RobJ

That is an AGP card. The one I purchased from Newegg a few weeks ago for $35 was this one: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814127243. It is a PCI Express x16 fanless GeForce 7100GS card, worked without a problem. Unfortunately!, Newegg shows it as out of stock, expected next June 6, but perhaps someone else will have it. Newegg does show about 4 or 5 other PCI and PCI Express cards for $33 to $35, Radeon 7000's or GeForce 6200's.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I don't see the Config directory mentioned above, containing 5 of those files, the rest in the root. You may have done it correctly, but it is not obvious from the above, so I'm wondering if you extracted the files without preserving their correct path. Quote from the page you mentioned: http://www.lime-technology.com/wordpress/?page_id=19 "Step 3 Download unRAID Server and extract the files from the zip archive to your Flash." This should possibly be amended to add something like: "making sure to select the 'preserve paths' option of your extraction/unzip/unrar tool". After a first extraction, the root of the flash drive will contain: Config <Folder> bzimage bzroot ldinux readme syslinux.cfg and the Config folder should contain: disk.cfg go ident.cfg license network.cfg share.cfg

Well the Flash doesn't really have a GUID (!). GUID means "Globally Unique Identifier", and the linux USB subsystem "synthesizes" it by combining the Flash Vendor ID, Product ID, and Serial Number. That's one reason why we recommend you download unRAID Server Basic (free version), boot it, and see what the GUID is that linux assigned. That said, there's a utility from Microsoft that can be used to view all the information about USB devices. If you poke around in the device tree shown by that utiliy you can find all the information linux uses to form the GUID. Download UVCView from the Microsoft link above, and the parts of the GUID can be found. Mine seems to be idVendor+idProduct+0000+iSerialNumber. Copying the basic unRAID version to your USB drive, booting it, and accessing the Web GUI Devices page is the best way to see it, and is probably the only official way. You don't actually need the GUID until you purchase, and you have to install the basic version first any way. The purchased licenses just unlock the basic version, they don't replace the software.

No, can't afford it for now, but almost certainly will in the future. Somewhere I read that all of the SATA drives on a port multiplier have to share the 3.0 Gb/s max SATA II speed, so benchmarks with varying numbers of drives will be important. Like you, awaiting testing by others... For now, the 2 port 3132-based PCI-Express cards are cheap, allows me to grow my system slowly.

I've just successfully installed a SYBA SD-SA2PEX-2IR PCI Express SATA II Controller Card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815124027. It was fully supported in unRAID, v4.0-beta9, uses sata_sil24 module, thanks Tom! It's based on the Silicon Image 3132 chipset, which supports 2 internal or external SATA II ports. This may not sound exactly like what you want, but 3132-based cards claim to support the new port multiplier technology, as in this http://www.addonics.com/products/host_controller/ad5sapm.asp. Tom says support is still 'experimental', but it seems exciting for the future, to be able to easily add 10 SATA ports (one 3132-based card ($35) and 2 5-in-1 port multiplier cards (2x$85)). I especially like the Addonics cards' no-slot feature, uses any unused slot bracket but no PCI or PCI-E or other slot type, requires a floppy power connection only. See also this thread http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=567.0. I've only just installed and tested the Syba card, and the speed 'seems' very good, but I can't give you any long-term reliability thoughts. On the first boot, there were lots of boot errors and unRAID did not start, but after a reboot, it seemed to reconfigure itself and came up perfect. I moved the SATA cable attached to /dev/md2 (my third SATA drive) to the first SATA connector on the Syba card, from the the third motherboard SATA connector. After the installation and the extra reboot, and a re-select of my HD on the Devices page, the unRAID server started up perfectly, not even a parity check required. In other words, I moved a drive to a completely different disk controller, and nothing had to be rebuilt, re-initialized, whatever! Try doing that with most other RAID systems, especially if striped! (I'm very new to unRAID, so my terminology may be wrong.) I bought this one from Newegg for $25, it's now $35, similar to other comparable cards. Price range for 2-port SATA II cards seems to be about $25 to $40. To get a 4-port card, price jumps to $110 and up and always seems to have RAID. I could not find anything with 4 or more ports that did not also require paying for RAID even if you don't want RAID. I did install it first on a Windows XP, in order to flash the BIOS to the latest, 7.3.13, from Silicon Image web site. I just checked and all 3 SATA drives have spun down, that is sooo cool!!! Can't wait to add more drives and the pro version of unRAID.

May I suggest an Antec Lanboy? They are harder to find now, Newegg no longer carries them. http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=15001 Rob