DoeBoye

That's good news! It definitely looks promising I've never actually seen IPMI in action, but I sort of regret not buying a board with it for my existing build.... Guess I'll save it for my next one For new motherboards at least, I believe I read something by Rajahal recently that mentioned manufacturers are wising up about putting video-only limitations on PCI-e slots, and it's becoming a non-issue...

No Problem christuf! Glad to help out . I quickly looked around for a reasonably priced board that supports multiple 8-port cards, and I came across this guy: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813153186 The reviews aren't overwhelming on Newegg, but not bad. One member (Josh) in this forum posted some fairly positive things about it's performance as well, and he seems to be running a problem-free build with more than 20 drives: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=9849.0 http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=10085.0 You still might want to spend some more time poking around the forums for a suitable (2 or more 4x+ PCI-e slots) mobo though. I hear a lot of good things about SuperMicro boards, but you tend to pay more for them... HTH!

Your plan seems sound! One thing I would consider is perhaps future-proofing the build a bit more. Since cash isn't too big an issue, you might want to consider upsizing the case to the Twelve Hundred and picking a board that can support 2 8-port boards instead of one. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129043 You might not think you'll ever need the storage, but most people seem to use more when more is available... Think of it as insurance

75MB /s? I've never seen anything near that! My cache drive is a WD EARS drive. I considered getting a faster cache drive, but I like the idea of having it as a warm spare and I'm trying to stick with green drives... Maybe when I get my new case (norco 4224), I'll pick up a WD Black at the same time and have an extra green drive in an empty slot...

Great analogy! Thanks!

Thanks Spectrum! I believe I will keep things as is. For the record, the Switch is an 8 port HP ProCurve, and the router is an Asus RT-N16 running TomatoUSB... I believe both are considered to be pretty solid so replacing them won't help... I may invest in a new platter drive for my Windows box and see if that makes a difference (Seeing as it speeds up when copying from the SSD drive). The existing data drive on the PC is an old PATA drive. Funny story : I googled "Port Contention" to make sure I understood what was going on, and I skimmed the first few posts in one of the first links I clicked on, before I realized it was a discussion on Sea Ports in some Online Pirate game! *Grin*. So, as per a few lines up, unless my hardware is faulty, I doubt replacing either switch or router will improve speeds... To be honest, I've been very pleased with the performance of both units. They never go down, never heat up, and seem to just work without any intervention. I think this is just me being anal a perfectionist . Thanks for the advice though!

Thanks for the quick reply! Transfer speeds are usually around 30 - 40 MBps (Using cache drive) from PC to UnRaid. Also, when tested using an SSD drive as the source, these numbers did go up to closer to 50 MBps, so obviously the source drive is definitely a bottleneck here... Though you would think the read speeds on the platter drive would be better then that... So, though not the fastest transfers in the UnRaid world, from what I've seen, I am within the normal range... I guess I'm just being extra greedy

Hey folks, I've been running without problems a network with the following configuration: MODEM -> GB ROUTER -> UNMANAGED GB SWITCH -> PCs etc and UnRaid Box So the question I have been musing about is the following: Would transfers between my UnRaid server and the other computers on the network be faster if the UnRaid server was plugged into one of the ports of the router instead of the switch? ie: MODEM -> ROUTER -> SWITCH -> PCs -> UnRaid Box My reasoning is that if all the computers are plugged into the switch, and the switch is plugged into one port on the router, perhaps all traffic needs to pass through that one port before being sent to the correct target on the switch... Of course, I find it entirely likely that the packets being sent never actually leave the switch at all and just travel from one port to the other... in which case plugging the unraid box directly into the router would only complicate things and potentially reduce transfer speeds slightly... So again, I have no actual problems, just hoping to squeeze every last MB of speed out of any file transfers over the network! Anyone with a more thorough knowledge of the topic willing to share some insight? Cheers, DB

You can't go wrong with that kind of recommendation! . The only drawback to that board that I see is the maximum drives it can support (6 drives with a sil3132 card from monoprice). Makes a great mini-server though! Enjoy!

$60 for a board and Sempron 140 seems like a pretty sweet deal! Have you seen if anyone have experience with the chipset for UnRaid?

Looks like prices are coming down on these. Seem to be seeing sales every day! These are both at NCIX.com EARS $79.99: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=49591&vpn=WD20EARS&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1270 Seagate $74.99: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=57131&vpn=ST2000DL003&manufacture=Seagate&promoid=1270 The Seagate is their new 'Green' drive. All the talk about firmware issues seems to center around the 32MB Cache Seagate LP drive. Does anyone know if these guys have any issues?

