lionelhutz

Members
  • Posts

    3731
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

Everything posted by lionelhutz

  1. I will comment that if you really want to expand to 15 drives then just consider buying the Noreco case right off the bat. You get all the drive bays and fans you need ready to go (at least I think you do). Now; Do those Cooler Master drive adapters have a filter in the front of them for the fan?? If so, then ignore what I'm posting here. If not, then here is something to think about. The front 5.25" covers down the front of the Centurion 590 case are vented and filtered. So, I would consider something like these adapters; http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=32328&vpn=SCY-HDSX4&manufacture=Scythe installed in this case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119152 Then, put say 2 x 120mm fans (probably about 50cfm each) into the case blowing out and cover the rest of the holes with packing tape or duct tape. Cover the hole on the bottom for the power supply and instead install the power supply upside down. It's supposed to intake air from under the case but instead put it in so it intakes from inside the case. It still screws in but only with 2 or 3 screws instead of the normal 4. This way, the air flows through the filters on the front, over the drives first and then out the fans at the back. The front cover of that case also just pulls off. I would block off the open area with a piece of cardboard and just keep trimming it down as you add each drive. It'd be nice if you could buy extra adapters exactly like the one that comes in the case because they're perfect for mounting the drives and they have a 120mm fan and still retain the filtered front cover. Maybe that other one is similar enough iif you take off the black piece in front of the fan. It's not the same from the pics but it is similar. The one that comes in the case allows each drive to be rubber grommet mounted individually. On mine, I have the same case and am using drawer load drive tray adapters. I'm going to install the fans so they suck in through filters and then exhaust through the drive cages at the front with filters like these. I actually have it done but just have a bounce sheet over the fans for now held with some magnets because I still have to get the filters. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811999208 Anything to keep the dust out sure helps. Might as well think about this before hand because that computer will sit hidden somewhere and hidden in the corner is usually the worst spot for dust. Peter
  2. Yes, there seems to be confusion as to what the OP wants. That is why I listed my "barebones" 6 drive build in the other thread. Just to show that you can build a 4T Unraid server for less than that TS. I think it would have been < $550 in parts (or $600 with a better power supply) using 1.5T drives and still have room for 3 more drives to expand to 7.5T of data total. On another note, the parts posted by ilovejedd are solid. Peter
  3. I'd think you've got a networking or computer issue. Does your Unraid machine has the parity and data drive on the same PCI buss to SATA card by any chance? From Vista to Unraid over 100Mbps network I can get around 11MBps transfer speed coming close to saturating the 100Mbps network. The hard drives aren't working even close to full-time either so I know it could do more. Watching the drives, I'd expect at least 2X the speed over a Gb network. But then, doing much else on the writing machine at the same times seems to slow it down. Peter
  4. I forgot to comment but that Rosewill supply with dual 12V rails isn't the best. Better to find a supply with a high capability single 12V rail. Peter
  5. Good to hear it worked. Tom (the developer) doesn't believe those syslog errors are anything to be concerned about. Peter
  6. Save $72 on the case and one rack. That Coolermaster case (item #1 brainbone posted) is a good case and is the one I'm using. It comes with a single 4into3 rack similar to the ones you posted which lets you install 4 drives as is and save buying one of those drive adapters. So, $50 case and $22 adapter = $72 Save $20 and get a single core processor. You could likely save $10 to $20 on 1gig of ram or a little cheaper ram. Anyways, that saves you about $100 and still gets you 6 drive capability. Don't forget, you have a motherboard with 6 SATA and you're buying a case to hold 12 drives. Either drop a drive cage or buy a $100 PCIe card to 4 SATA and/or a $20 PCIe card to 2 SATA to get up to either 8 or 12 drives. I don't have the link offhand but can find it for you if you want. Peter
  7. I want to comment on the "Lite Hardware". Unraid is meant to be another option to the 4-drive NAS devices but not on the same level. You can't say it's a different market, Unraid and the NAS boxes are both targeted towards people wanting storage. Both are just different ways to achieve the same thing with advantages to each solution. Those 4-bay NAS boxes are mass produced about as cheap as possible and it's very hard to put together some standard PC hardware and compete with their pricing if only supporting 4 drives. Now, Tom has probably found over the years there are people willing to spend the $1400 for a pre-built server ready to run. He has also probably found that the ones looking to do Unraid cheap want to build the server themselves. So, the "lite" hardware just never sold enough to keep continuing. I'll just comment on this too in case anyone is still following this thread. I did that on purpose. I was listing the cheapest hardware possible to run Unraid with 6 drives and you can screw 6 drives into that case. I know there are better ways, the Coolermaster 4into3 cage you listed is one and it will help keep the drives cool. That PSU is making me cringe... At least go with a $50 PC Power & Cooling or Seasonic PSU. Yup, me too. If I was going as cheap as possible this would be the one place I would still splurge and spend the extra $50. Peter
  8. Bubba - 100Mbps Ethernet can only support a 34Mbps data stream? Has the original poster tried a different player with a higher buffer size setting (VLC maybe)?? I'm just guessing but it might be time to try a different network card (try a PCIe card) in the server. Maybe the server network is running off the PCI buss? Peter
  9. LOL, yup, everyone has a favorite. Try this for parts for a small, cheap build. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128342 - $50 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103188 - $40 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811164004 - $37 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134635 - $23 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820326005 - $4 Boy was I high balling the price. $154 for the hardware to support 6 drives. Of course, you may not trust the power supply to your server and the case may need more fans but the rest is very usable. The 740G based chipset motherboards are very popular here and work well for a budget build. Hard drives are 1.5T = $130 today, 4 drives = $520 OS = $120 So, $794 for a 4T server with the capability to add 2 more drives in the future (and even more expansion possible with more hardware). Peter
