captain_video
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Posts posted by captain_video
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I haven't overlooked that possibility at all. In fact, I had purchased an Asus RT-N56U wireless router from Newegg on Black Friday just prior to trying out pfSense. I was having issues getting it to obtain an IP address from Verizon, but I eventually sorted that out with the pfSense router. I was actually searching the web for info on routers when I stumbled across the pfSense website. I figured, why not give it a shot since I already had the hardware on hand to build it?
I have since sold the Asus router on ebay. The ALIX setup would only cost me slightly more than any quality commercial router I'd consider using, although I really don't need wireless since my whole house is hardwired for gigabit. For now, I'll stick with my homebrew pfSense router until I can afford the ALIX kit.
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I've been using two old machines as router and server for years, but recently decided to get away from that. Modern hardware is just so much more energy efficient, especially on light system loads. The router is in the process of getting replaced by an Alix solution, while the server will get virtualized on my new ESXi machine alongsize unRAID and other virtual machines.
At a certain point, the old hardware is obsolete even for tinkering purposes.
Absolutely. I recently upgraded the motherboard and CPU in my HTPC and I have a Kill-O-Watt meter connected to it. The old setup was using about 118 watts on average. The new setup only uses about 75 watts. I also just added a Radeon HD 7770 graphics card and the usage only increased by a couple more watts. This is exactly why I'm now considering the ALIX computer. Recycling old gear is a nice idea, but not if it's going to add a sizeable chunk to the electric bill. The new hardware will probably pay for itself in savings on the bill over the next couple of years.
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I agree about having the extra PC running 24/7. It's the only thing about it that's making me think twice about it. Now that I have the pfSense router up and running I'm starting to look at the ALIX single board computer systems that are configured with pfSense. It kind of defeats the purpose of using old PC parts, but it would still give me a powerful router with low power consumption and a small footprint. I'm just not sure I want to shell out about $205 for one at this point in time. For now I'll probably stick with the pfSense PC and make the switch when I can afford it.
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I upgraded my motherboard, CPU, and memory in my unRAID setup a while back when I decided to upgrade to a newer version of unRAID and discovered my Gigabyte motherboard installed an HPA on one of my drives. That left me with the basic hardware for another PC. I'm a hardware geek to some extent and I'm always tinkering with new hardware updates, which leaves me with a lot of old PC parts lying around.
I had been having issues with my network for some time and couldn't really isolate them so I decided to get a new router and see if that would help. Somewhere along the way I stumbled across some info about building my own router using pfSense, which is a freeware open source firewall distribution based on FreeBSD.
I'm sure this isn't news to a lot of you, but it was to me and I found it intriguing so I thought I'd give it a shot. I had a old PC case, a spare PSU, and a 40GB IDE hard drive salvaged from an old Tivo, so I put together a router almost completely from spare parts. I did end up purchasing a mini-tower case for about $30 from Newegg and a dual-port Intel NIC on ebay for about $25. Other than that, I had everything else already on-hand.
The router works great and has an extensive web-based UI with more features than I'll ever understand. The dual-port NIC provides interfaces for the WAN and LAN side connections. Initial setup was easy using a connected monitor. Further tweaking is done via the web gui just like any commercial router.
I can't say that it fixed my network issues, but it was a fun project and quite simple to put together. My old unRAID server got a new lease on life. I love it when I can find a good use for old hardware instead of just putting it out to pasture.
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captain_video I'm running .21 on my card and the same version of unRAID you are and it boots just fine. When I spoke with Rajahal a while back he was telling me that "older" versions of unRAID running .21 had issues.
Of course I'm not trying to put Rajahal on the spot or anything, but what he told me seems to work just fine.
Great. I'll look into upgrading my firmware and give it a try. I'll also see about backing up the .15 firmware just in case it goes south. I've had good luck with the Supermicro SATA controllers and I don't want to invest in something new if I don't have to.
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Thanks. If you don't mind, please post which version of unRAID you're using.
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I've got two Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 PCI-e controllers in my unRAID server (I'm currently using unRAID 5.0-rc8). Most of my drives are 1.5TB with a 2TB parity drive, one 2TB data drive, and a couple of 750GB drives (20 drives total). At some point I expect to start upgrading to 3TB drives. The thing is, I'm confused about 3TB compatibility vs. the firmware version of the SATA controllers. Both cards currently have the .15 firmware version, which I've read is supposed to be the most stable for unRAID use. OTOH, I've also read that these cards will support 3TB drives with the .21 firmware. What confuses me even more is that I've read that the .21 firmware can cause unRAID not to boot in some situations.
1. Will these cards support 3TB drives with the .15 firmware?
2. Do I need to upgrade the firmware to .21 to support 3TB drives?
3. Will I have issues using the .21 firmware?
4. If I can't use 3TB drives with these cards, what are my options?
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Good news (for me, anyway
). The Tower, all drives, and shares are all showing up in my network. It would seem that after adding more drives it takes more time for the drives and shares to show up in the network. If I let it sit for a while after starting the array, everything starts showing up in the network. I guess it takes more time than I was giving it to scan the entire array for all shares and drives before they get mapped and displayed. It's all good. -
Nope. The Tower just stopped showing up in the Network listing after adding a drive. Since then I've added more drives and still no Tower in the Network list. All other PCs and devices have remained unchanged.
