U-NAS NSC-800 Build

  • Hey guys, I just started a new build. Here's the parts list:
    U-NAS NSC-800 Chassis
    Athena Power AP-U1ATX40P8 400W 1U PSU
    ASRock E3C224D2I LGA 1150 Server Motherboard
    Intel Core i3-4130T Haswell 2.9GHz LGA 1150 35W Dual-Core
    Crucial CT2KIT51272BD160B 2x4GB 240-pin DDR3-1600 ECC 1.35V CAS 11
    IBM Serveraid M1015
    Mushkin Chronos MKNSSDCR60GB 60GB SSD
    Noctua NH-L9i 37mm low-profile heatsink/fan


    I'll post more details and pictures as I get them. For now, here's a bit of an unboxing review for the U-NAS NSC-800 Chassis.


    Here's the packaging. No complaints there. It shipped straight from China, and FedEx delivered it two days early.


    Here are all the little screws that came with it as well as the 2.5" drive mounting plate, cable to join the two case fans into a single plug, and the PCIe "extension" cable.


    This is the main unit. At this point, it still has the protective plastic around the aluminum cover.


    The front.


    The back.


    Inside the top.


    Inside on the right side.


    Inside on the left side. Notice the little plastic sheet that covers the bottom of the motherboard when it is installed.


    Drive tray pulled out. The drive trays have some sharp edges.


    Close-up of a drive tray.


    The back-plane. Actually, there are two side-by-side.


    The included SFF-8087 cables that are already hooked up to the back-plane.


    Close-up of one of the rear 120mm fans.


    Some of the other cables that connect to the motherboard (power, front USB, fans, etc.).


    So far, I'm pretty happy with the case. I'll know more after I install some drives to test out the trays. One thing I'd really like to see improved is a USB 3.0 port on the front rather than a USB 2.0 port.


    More details to come.

  • May I ask why you ordered the case from china these days? I thought it was now cheaper to order it from the US. Where are you located?


    Greetings
    David

    "Well... lately this forum has become support for everything except omv" [...] "And is like someone is banning Google from their browsers"


    Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

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  • Zitat von "dildano"

    I ordered it from the site I linked. I was surprised when I checked the tracking number, and saw it coming from China. Are any other places selling this unit?


    Oh, okay. I thought they are sending them from the US now, it seems they don't.


    Two years ago A friend (the user BonkersGER) ordered the case directly from china...


    Greetings
    David

    "Well... lately this forum has become support for everything except omv" [...] "And is like someone is banning Google from their browsers"


    Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

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  • I updated the OP with some more details. I actually got everything put together this evening, but realized that I'm going to have to break it all back down to rewire a couple of things that are bothering me. I'll post more pictures and details tomorrow.

  • Just keep on posting. ;)


    Greetings
    David

    "Well... lately this forum has become support for everything except omv" [...] "And is like someone is banning Google from their browsers"


    Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

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  • Progress update: Everything is put together except that I haven't put the case on yet. I was going to post some more build pics, but I need to get some sleep. Spent all evening getting the NICs (Intel A210) to work. Finally got it done. They use a newer version of the igb driver rather than the e1000e driver. That was a pain! Creating the RAID volume now, so that's going to run for a while. More to come tomorrow evening...

  • Here are some more build pics:


    This is the Noctua NH-L9i. Very nice packaging! I actually had an issue at first where the fan would spin up, and then stop a few seconds later (and never start again). I don't know if something was loose or pinched, but pulling the motherboard out and putting it back in resolved the issue.


    Here it is mounted on the motherboard.


    Another angle. It's very tight with the RAM.


    I ended up pulling the entire back off of the chassis so that I could reroute some wires. I think I had to remove 12 little screws to get the back off. It gave me an opportunity to take a close-up of one of the 120mm fans. I believe that this is the correct model.


    One issue that I had was that the SFF-8087 cables were sticking out on the side where the motherboard and CPU fan needed to go. You can see it in this pic over on the right-hand side.


    For whatever reason, I don't have a picture of the rerouting job I did with the SFF-8087 cables, but I essentially tied them down, and fed them up through some holes where they could plug into the IBM M1015. You'll see it in later pictures.


    Here's the SSD mounted to the 2.5" plate.


    I bought this particular Athena PSU because I wanted to be sure it would be short enough to fit in this chassis. Unfortunately, it couldn't reach the mounts, so I glued in some little silicone washers that I had laying around. The end of the PSU sits on those.


    Here's a shot with the PSU in place. You can also see the two power connectors that power the two back-planes.