  10. Yes, I think you are right. Unraid is lacking some features and is pretty basic. It's a small operation. but, it did 5 main things that I couldn't find anywhere else. it doesn't stripe the data yet spans network directories across drives. It allows more than 4 drives (the limit of most NAS). It uses standard PC hardware that can be expanded/added as I go. It is a simple to use web interface. It allows mixed drive sizes. Just to touch on the hardware some more. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1088474 #18 is a post that lists the parts to build the hardware for a 20 drive "plug-in" server for $750. Unraid only supports 17 drives total right now but still this hardware can support 20 (well there are 22 SATA ports). This thread also has some good info. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1094741 If you want to go cheaper without drive "cages" (ie you have to screw in the drives) then you can build a 6 SATA drive server for about $350 + OS + drives. Peter
  11. Yes, read the latest on that thread I linked before and Tom comments that it just appears to be an information error appearing so using that board should not cause any issues. Peter
  12. OK, thanks guys. Looks like my card is bad. There are no syslog errors telling me that the kernel is having trouble with the drive or card but it will not read a known working drive that is moved to be connected to it. A parity check shows up with tons of errors. I could show you some of the syslog parity check errors if someone wants to see them but I don't really see a point. Peter
  13. I missed that post before because it was a different chip. It looks like it won't work with the RAID BIOS. The stupid manufacturer used an eeprom instead of a flash eprom and the SiL chip can't reflash it making the reflash tools useless too. I guess I'll try to return it if shipping isn't too much otherwise I might try to unsolder the eeprom and reflash it or change it to a supported one. It's always something. "Hey, lets make a SiL3132 based card but lets use an unsupported memory chip to save ourselves 20 cents each card". Peter
  14. Anyone have a SiL3132 based card working in their system with the card still running the RAID bios as opposed to the base BIOS? I installed one and moved one of my drives to it to test. When I read from the drive the data or file is corrupted. I get no errors in the syslog. I can put the drive back on the motherboard and it works fine. The problem is this card can't be flashed because the manufacturer used an EEPROM that the SiL3132 can't reflash using the SiL software. I'll have to just return it and get a different one if it's the BIOS (or I have to unsolder and re-program the chip on the board). Peter
  15. I wouldn't rule it out yet - they're cheap and do work with 4.3. I have an ECS version (I think it was ECS). If I have time in the next few days I'll try the new release and see what happens on my board. Peter
  16. Just found these posts; http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2826.15 Apparently, the SB700 on these boards is causing some issues, how bad or what SB700 southbridges are affected is not yet known (see the note of SB700 old revision meaning a new card might not have the issue) since it appears one poster still has a working system. 4.3 is working fine and I imagine Tom will address this in the future but it's still something to consider. Peter
  17. A number of people are successfully using 740G chipset based boards with Unraid. Your VMware requirement adds an unknown to the mix though. http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2642.0 Peter
  18. Sounds good. The first disk didn't get cleared because you were doing an initial build with a new parity. You will have to clear the next drive when you add it. If there is already valid parity then you have to clear a new drive to not "break" the parity. Adding a cleared drive keeps the array protected. You may want to run parity again to confirm the disks are OK before deleting any data. Then, you may want to look at the smart data for the drives to see if anything odd is being flagged. You don't need to delete the data or anything on the old disk. It will get cleared when you install it in Unraid. Peter
  19. I'd try something like the parity and drive 2 on the motherboard with one TX4 card. The onboard SATA could be internally on the PCI buss too so using them may really make no difference. The PCI buss is a bottleneck and the buss is shared among the different cards so it is limiting the amount of data being transferred. But then, it could take time to contend with a second card so removing one might help too. Let us know it you find a combo that makes a significant difference. Peter
  20. Does it try to boot but just never get there? I think I have the same type of flash drive. I had to use the -ma option when creating the drive. Peter
  21. I really don't know about that board. It's not listed as compatible. Did you search here for it. One option - The AMD boards with 740G northbridge & SB700 southbridge are cheap and have worked fine for a number of users and give 6 SATA ports. A low end 45W AMD processor is cheap too ($25 Sempron or $50 4850e). With 1 PCIe x16 slot you can use port multipliers (1 port multiplied to 5) and either go 2 port PCIe card to get 10 SATA or 4 port PCIe card to get 20 SATA. This post http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2642.0 is an example of one of these boards. If not, then a board with many PCIe x1 slots is handy because you can get cheap 2 port SATA2 boards that fit in these slots. Peter
  22. I'm using a board with the same AMD 740G northbridge & SB700 southbridge and it works fine too. Peter
  23. Why don't you just plug an UNRAID flash drive into you HTPC and see if it works then? If it's the same chipset then you'd be OK. The MA74GM-S2 should be even cheaper than the MA74GM-S2H version. Peter
  24. The boards with an AMD 740G northbridge and SB700 southbridge work fine, are cheap and give 6 SATA ports. GIGABYTE GA-MA74GM-S2 is an example. Pair it with a 45W Sempron or cheap 45W dual core. The only downside is only 1- x1 PCIe and 1 - x16 PCIe slot for future expansion. You can use PCI cards but the PCI buss is a bottleneck for multiple SATA drives. Peter
  25. FYI, if using a 100Mbps network and SATA2 hardware then you should be able to max out the network before maxing out the write speed of the server. Peter