Below is my shameless plug for MrRackables. I've seen too many poor experiences people have had with online resellers that I thought I'd share my positive one.
About 5 years ago I built my first unRAID system. At that time, I was primarily focused on having a system to safely store and serve data, mostly media, to client devices in my household. Over the years, as our community has grown leaps and bounds, between the community applications growth in dockers, as well as well as integrating virtual machines, I quickly found myself maxing out my Pentium G2120 & 4GB RAM’s limits.
I have spent countless hours on these boards, conversing with fellow forum members about the pros and cons of different hardware. The dual Xeon E5-2670 processors seemed to be a popular choice. While being an older CPU, these can still be had for relatively cheap and provide an insane amount of multi-tasking abilities for people who are really looking to push their server to the limits.
I have minimal experience with buying used equipment. However, it seems like a must if you’re not trying to break the bank while attempting to make something that’s at a semi-commercial level for home consumer use. I see plenty of threads pop up about different deals, where to get this or that, who to avoid, and so on. Rather than go on anecdotal information, I decided to take action. I took down the information from all of the top eBay server resellers and reached out. I shared my story, explained that there are many of us on the forums outgrowing our current equipment, and expressed our interest in upgrading to a more robust solution.
The one company that stood out was MrRackables. Their level of responsiveness was unparalleled among the resellers I was in contact with. They quickly responded to my email inquiries, and were very helpful and explicit throughout the process. They kept me informed on where things stood from pre purchase to delivery.
Their builds setup allows users to pick and choose parts, truly creating a custom system built to order. For what you’re getting, the pricing is great.
They had the CPUs I was looking for which got us off on the right foot. Their bread and butter are the Supermicro systems which is great since I’ve always been a fan of their hardware. They had choices from 1U-4U servers which could range from 4-24 hot swap drive bays. They had a nice selection of motherboards allowing for quite a bit of flexibility in total DIMM slots and PCI slots depending on your needs.
When I was done researching my options, we came up with this system:
2U Supermicro 12 Bay Server
Supermicro X9DRI-LN4F Motherboard
2x Intel Xeon E5-2670
64GB RAM (8x 8GB)
LSI 9211-4i HBA CARD
8x 3.5" Caddies
4x 2.5" adapters with 3.5" Caddies
Dual 1200W Power Supply
Rail kit
4x 1GBE Onboard NIC
Dedicated IPMI remote management port
The quote came in at $967. I compared prices with other resellers, and could not find anything cheaper. I could have considered buying each part independently to beat the price, but then I'd be dealing with 5+ sellers and 5x the risk that one of my components would be broken. In this scenario, if I had any issues, I was confident that through the rapport I had built with them, that the issue would be quickly resolved. I was sold. I placed the order and we were on our way.
It took a couple days to build, was sent via UPS Ground, and was here in under a week, from CA to NY.
The packaging thoroughly impressed me. It was not loose in the box with some annoying packing popcorn to secure it. It was tightly packed with styrofoam border and seemed very secure.
I took the system out of the box and placed it on my workbench. Unfortunately I'm still looking for a server rack, so this beast will sit desktop for a few weeks until I have that figured out:
I gave it it's first boot to test out the specs, All components posted and matched the order. So far so good! I pulled the drives from my current unRAID setup and transferred them to the new system. I realized that I did not have any type of adapter for my 2.5" SSD. After contacting MrRackables, I had 4x adapters here 48 hours later. It was great to see that even post-purchase, a company was still quick to respond and work with their customers to resolve any issues. I booted up, and my oh my, what a sight to see!
This system is ready to roll. I have slowly begun to roll out different VM instances, like Windows 10 & Ubuntu. I have added Zoneminder docker for surveillance. I can worry-free run multiple transcoding streams concurrently on Plex. I have installed video cards to the PCI slots without issue. This system handles it, and still has an incredible amount of room for growth.
For the price and the ongoing support, I am super stoked about working with MrRackables. They have my full endorsement for anyone still looking for their own custom server to run unRAID. If anyone has any questions, I'd contact their Director of Sales, Justin. He was the one I dealt with from MrRackables and I can vouch for the quality he provided. This is his email. mr@itrecyclenow.com
DISCLAIMER: I did receive a few small perks, like a few free drive trays and free shipping after mentioning to MrRackables I was doing this review. With that said, I do not work for them, or receive any type of residual on future sales. I'm simply supporting a company which I had a great experience with in a field where many have had issues. If they were to ask how you heard of them, tell them anything you'd like as again, I receive no compensation for my ongoing support.