Like I said, I'm used to not seeing the Tower listed in the Network with 4.7 and in previous versions so it's not that big of a deal. I can still map the shared folders and individual drives so all is good. The links to the server I set up in my WMC libraries still work. I expect the links I set up in XBMC will still be there as well, but I haven't checked them yet.
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I'm used to unRAID not showing up because it never did with versions 4.x. What's weird is that when I add a new drive to the array that's connected to the Supermicro controller, one drive shows up with a red ball and appears as empty when I map the drive. If I reset the configuration, all drives show up as blue and I can set everything up from scratch OK. The empty drive now shows as having data. It may have something to do with the pecking order of the ports being assigned by the controller, but who knows? As long as it remains stable after adding the last drive it's a non-issue.
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Here's where I am so far. When I got home I rebooted the server and drive 5 was being shown with a red ball. I unassigned it and then reassigned it with the same result. The current copy process had finished so I shut down the spare PC with the NTSF drive. I shut down the server, reseated drive 5 and installed the NTSF drive from the spare PC. I then booted up the server, reset the configuration, and reassigned all of the drives. I haven't run a parity check yet so the configuration didn't matter if it changed at this point. The errant drive with the red ball now had a blue ball, as did all of the other drives. I started the array and formatted the newly installed NTSF drive. I had pulled one of the other NTSF drives from the server and connected it to the spare PC and started copying data to the newly formatted unRAID drive.
The server still is not showing up in my network, although I was able to map each individual drive to check the contents. All drives now had data in them except the newly formatted drive. I had my shares previously mapped to the older server and was able to reconnect with them without having to change anything. This is really what's important to me as I have the shared folders mapped to multiple PCs. Since they seemed to have remained intact, not seeing the Tower displayed as a network device is something I can live without.
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I've had this issue before, try resetting your router or simply power cycle it. I'm not sure if I want to blame windows or the router but ever since I did that it shows up like its suppose to.
I'll give that a try when I get home. The thing is, all of my other PCs and devices show up just fine.
I noticed that drive 5 is reporting a multitude of errors and is showing as empty when I try to access it. I had copied the contents of drive 6 to drive 5 and then added 6 to the array once the copy was finished. If drive 5 is toast then I lost about 1.2TB of data. I haven't had a chance to run a parity check yet, but something had been nagging at me to run it ASAP. I may have waited too long to save the data. I'm wondering if the errant drive is causing the array not to show up in the network.
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You have not by any chance only got a 'Plus' license? That would limit you to 6 drives.
I've got a Pro license. Been running it for about five years now.
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I'm rebuilding my unRAID setup from scratch using version 5rc8. I had previously copied all of my data over to NTFS drives and now I'm transferring them back over to the unRAID array one drive at a time. I'd install the NTFS drive in another PC and then add a drive to the array and format it. Once it was formatted, the new drive would show up under Tower in the Network along with the four shares I have set up. I would copy the contents of the NTFS drive to the shares over the network until everything was transferred. I would then add the NTFS drive in the array, format it, and repeat the process with the data on the next NTFS drive.
I just added a 7th drive to the array, formatted it, and now neither the Tower or the newly added drive show up in the Network. I've rebooted several times with no joy. I can still access the server via the web GUI and I can map the newly installed drive manually. The Tower, shares, and individual drives no longer appear as part of the network.
Any ideas?
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Apparently the HDAT2 method didn't clear the HPA and running the parity check didn't change anything. I decided to remove the drive from the array, but first I moved everything off the drive to other drives within the array. Once everything had been moved I pulled the drive and re-initialized the configuration, causing it to rebuild parity from the existing drives. After the parity check was completed I was able to upgrade to 4.7 successfully.
I installed the drive with the HPA in another PC and reran the HDAT2 utility. This time it appeared to be successful in clearing the HPA.
Now for the fun part. Because of the HPA incident and with the latest versions of unRAID now able to support up to 24 drives I decided it was time to upgrade the motherboard. I picked up an Asus F1A55M LX PLUS motherboard and an AMD A4-3400 Liano CPU from Newegg for about $120. I also upgraded from a Corsair TX650W PSU to a Corsair 850W model based on what I read in the PSU recommendations for unRAID.
I installed the new hardware this morning and everything appeared to boot up fine, although I had to play with some of the BIOS settings until I found the right ones. Turns out that the optimized defaults with one or two other settings worked best. When I tried to connect via my web browser on my main PC I was unable to make a connection. I ran "ipconfig eth0" from the command line and it showed I had an IP address assigned to the PC, but it simply would not connect. After many frustrating attempts I eventually disabled the onboard LAN and installed an Intel PCI gigabit card. Once I did that I was able to connect and reassign drives until I got back to the original configuration. I installed a new drive in the slot vacated by the HPA drive and now I'm in the process of clearing it so it can become part of the array.