    Here's the IBM M1015 mounted. Notice that the PSU overlaps the 2.5" drive plate, and the M1015 overlaps the SSD. I put a little rubber washer between the M1015 and the SSD to keep them apart. You can also see where the SFF-8087 cables poke out to plug into the M1015. I tucked most of the length of the cables under the drive cage where the drives plug in.


    This is a shot of the motherboard mounted with the plastic sheet that protects the underside.


    This is the PCIe extender cable.


    And that's pretty much it! It's an extremely tight fit, but I like the chassis overall. I had to get creative with routing all of the cables to keep them from interfering with the various fans. Also, as mentioned earlier, this chassis has lots of sharp edges inside including the drive trays.

  • Yeah I like the case... if you see the NAS thread from BonkersGER you'll see from which NAS I know this case... it's getting supported by me.


    Greetings
    David

    "Well... lately this forum has become support for everything except omv" [...] "And is like someone is banning Google from their browsers"


    Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

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  • Yup.


    Greetings
    David

    "Well... lately this forum has become support for everything except omv" [...] "And is like someone is banning Google from their browsers"


    Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

    Upload Logfile via WebGUI/CLI
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  • For the most part, I'm up and running. A few issues:
    - The Noctua CPU fan only runs at full speed (~2500RPM) which means that it's louder than I prefer. I opened a ticket with support to see what's going on. The CPU isn't hot, so I don't know why the fan isn't running slower.
    - I installed the backports 3.2 kernel, but I was never able to get the Intel igb driver compiled correctly. Is there a way to uninstall the backports kernel?
    - Speaking of network issues, is there a way to team my NICs in OMV? I see that there is an option to add a bonded interface, but neither of my NICs show up as available to be added. How do I get them to show up?
    - An OpenVPN client would be so nice. I've been playing around with some scripts to force all traffic for a specific user through the VPN connection.
    - I'm currently running three 4TB WD Red drives in a RAID5 with the XFS filesystem. I disabled the idle timers on the drives using idle3ctl. I only seem to be getting around 40MB/s to and from OMV. Shouldn't I be getting much faster transfer rates than that?

  • Another update:
    - Noctua is sending me a replacement fan. Great service from those guys. I think there's an issue with the PWM pin/wire on my existing fan which means that the motherboard can't control the speed. As a result, it runs at full speed all the time.
    - I ended up manually teaming the two Intel A210 NICs via /etc/network/interfaces. Through trial, error, and a little bit of reading, I figured out how to properly set up my Netgear GS108T switch for 802.3ad. Once I got everything aligned, I transferred a 9GB file, and the speed never dropped below 100MB/s. Whew! It got as high as 106MB/s. I think the limiting factor now is the single gigabit NIC in my desktop. Here are the lines from /etc/network/interfaces that I'm using for the bonded interface. Let me know if you see any issues.


    auto bond0
    iface bond0 inet static
    address 192.168.1.100
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    network 192.168.1.0
    gateway 192.168.1.101
    slaves eth0 eth1
    mtu 9000
    bond-mode 802.3ad
    bond-xmit-hash-policy layer3+4

  • Just as an 'FYI', I'm able to get up to 113MB/s to my NAS. My Desktop is an Windows 8.1 with Samsung 830 256GB SSD.


    Greetings
    David

    "Well... lately this forum has become support for everything except omv" [...] "And is like someone is banning Google from their browsers"


    Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

    Upload Logfile via WebGUI/CLI
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  • Zitat von "davidh2k"

    Just as an 'FYI', I'm able to get up to 113MB/s to my NAS. My Desktop is an Windows 8.1 with Samsung 830 256GB SSD.


    David, can you tell me more about your network setup? I suspect that the Realtek NIC in my desktop is the limiting factor. I might consider get a dual-port Intel NIC.

  • Of course. On my Desktop I have a realtek on board NIC (Realtek® 8111GR) on my Desktop Computer, the Board is an Asus Z87M-Plus (C2).
    My PC is connected through my Router ( a Fritz!Box of AVM ) and then one addtional GBit Switch (pretty much noname) where my NAS is attached.


    So pretty much basic Hardware, still makes me wonder myself how I'm able to reach such high traffic rates.


    Did I forgot something? (You can see specs of my NAS in my Thread a bit below in this subsection of the forum).


    Greetings
    David

    "Well... lately this forum has become support for everything except omv" [...] "And is like someone is banning Google from their browsers"


    Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

    Upload Logfile via WebGUI/CLI
    #openmediavault on freenode IRC | German & English | GMT+1
    Absolutely no Support via PM!

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