Second! These worked great for me before I ran wire. Just make sure to get the 500mbps rated ones (like queeg linked to), or at the very least the 200mbps ones. The 85mbps units don't usually work that well...

Deal until February 3rd on Seagate 2TB drives for $77.89 http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX24874%28ME%29.aspx And WD Greens for $89.99 http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX27815%28ME%29.aspx Max 2 per customer. Shipping is free on 2 or more. EDIT: Don't forget the Seagate drives apparently need their firmware flashed... Unless they're shipping now with the newest version?... Also, WD Green drive needs to be jumpered (do the reasearch in the forums) unless running UnRaid 4.7.

Disk has been rebuilt. All is well. Thanks again Joe!

Doh! That's what i meant . Was rushing out the door to meet the lady friend . It's at 12.8%

Looking good so far! Parity is rebuilding! Thanks Joe, you're a life saver!

Hello All, Just logged into unMenu and seeing one of my drives went down this afternoon. UnMenu is showing DSBL beside it instead og "OK" Log is showing this error: ATA_OP_STANDBYNOW1 ioctl error: -5 I powered down and checked the cables. NOThing loose (Though I didn't swap the sata cable out yet) I rebooted and still no change . I ran a short smart test and this is what i got: ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 199 166 021 Pre-fail Always - 5025 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 516 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 1539 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 37 192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 14 193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 198 198 000 Old_age Always - 6986 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 123 115 000 Old_age Always - 27 196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0 Any ideas? is my disk bad? Should I run a new parity check? Sigh. Thanks!

That's a pretty great price on an entry level SSD. The reviews are decent: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1237/1/ Looks to be using a hybrid 1st gen controller (added cache to make up for some shortcomings I believe)... 4k random synthetic benchmarks aren't stellar (for an SSD drive) - which are quite an important performance indicator -, but going from a standard platter drive to this one should show quite a performance improvement on your boot drive (OS and Apps). I wouldn't upgrade to it if already using a smaller SSD drive (as is my case - currently using a 40GB Intel Value drive), since the next gen of drives are just around the corner, but for a first time ssd on a tight budget, I doubt this price can be beat...

No worries. Probably doesn't help when the 3TB thread is right beside this one . If they still had warranty, I would definitely grab a couple of these guys as space is starting to get low (Less then 3TBs free space remaining! Whatever will I do? ). The no warranty things makes me a little nervous though.... Sigh.

I thought the 2TB HDS722020ALA330 Hitachi drives were on the recommended list? That makes sense... Unfortunate .

Excellent point! And shipping is free! (darn rotten americans!! ) I might go for one of these guys. Anyone know how these run in an UnRaid server, as far as heat and power consumption are concerned? Also, I did some more reading since I posted, and some people are saying the warranty on the drive is voided if you pull it out of the case... Anyone familiar with this?

Hi Folks, Newegg in canada has a Hitachi External 2TB drive on sale for $99. Reports claim that it has the HDS722020ALA330 drive inside. Pop the enclosure open, and voila! May be a good solution to mix up the drive types in our chassis (I seem to predominantly have Greens)... http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145326&nm_mc=OTC-sho6b0tCA&cm_mmc=OTC-sho6b0tCA-_-Hard+Drives+-+External-_-Hitachi+Global+Storage+Technologies-_-22145326 EDIT: Looks like Newegg US has the same deal!: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145326 DB

I've had 100% success with WD EADS, 7 of 7 have been perfect. Recently started buying EARS drives, and not so good . Bought 4 EARS drives and 2 of them failed pre-clear... Got them from 2 different sources, 1 month apart... That said, I will buy another EARS drive when the time comes. Guess I'm an optimist .

Monoprice is great (I get all my hdmi and patch cables from them), but shipping heavy stuff across the border (Canada!) can be costly. I ended up sourcing a 1000' spool of Plenum-rated (CMP) Cat6A (10GB) off of Ebay for a very reasonable price ($350 to my door). Though my network is Gigabit right now, the cost difference between Cat6 and Cat6A was not too large, and I figured in 5-10 years, 10GB Networking will be the standard...

+1 for the HP ProCurve! I have 2x 8-port unmanaged switches, and they just work. They stay cool and the lifetime warranty is nice .