bcbgboy13

Flash M1015 with the latest firmware P14 as yours is old (P12) Aug 27 22:14:01 RCNAS kernel: mpt2sas0: LSISAS2008: FWVersion(12.00.00.00), ChipRevision(0x03), BiosVersion(07.23.01.00) (Drive related) Make sure that the Unraid version you use does not have by itself problems with the LSI controllers.

You need to use Memtest v4.20 - it is good idea to have this updated in the Unraid package too as the change-log states: PS. After reading the Unraid own change-log it appears that memtest 4.20 is used since RC1 - I suggest to ask some PC-savvy friend to take look at your server - something is wrong. Prepare another flash drive and try the memtest only.

You use two SASLP cards but fortunately have only 14 hard drives - attach 6 of them to the motherboard SATA ports and 8 to a single controller card and try this way - then swap the cards but I still do not think the cards are faulty.

Dan, The controllers may not be a problem. The problem could be in the fact that all your hard drives are the same model and they appear to be bought in two batches. (as the power on hours are in the 3500-4000 hour range). And then one of your HDs had a temperature of 50 degC. If one of your HDs had suffered thermal damage there is a chance of others also - unfortunately WD hard drives do not have a SMART status showing the highest temperature in the past. Something of concern (it is from 2010) - this is an article from Toms' hardware regarding the hard drive reliability - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hdd-reliability-storelab,2681.html and in the second page there is this snippet: "Storelab notes that read/write head failure is somewhat characteristic for WD drives. Failures primarily occur as a result of physical impact or overheating (WD heads can be sensitive at temperatures above 45°C)." This is perhaps your bigger problems. Next - you have two SASLP cards and some versions of Unraid do not like a single never mind two of these cards. Unfortunately I do not use them and cannot guide you here but you probably should stop trying now and just read any posts to see if RC5 and two SASLP are compatible before going ahead with further parity checks. Third (and this is not shared here) - there is a reasons why the commercial servers use ECC and are powered by UPS. You need a single memory bit flip in the area where Unraid is loaded (Unraid runs from the memory) caused by whatever reasons (cosmic radiations, power supply fluctuations) to crash the server. It is one thing when you play with your 5-10 years old hardware and with the free version but if you get a serious and have have 10-15 or more big 2-3-4TB drives you are risking a lot. This is my opinion only and as I said not widely shared.

I believe RC5 uses older kernel 3.0.xx and RC6 is using the latest one being 3.4.xx

I suspect it could be the combination of the Unraid version you use (underlying kernels) and the two SASLP cards present. Some combinations do not work very well. Second it depend on how you transferred this data - directly to a disk or to the user share. In the second case you may be using your older drives and if they are almost full the speed will be affected. Third - five of your older 1.5TB Seagate HDs have "bad" firmware: Aug 16 20:16:15 Tower kernel: ata7.00: WARNING: device requires firmware update to be fully functional Aug 16 20:16:15 Tower kernel: ata7.00: contact the vendor or visit http://ata.wiki.kernel.org This may cause problems down the road - check their SMART status carefully.

Downgrade to RC5 as it uses older kernel and try again - or if you wish you can go to the latest RC6-test2 (you are using RC6-test).

If you want you can try to reflash one card again but this time do not flash any BIOS, just the firmware... I suspect the motherboard BIOS does not have enough space to initialize three time the same BIOS. Alternatively boot with a single card, go to the card BIOS menu and disable the BIOS there.

I strongly suspect that the slow writing speed is due to some tiny glitch between the Unraid version you chose and the controllers you use (sas2lp). Put the disks to the motherboard SATA ports and try briefly to see the speed.... Suggest to use Teracopy or md5 or you can end with some errors along the way Teracopy will provide you with the actual speed

Few misconceptions here: 1. First off - M1015 comes with "IBM" firmware which is similar to the one for LSI9240-8i. You will need to cross-flash to the latest IT firmware for either LSI 9210-8i or LSI 9211-8i in order to be able to use it with Unraid. 2. There is specific procedure to follow and it does not start with sas2flash you are using. Please read and follow the instructions carefully and to the dot or you can damage your card - they are now more valuable since they are no longer manufactured. 3. The correct file to use under DOS environment is named sas2flsh and not sas2flash - it is missing "a" as it has to confirm to the old DOS naming scheme of 8.3 4. Even if cross-flashed correctly Beta 14 which you use does not support (like) the LSI SAS cards. You will have to go either down to Beta 10, 10a or 12 or use one of the newer RC (but not RC6 unless you get the latest test2 variant).

