what cable(s) would I need to connect the LSI 9201-8i to SAS drives for data and power? Is there a similar breakout cable for SAS drives?

This is the cable you’d want for SAS drives: https://amzn.to/2O9K54o
Note that cable only supplies data, you still need standard SATA power cables to plug into the back of those connectors. I’d recommend getting these SATA power splitters: https://amzn.to/2Y6NXqR
because you’ll want to remove the 3.3v wire to make sure your drives spin up properly.

Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

Also, can you clarify what you mean by “remove the 3.3v wire to make sure your drives spin up properly”?