I'll try and see if I can get the onboard LAN to work after the new drive gets configured. Otherwise, I may be looking at an RMA with Newegg for another board. The upside is that I'm using faster memory and the array boots much faster than the old configuration so overall I'm pretty pleased.
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I tried the HDAT2 method again, this time with the drive pulled from the server and connected to a different PC. It appears to have cleared the HPA successfully, but I'm running a parity check while I'm at work so I'll see what happens when I get home this evening. If all went well I should be able to upgrade to 4.7. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
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I just tried using SeaTools for DOS. The offending drive happens to be a Seagate so I was really hoping SeaTools would do the trick. I created a boot CD and put the drive with HPA in another PC and booted from the CD. I wasn't sure what option to use so I selected the one that resets the capacity to maximum (I saw no mention of HPA anywhere). I returned the drive to the unRAID server but it's still showing HPA on the disk. Is there a different option in SeaTools that I should have used? I'm sorting through the various threads on the subject so maybe I'll come across something.
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I used the correct number with hdparm. I just fat-fingered it when I wrote the post. Here's what I get when I enter hdparm -N /dev/sdr:
"max sectors = 18446744072344859375/11041584, HPA setting seems invalid"
I also tried using the above number(s) and still get an error.
I'm thinking my best course of action would be to copy the contents of the drive over to other drives in the array (I just added five 750GB drives so there's plenty of empty space), delete the drive with HPA, perform a low-level format (does preclear.sh do this?), place the cleared drive in the array as a new drive, and perform a new parity check.
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Checked my syslog and found this:
Sep 3 11:59:59 Tower kernel: ata17.00: HPA detected: current 2930275055, native 2930277168
I tried using "hdparm -N p293077168 /dev/sdr" and it aborted telling me that I was trying to reduce the size of the drive. I also tried using the HDAT2 boot CD method and it gave me errors as well. I did upgrade the BIOS on the motherboard to a later version that turns off HPA with no luck.
I'm not sure what my options are at this point. What would happen if I replaced the drive? Would it be better to simply copy the data over to another drive, insert it into the array, and let it rebuild the parity drive?
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Thanks. I am using a Gigabyte motherboard. I'm surprised this hasn't cropped up with my server before since I've upgraded it on several occasions. It's strange that it only affected one drive.
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I just tried upgrading unRAID from version 4.5.6 to 4.7. When it booted up the array was stopped. One of my drives is being reported smaller than it was under 4.5.6 and is telling me that the replacement drive has to be the same size or larger than the original. What's weird is that I didn't replace the drive. It's a Seagate 1.5TB drive, model ST31500541AS. Under 4.5.6 the size shows up as 1,465,137,496. Under 4.7 it displays 1,465,137,492. I replaced the bzimage, bzroot, and memtest files with the ones that came with the 4.7 download to perform the upgrade. I restored the original files and rebooted and now it reports the correct size again. I'd like to keep the server current, but not if it's going to do something hinky with my drives.
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how did you perform a low level format?
Download the Acronis utility from the Western Digital website. I believe the low level format option is labeled as the one that writes all zeroes to the drive. You need to set up the drive internally to your PC to perform this.
If you want to set up your drive externally with a USB adapter like the Thermaltake BlacX eSATA adapter, download the WD Data Lifeguard utility. I had problems getting it to recognize one of my drives, which is why I switched to the Acronis utility.
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I've installed several of the WD15EARS drives in my server and ran into problems, some of which I documented earlier in this and other threads. The only workaround I found to be effective was to perform a low level format of the drive with the jumper installed and then perform a preclear with the jumpered drive in the array. Once I did that the drive was recognized and the data was restored from parity. I've been running the drives for over a month now with no issues.
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I recently installed several Samsung drives in my server that run at 5400rpm, IIRC. I noticed that they typically run well below 30 degrees C (more like < 25 degrees C) and are the coolest drives in my array. I'm also using an Antec 900 as my server case.
[SOLVED] Disabling RAID from AOC-SASLP-MV8 firmware .21
in Storage Devices and Controllers
Posted
I decided to upgrade both of my AOC-SASLP-MV8 controllers to firmware version .21 from .15 over the weekend. After successfully flashing both cards, one of them displayed the RAID initialization message and the other did not. I displayed the BIOS for each controller and one showed the RAID options and the other just showed JBOD with no RAID tab at the top of the display. I created a USB boot drive with the firmware .15 files and modified the 6480.txt file to disable the RAID functions. I restored the configuration using the 6480.txt file and the server now boots without the RAID initiatialization function. Checking the BIOS indicates that this feature no longer exists.
I had tried to create a backup configuration file but nothing was created. I'm doing this on my server with only one controller installed at a time and I'm using a USB drive to boot from.
After the server boots with all hardware installed, it displays both controllers with all connected drives listed. At the bottom of the screen it displays the options to enter BIOS setup by pressing Ctrl + M or press Space to continue. When I try to do either, it appears to be unresponsive. I decided to let it sit for a few minutes while I left the room. When I returned it had booted into unRAID.
The server is taking far longer to boot with the .21 firmware than it ever did with the .15 version. Is there something I'm missing here? Do I need to have a hard drive installed to write the configuration file to?