Try running a preclear on disk attached to the Mainboard SATA ports - in this way you will eliminate possible bad backplanes, bad cables, problematic SAS2LP cards/Unraid versions. Make sure the preclear script you use is a recent one (supporting 3TB+ HDs). If the disks can be precleared this way then the problem is elsewhere. I am not that familiar with the Norco cases but I believe they were different "revisions", different backplanes and I do remember some posts where people experienced problems is they have powered a backplane with a single Molex connector only. And one more thing to keep in mind - people often confuse SASLP cards with yours SAS2LP and then with the LSI SAS cards (very different) - and the various Betas had problems with some of them in the past (still not fixed) - you will have to find a revision that does not have problems with SAS2LP.

Read this one regarding the old Raidcore BC4000- http://greenleaf-technology-hwandsw.blogspot.ca/2011/05/testing-hardware-for-unraid.html These guys are moderators here - so you can ask them questions I also have an older Raidcore myself - if I have time I may try to see if it is working now (and the 3TB+ support) but not this weekend.

I cannot help you with compiling your own Unraid but try this card with the latest 4.7 release. I know for sure that the older RAIDcore 4000 were supported there (or in some of the previous 4.x releases) and provided they do not need different driver (one can hope for it) it may works.

AOC-SASLP-MV8 is not an LSI card. However this may become official release and probably includes all the fixes from RC6 (but there is no official change history to be sure). You also have a relatively low power CPU and coupled with the fact that you have attached the 3TB disk to the SM controller it may take 15-18 hours if you did not catch any bugs along the way. Using the Joe L. preclear script will test the disk better and avoid the big wait you are observing right now.

You have the latest firmware but the person you bought the card from did not flash any BIOS. This is acceptable for IT mode and it will make your computer boot 20-30s faster. Other than that probably no harm effect.

can someone with P14 please answer. Thank you I do not use the files posted on the first page so cannot comment ot the flashing procedure under Windows. However one can safely copy/overwrite the firmware file and the BIOS file from any newer revision over the exiting ones and update right to the latest one. Keep in mind that 2118it.bin is the original firmware file name for LSI9211-8i and 2108it.bin is for LSI9210-8i - they are functionally identical but the device name will change. Do not forget to overwrite the correct BIOS file too- always named mptsas2.rom If you have a previous version one does not need to go thru the whole procedure - update is done with one line command only: sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom

I suspect you have very old firmware P11: Jul 31 21:37:21 Tower kernel: mpt2sas0: LSISAS2008: FWVersion(11.00.00.00), ChipRevision(0x03), BiosVersion(07.21.00.00) Jul 31 21:37:21 Tower kernel: mpt2sas1: LSISAS2008: FWVersion(11.00.00.00), ChipRevision(0x03), BiosVersion(07.21.00.00) Try the latest P14 firmware and report back They are a lot of specific SATA HDs fixes in P14 - it is probably a good idea for everyone to upgrade to this one. It is probably a good idea for everyone posting here to report the card firmware and BIOS revisions and in this way TOM can use/forward this info to the Linux guys.

Firmware P14 has been released recently - some interesting "defect" fixed specially for SATA drives: Example: SCGCQ00280727 (DFCT) - (Sata Only) Executing Start Stop Unit to move SATA Drive from Standby to Active doesn’t work Perhaps this will finally allows for a real release 5.0

Nick, 1. There is a reason why the commercial servers use at least ECC memory and are on UPS. 2. URE (unrecoverable read errors) rating on the consumer level disks. I suspect every Unraid user transferring huge amount of data 24/7 like in your tests (this is not the usual way Unraid is used) will be bitten by the statistics regarding these two factors above. I cannot prove anything but is is something for you to keep in mind since you are looking for ideas. PS. Forgot to mention but you have some Samsung hard drives - some older one had a defective firmware and you should check if yours are the one affected - you can search even here as it was discussed at that time.

