jortan

I also came here to post that I thought this card wouldn't work... But I hope it does! Here's the latest firmware: ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/driver/SAS/Marvell/MV8/Firmware/3.1.0.21/Firmware_3.1.0.21.zip Need to run from DOS though.

I too have been following this thread with interest and doing a lot of googling for an unRAID build using a Norco 4224 later this year. I'm torn between setting up a low-power ESXI SAN using openfiler and unRAID and a separate ESXi box for VMs - or trying to get everything working in one box. As I'm probably going to be using 3 PCI-E slots to get the openfiler/unRAID setup working (8 + 16 drives) a separate ESXi box would leave more room for tv tuner cards and other things, but something like this probably has enough space for everything. I know that when a PCI device is passed through to a VM in ESXi, all other devices on the same bus are also passed through. Is this an issue for PCI-e? Are PCI-e slots (1x, 4x, 8x, 16x) always on their own bus? (is a "pci-e lane" a bus?) I'm still confused about exactly what works and what doesn't with 1068e cards (passthrough, spindown/up, temperatures, serial numbers) - these seem to be the cheapest option so it would be nice to get these working properly.

It sounds like you're trying to fill both molex connectors on each backplane - You only need to connect one per backplane. The second connector is only used if you have a redundant power supply, to keep drives operating should one power supply fail.

I took the liberty of adding the intel motherboard you listed to the Hardware Compatibility page on the wiki. I also added the network chipset on that board, which I'm guessing is working fine?

Great post, it's a shame that most of the people who posted in that thread didn't seem to read yours!

Have you tried to format the USB key with the HP Format Tool? http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,64963-order,1-page,1-c,peripherals/description.html I had two 1GB usb drives of different brands that refused to boot in any motherboard. Format the usb drive with the HP tool as FAT32, formatted as a DOS boot disk. Then run syslinux and copy unRAID to the usb stick. Both of my USB sticks booted fine after this.

I spent about 5 hours with 2 different sticks and 4 different computers fiddling with BIOS settings to no avail. It seems that some sticks (I had 2 different 1GB models) simply will not boot unRAID as it is now without these steps. Once formatted with the HP tool as FAT32 and as a DOS startup disc, both USB drives now boot perfectly. It might be worth adding this information to the page http://www.lime-technology.com/wordpress/?page_id=46 as it would have saved me a lot of time and frustration. The problem seems to be somewhat common with 1GB drives and is about the minimum USB storage size available these days. The two I have are Kingston DataTraveler and Imation The HP tool requires you to enter a path to DOS system files when formatting a USB drive as a DOS Startup Disc. I used the standard windows format tool to create a boot floppy and then pointed the HP format tool to A: for the system files. These files might existing somewhere inside a windows installation though.