butlerpeter

Yeah I did realise that - when I said SATA ports I was really referring to the type of connector, rather than the type of port it was a connector to - it being a standard SATA connector rather than the SAS style of connectors (can't remember the name of them). If it does work, and a reverse breakout cable will do the job, then it does sound like a good option for when ports run out, rather than adding another controller card.

Here's a questions for anyone that might know... The X10SL7 has a built in LSI SAS controller, with 8 SATA ports connected to it. Is it possible to use a SAS Expander with it? Do the cables exist to go from those 8 SATA ports to whatever the SAS expander would have? If they do and it was connected up, would it work? Not something I'm planning to do, just a thought that occurred to me when reading some other threads.

Bit of an update, there haven't been any further errors showing so far. I had the chance to open the server up and as suspected the 2 WD 3TB drives were on the same power splitter. I've rearranged them so they are now on different ones, which also involved connecting one of them to a different SATA port. I also noticed that in a couple of places the SATA cables (including to those drives) ran very close to the power cables, so I rerouted them to put a bit of distance between them. I'll keep an eye on things and see if the errors reoccur. I also have some new power splitters to swap in when the opportunity presents itself.

I would worry about the screws becoming dislodged from the packet over time and finding their way somewhere they shouldn't. As it happens, the accessory kit comes in a box which is just the right size to slip into one of the drive trays (this is how the original accessory kit shipped with the case). At the moment I do have the box occupying an unused drive tray, so I may just pop the screws in the box and keep it in there while I have room. Poprin - thanks for the info on the screw size - I didn't have a clue what they were. That might come in useful one day. I also think it strange that FD don't sell the screws separately on their parts site. They do sell the rubber anti-vibration grommets but not the screws to be used with them.

Wonder of wonders - it was the drive screws that got delivered! Although, there should have been 32 included with the accessory kit and on first glance, without opening the packet to count them, it doesn't look like there are 32 screws in the packet. But it does look like there's enough for mounting 4 drives in the extra drive cage, so that will do. Now I just need to put them somewhere safe so I don't lose them before I need them. Taping the packet inside the server case probably isn't the best idea

More Fractal Design related disappointment to report Having received the accessory pack, which I bought purposely to get hold of the screws for the drives, when I finally got round to looking inside the accessory pack I found that the drive screws were missing! I should have checked as soon as it arrived but just didn't get round to it (6 month old twins get in the way of trivial things like that). I emailed FD and this time have had a reply!! They said they would send the missing screws out to me, and I've also had a UPS tracking email, which can only be for those screws (unless they've finally decided to send the promised drive trays!). At this point I'm not entirely sure what to expect when the man from UPS turns up in a couple of days time. It could be the screws or it might be something completely different.

SAS port can be connected to SATA drives. But you cannot connect SAS drives to SATA ports. Indeed I have all of my SATA drives connected to the LSI 2308 SAS controller. Weebotech, I can't comment on pass through as it's not something I do. I can say that the bios has setting for VTx and VTd. I do run a Xen VM but don't pass anything to it.

It's a great board - I have one in my build. For anyone interested there is a thread about the board here http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=27800.0 And my build thread, using this board, is here http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=32508.0

As an alternative, I always install Agent Ransack on my machines http://www.agentransack.com Free and fast for searching for/in files.

Are you using Internet Explorer 10 or 11? I had that problem and managed to get around it by setting IE to emulate IE 8 - press F12 to bring up developer options, then in Emulation set Document Mode to 8. Alternatively - try a different browser. I had success with Chrome.

Very similar situation tom mine here http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=33016.0 Interestingly, my "problems" are also with WD30EZRX drives. Wonder if there's a possible kernel <-> drive "glitch".

Have updated the first post with the results of the long smart tests. None the wiser - but I think I can feel more assured that my drives aren't failing can't I?

:) That'll teach me to keep my mouth shut None of the cables are bundled together, some of them run quite close to each other, but they're not tied together. Just checked the IPMI event log to see if there were any ECC related errors reported - that's empty. I would have thought that memory hiccups would present themselves in more ways, and more often than the errors I'm seeing? Is there anyway, given the sector numbers reported with the errors, to find out what file(s) are occupying those sectors? If I could find that out perhaps I could do a read of the file under normal usage conditions (i.e. not a parity check) and see if further errors crop up.

Ok the long tests are running on both drives - it says they'll be finished later this evening. I'll post the results then. The drives are both on the same controller - it's an LSI 2308 8 port controller that is built in to the motherboard. All of the drives are connected to that controller. No drives are connected to the "standard"/non-LSI ports. Power is coming through splitters, there are 2 splitters powering 4 drives each. Off hand I can't remember which drives are connected to which splitters. Those 2 drives could well be on the same splitter - I have a feeling that they are. I'll check when I get the chance to power the server down and pull the drives out. For more details about the system, and the splitters/cables I used, see my build thread http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=32508.0 To be fair I've never been entirely happy with the splitters I used. Will have to start having a look for some others just in case.