Michael, It looks like you have SM X7SB4/E board and two SM SASLP controllers and they use the same IRQ16 - I will suggest to remove one card and to use the onboard SATA ports (they are superior to the used SM add-on cards)- especially for the disks you want to check. Keep in mind that some Unraid versions do not play nice with two of these SM cards (and perhaps even with a single one). After you fix the disk problems and upgrade to a newer version I suggest to check your motherboard BIOS and see if it is the latest version. Good luck

Good read here - http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=10 M1015 is based on the LSI SAS2008 and its current support (and future support) is probably going to be better. M1015 has price advantage if one is patient enough to look around for a deal and is located in USA (you may be able to buy 2 and perhaps even three M1015 for the same price as a single SM card) If you are going to reuse these 15 2TB black HDs and have already chosen Unraid 100% you can get the job done with the previous generation cards - such as BR10i as I suspect one can find cards like this for $25-30. These are SATA2, PCIe 1.0 and limited to 2.2TB hard drives capacity.

P11 is old version for the firmware - the latest one is P13.5 - http://www.lsi.com/downloads/Public/Host%20Bus%20Adapters/Host%20Bus%20Adapters%20Common%20Files/SAS_SATA_6G_P13.5/9210_8i_Package_P13.5_IR_IT_Firmware_BIOS_for_MSDOS_Windows.zip And as this is often read from other non Unraid users there is a newer firmware for 9240-8i mode as well - http://www.lsi.com/downloads/Public/MegaRAID%20Common%20Files/MERGED_20.10.1-0099_SAS_2008_FW_Image_APP-2.120.294-1580.zip BTW - there are now PCIe 3.0 versions of these cards (based on SAS2308)

Old BIOS, i3 CPU hence no ECC and no UPS - upon boot-up Unraid runs from the memory and any single memory bit flip in that critical area due to whatever reasons (unclean power, power surge due to the stormy weather, etc...) can crash one module and then you will end with similar results. And check the syslog around May 14 starting around 23:59:57 Just IMHO.

1. Your BIOS is old - dated 06/30/2011 Since you are using relatively new hardware one should take care to upgrade the motherboard BIOS as there will be many problems early on that could be fixed by BIOS upgrades later in the product life-cycle. Coincidentally it looks like SM released a new BIOS just few days ago - dated May 8, 2012 2. Your LSI firmware may not be up to date - the latest being 13.00.57.00 when yours are with 13.00.01.00 3. You are using a server grade components but are missing the last one needed for reliable "server" operation - UPS.

A few suggestions: 1. Flash the motherboard with the latest BIOS, then set the default configuration, save it, reboot, go into the BIOS again and disable any unused hardware features - Floppy drive, serial and parallel ports, audio, firewire, IDE controller if you are not using any of the older IDE HDs. Save this one. 2. Make sure that all the jumpers JPE1 to JPE8 and also JPE9 are set to CrossFire mode - (all of them are in position 2-3 closed) - reference page 21 bottom right - in this way you "enable" the second PCIe x16 slot to be functional and working at x*8 speed. By default they are in position 1-2 to provide your video card with max bandwidth and the second PCIe x16 slot is disabled. Try now - your M1015 should work. 3. If no luck again - swap the controller with the video card and try again (Controller in the Master PCIe, video card in the Slave PCIe). 4. If no luck again and if you only plan to use max of 16-18 HDs you can try to look for an older PCI only video card - people usually trow these in the garbage - but it may be possible to avoid buying an new MB However I am 99% sure that everything will work after steps 1 and 2 Good luck and let me know. PS. Use only Beta 12/12a or the new just released RC2