[Recommended controllers for Unraid]

On 11/11/2022 at 6:30 PM, floori said:

So I tried multiple cards of exactly this model (BEYIMEI PCI-E 4X to 6-Port) and another one from MZHOU (also sold on Amazon; quite sure it's the same card). All cards have the ASM1166 chip and I was getting them to replace two hbas on an Intel Z690 motherboard.

 

I've tried to upgrade the firmware on a total of 4 different workstations, including 2 Ryzen builds (1gen and 3gen on Asus motherboards) and two Intel ones (x99s and z97s MSI motherboards) to no avail. In my case, the firmware flashing tool just did not recognize any of those cards.

For anyone with similar problem - unlucky with no card showing up in windows flash tool. I have managed to fix my MZHOU ASM1166 x4 pcie card with the help of a DOS tool I found here

 

The DOS flash tool supplied for the Lycom PE-156 can also be used to force a newer firmware for the MZHOU. The process I used:

Create bootable DOS usb stick, I used Rufus with FreeDOS.

Extract the zip to your usb stick, I recommend simplifying the folder name, like extract all to ASM1166 folder.

Then when booted to DOS just cd your folder and skip the instruction and Autoexec.bat file and just run the command "116upd /U 11050000.ROM". This flashed fine.

Finally I used the Silverstone program in Windows to flash the newer ROM since now the card was visible. It's possible I could have added the Silverstone ROM already in the DOS flash directly, not sure.

 

It's too early to say that my problems with the card is over, I've had a lot of CRC erros, but now I feel more hopeful. After all, ASM1166 is a great chipset when working correctly both speed and power consumption wise. Best of luck and I hope someone struggling like me find this info helpful.

 

ASM1166-SPI-Flash-Update-SOP-A10.zip

[Basic licence for 5x hdd array + passthrough the rest?]

Purchased Basic license, yes, it's working! Just goes to show the flexibility of Unraid. 5x HDD, 1x NVME cache connected for 6 disk license. VFIO passthrough on 2 separate sata controller for Truenas and other VMs. nice!

[Basic licence for 5x hdd array + passthrough the rest?]

indeed, the controllers are vfio-pci bound and the only way to use or view the attached disks is to go through the vm. 

[Basic licence for 5x hdd array + passthrough the rest?]

Thank you both, I will have a look when I come home. It's probably smarter to upgrade to newer larger (and fewer) drives than to keep 9 old ones going and have to purchase Plus.

[Basic licence for 5x hdd array + passthrough the rest?]

Hello,

 

Been testing Unraid for around 30 days and quite happy with the product.  I have set it up with 5 disk array + 1 ssd as cache. Then I have another 2 disks with sata controller passthrough to Truenas for backup purposes, and another sata controller with 1 HDD pass through to a windows VM together with the gpu. Works fine. 

In total I have 9 disks installed in the server. 

My plan was to purchase only the basic license since I am using a 5 disk array in unraid. It has worked in the trial, but will it work with the Basic license?