Hi guys, I just checked in on the web gui for my server yesterday and noticed that disk1 was showing 128 in the errors column. Looking in the syslog I saw that a few days before it reported a load of disk read errors. I ran smartctl -a on the drive and it didn't show anything obvious to me, reallocated and pending sector counts are both 0. So I decided to kick off a parity check overnight. That ran and reported no errors, but now the error count columns for disk1 is at 256 and disk4 is 128. Again smartctl for both drives doesn't show anything, but disk4 is showing similar messages in the syslog. Is there anything to worry about? Are the disks about to start failing? syslog - http://pastebin.com/LfyFZEhE smartctl for disk1 - http://pastebin.com/xzWZbtG8 smartctl for disk4 - http://pastebin.com/FcNxhbWv Screenshot of web gui The hardware is my newly built server - a Xeon 1240v3, Supermicro X10SL7, 24GB RAM. All drives are connected to the motherboards onboard LSI 2308. The 2 drives in question are both WD 3TB Greens (the original 2 drives that I built my first unraid server with). Any thoughts, help, suggestions? Peter Update: smartctl for disk1 after long test http://pastebin.com/HhHDEwA0 smartctl for disk4 after long test http://pastebin.com/NSkfcTUh Both still show no errors that I can see

Finally got the extra drive trays, accessory pack and extra grommets. Turns out I didn't need the extra grommets as the trays do have them installed. I have to say that the Fractal Design support experience has been pretty poor. To say that they would send the trays out to me, and then to not send them and not reply to any enquiries is very disappointing to say the least. Although they were quite happy to respond to me placing a new order for the parts. But, I'm now set for the eventual addition of more drives and shouldn't have any need to attempt to deal with them again. On the plus side - the server is running absolutely fine. Drives are nice and cool. Kind of disappointed that I've run out of "tinkering" to do

Well I've gotten fed up with Fractal Design not sending me the promised drive trays, and really fed up with the complete lack of communication from them. So I've just placed an order for the trays, an accessory pack (just for the drive screws) and 4 sets of rubber grommets (just in case the trays I've ordered don't come with them). An order total of €10.10, with a shipping cost of €17.90. For anyone else considering ordering spare parts from Fractal Design (fractal-design-shop.de I can't comment on the US one), please have a good long think about everything you might need and order it all at once to save on the shipping costs. Although that wouldn't have helped in my case, as (at the time of ordering) there was nothing to say that the extra drive cage wouldn't come with trays or screws etc, and the product image showed the cage with trays installed.

Quick update. The new server has been running, in its updated condition, for over a week now with no issues whatsoever. I upgraded to unRAID 6 beta 4, and have an Arch Linux VM, with 4GB RAM and 2 vcpus, running which is hosting an instance of nZEDb and Plex Media Server. I have APCUPSD, Sickbeard, Couchpotato, NZBGet and MySQL (MariaDB) plugins running directly on unRAID. I could put those in the VM as well but am quite happy with those "core" applications running as they are. The only issues I've had were with a couple of the plugins (APC and MySQL) not playing nice with beta 4. Took a bit of hacking to get them in a state where I'm happy with them until they can be updated with versions properly written for beta 4+. I really am very pleased with the new build. The only disappointing thing is that after contacting Fractal Design (when I found out about the extra drive cage not including drive trays) and being told that they were going to send me some. I've not received the trays nor have I had a response to any emails to them in the last 2 weeks. I may well end up having to order the extra trays and screws myself and take the hit on the postage. Knowing my luck, the minute I do that, the ones they've said they will send will turn up!

Yeah you could mount the drives either way. To me it makes sense to be able to access the drives and cabling by only having to remove 1 side panel. If they were the other way round then both side panels would have to come off to be able to access the cables. Now, if there were some back planes that could mount to the cages, that the drives could slot into then that would be a nice thing indeed!

Updated the first post with details of the latest additions/changes.

FYI I asked Supermicro for clarification over which fan header to use for the cpu fan. They replied that my current configuration (using FAN 1) is correct and that FAN 1 will work fine.

Thanks for the info gary. I've decided to stop speculating and have emailed Supermicro to ask what they recommend. Will report back when I get a response. Update Have heard back from Supermicro, they said that my current configuration is correct and that FAN1 will do just fine. So I'll leave that as it is.

The extra memory, replacement SATA cables, fan extension and 1TB WD Blue to replace my current cache drive have been delivered. My next steps are [*]Add the fan extension so that I can connect the cpu cooler to the FANA header Not doing this now following response from Supermicro [*]Install the extra 16GB of memory to take it up to 24GB [*]Swap out the SATA cables for the new latching ones. [*]Move the bottom case fan to the front and install the extra drive cage where the fan was (still waiting for drive trays to turn up) [*]Add the WD Blue and run a couple of preclear cycles on it to prepare it for replacing my cache drive. I've also just seen that v6 beta 4 might be released soon, so once the hardware work is done I might swap over to that.

Thanks guys, all very interesting. I can't find any power specs for the fans, but they're the 3 140mm Silent Series units included with the Fractal Design Define XL R2 case. Most likely I'll leave the fans connected to the case fan controller, although I might consider garycases suggestion of connecting the rear fan to the motherboard.

Thanks Gary, useful information as always. I agree that the front is the better place for the fan, so I'll look into moving it there next time I have the case open. I did look in the IPMI settings to see if fan speeds were reading but I can't remember if it specifically stated cpu fan or not. I do remember there was only 1 fan listed with a speed (at the time of checking) of 900rpm. I'm going to fit the extension anyway - I've ordered it so I'm going to use it lol. I like those SATA cables you linked to, couldn't quite get my head around whether I would want left or right angled without having the machine in front of me. As I'm based in the UK I've found some alternatives - http://uk.startech.com/Cables/Drive/SATA/18in-Latching-Round-SATA-Cable~LSATARND18 - and have ordered 4 each of 6 inch, 12 inch and 18 inch lengths. Have also got an extra 16GB RAM and a 1TB WD Blue for a new cache/apps/VM drive on order. Will post updated pics as and when I get things fitted.