About 5 years ago I built my first unRAID system. At that time, I was primarily focused on having a system to safely store and serve data, mostly media, to client devices in my household. Over the years, as our community has grown leaps and bounds, between the community applications growth in dockers, as well as well as integrating virtual machines, I quickly found myself maxing out my Pentium G2120 & 4GB RAM’s limits.
I have spent countless hours on these boards, conversing with fellow forum members about the pros and cons of different hardware. The dual Xeon E5-2670 processors seemed to be a popular choice. While being an older CPU, these can still be had for relatively cheap and provide an insane amount of multi-tasking abilities for people who are really looking to push their server to the limits.
I have minimal experience with buying used equipment. However, it seems like a must if you’re not trying to break the bank while attempting to make something that’s at a semi-commercial level for home consumer use. I see plenty of threads pop up about different deals, where to get this or that, who to avoid, and so on. Rather than go on anecdotal information, I decided to take action. I took down the information from all of the top eBay server resellers and reached out. I shared my story, explained that there are many of us on the forums outgrowing our current equipment, and expressed our interest in upgrading to a more robust solution.
The one company that stood out was MrRackables. Their level of responsiveness was unparalleled among the resellers I was in contact with. They quickly responded to my email inquiries, and were very helpful and explicit throughout the process. They kept me informed on where things stood from pre purchase to delivery.
Their builds setup allows users to pick and choose parts, truly creating a custom system built to order. For what you’re getting, the pricing is great.
They had the CPUs I was looking for which got us off on the right foot. Their bread and butter are the Supermicro systems which is great since I’ve always been a fan of their hardware. They had choices from 1U-4U servers which could range from 4-24 hot swap drive bays. They had a nice selection of motherboards allowing for quite a bit of flexibility in total DIMM slots and PCI slots depending on your needs.
When I was done researching my options, we came up with this system:
2U Supermicro 12 Bay Server
Supermicro X9DRI-LN4F Motherboard
2x Intel Xeon E5-2670
64GB RAM (8x 8GB)
LSI 9211-4i HBA CARD
8x 3.5" Caddies
4x 2.5" adapters with 3.5" Caddies
Dual 1200W Power Supply
Rail kit
4x 1GBE Onboard NIC
Dedicated IPMI remote management port
The quote came in at $967. I compared prices with other resellers, and could not find anything cheaper. I could have considered buying each part independently to beat the price, but then I'd be dealing with 5+ sellers and 5x the risk that one of my components would be broken. In this scenario, if I had any issues, I was confident that through the rapport I had built with them, that the issue would be quickly resolved. I was sold. I placed the order and we were on our way.
It took a couple days to build, was sent via UPS Ground, and was here in under a week, from CA to NY.
The packaging thoroughly impressed me. It was not loose in the box with some annoying packing popcorn to secure it. It was tightly packed with styrofoam border and seemed very secure.
I took the system out of the box and placed it on my workbench. Unfortunately I'm still looking for a server rack, so this beast will sit desktop for a few weeks until I have that figured out:
I gave it it's first boot to test out the specs, All components posted and matched the order. So far so good! I pulled the drives from my current unRAID setup and transferred them to the new system. I realized that I did not have any type of adapter for my 2.5" SSD. After contacting MrRackables, I had 4x adapters here 48 hours later. It was great to see that even post-purchase, a company was still quick to respond and work with their customers to resolve any issues. I booted up, and my oh my, what a sight to see!
This system is ready to roll. I have slowly begun to roll out different VM instances, like Windows 10 & Ubuntu. I have added Zoneminder docker for surveillance. I can worry-free run multiple transcoding streams concurrently on Plex. I have installed video cards to the PCI slots without issue. This system handles it, and still has an incredible amount of room for growth.
For the price and the ongoing support, I am super stoked about working with MrRackables. They have my full endorsement for anyone still looking for their own custom server to run unRAID. If anyone has any questions, I'd contact their Director of Sales, Justin. He was the one I dealt with from MrRackables and I can vouch for the quality he provided. This is his email. mr@itrecyclenow.com
DISCLAIMER: I did receive a few small perks, like a few free drive trays and free shipping after mentioning to MrRackables I was doing this review. With that said, I do not work for them, or receive any type of residual on future sales. I'm simply supporting a company which I had a great experience with in a field where many have had issues. If they were to ask how you heard of them, tell them anything you'd like as again, I receive no compensation for my ongoing support.
