aaronwt

Does enabling write cache have any noticeable benefit? I just changed mine. When it was disabled I was doing around 45MB/s for a parity sync. With it enabled the speed jumped to over 100MB/s. That's interesting. I wonder if there are any downsides to enabling it. Why is it disabled by default? It says in the BIOS that if you lose power with caching enabled that you can lose data. So I guess as long as the MicroServer is connected to a UPS it should be fine.

Does enabling write cache have any noticeable benefit? I just changed mine. When it was disabled I was doing around 45MB/s for a parity sync. With it enabled the speed jumped to over 100MB/s.

What about the sata rate? If I set it to 3Gbps Max, does that mean every drive will try to run at that link rate? Or is auto the setting I need?

Really? Write cache on? I'll try changing it.

OK. I finally got around to setting up my N54L. I flashed the Bios. So if I have everything set up right, when I connect a drive to the eSATA port it should show up as AHCI right? Instead of IDE? Also is there anything I need to do to enable port multiplier capability from the eSATA port? I've loaded unRAID r15a so far with no issues. Hopefully I'll have another port multiplier capable enclosure removed from my WHS so I can try out the eSATA port. Plus I still need to get another Rosewill RC-218 card. And of course get a third unRAID license.

I've been using seven of those MediaSonic enclosures(USB 2.0 versions) with my WHS for over three years. They have worked great. Plus they will power down automatically as well so no need for me to get a power strip to do it like with my primary unRAID with SansDigital enclosures. I'm in the process of transferring content from my WHS to my unRAIDs and as the drives are freed up I will be moving my Mediasonic enclosures over as well. Although with my WHS six of them were using USB. It will be nice to be able to use the faster eSATA port on them with unRAID. Hopefully I'll be able to use five of my MediaSonic enclosures with my N54L when I get it setup. Four connected to a Rosewill RC-218 PCI express x4 port multiplier card, and one from the built in port multiplier eSATA port. If I can use five of the Mediasonic enclosures, plus use five drives in the N54L I'll be able to max out the number drives in my third unRAID setup with twenty five 2TB drives. All from my current WHS setup. But it's going to be a few weeks until I get around to starting on the N54L since I need to copy so much data from my WHS to my second unRAID setup first.

Try the Rosewill RC-218 card. It is port multiplier capable. I've been using one in my main unRAID setup for over two years with no issues. And I recently got one for my second unRAID. It's a x4 PCI express card with two external eSATA connections and four internal sata. Although only four can be active at once(selected by jumpers). I'm using four external enclosures connected to the RC-218 with seventeen hard drives on my main unRAID. On my second unRAID I have two external enclosures with eight drives connected to the RC-218. I picked up my second one for around $68 from Amazon this past week. Newegg prices were higher. This is the card I plan to use in my N54L when I'm ready to set it up. Hopefully there won't be any issues with it. But in my first two unRAID setups it has worked very well.

300 watts during a full parity check with 22 drives is not that bad. It's what the power draw in standby that I would be concerned with while using all those external enclosures. I don't run it 24/7 so the higher power usage isn't too big a deal. I typically only turn it on in the evenings and weekends. I was trying to get the drives to spin down but they haven't yet. With the drives spinning and 17 drives in four enclosures and five drives in the CPU enclosure it's drawing around 245 watts. EDIT: They just spun down. It's drawing 145 watts with all the drives spun down.

That is the one bad thing about using a bunch of external enclosures. A much higher power draw. Not sure offhand what it is in standby. But my main unRAID setup, when I was using five external enclosures, was drawing close to 300 watts(including CPU enclosure) during a parity check with 22 drives. But that is also higher because of the TR4M enclosures which have internal power supplies. My MediaSonic enclosures with external power supplies, that I use with my WHS, draw less power.

I prefer to house most of my unRAID drives in external cases. It worked great for my WHS with 27 drives in seven external cases(plus 4 drives in the HP MSS case) and for my first unRAID where I used to have twenty drives in five external cases(now 17 in four cases and I moved the other drives inside the motherboard enclosue with the parity and cache drives). And my second unRAID is currently using fourteen drives with 8 in two external cases and six in the motherboard enclsoure). So I wanted the N54L to be used in the location that my WHS is since it is relatively small. Although it was much larger than I realized when I opened it.

I'm going to put my 3rd unRAID project on hold with my N54L for now. It's definitely going to be more work than I initially thought. I need to get all the info for modding the BiOS, plus I need to pick up a single drive enclosure(for the 5.25" opening) and a x4 PCI express card. I don't want to open the N54L up more times than is needed. With the Modified BiOS that will give me five drives internally and 16 drives from four, 4 bay external enclsoures. To add a fifth enclosure I'll need to use the x1 PCI express slot and figure out a way to route the two internal connections from the x4 PCIe card to the outside. I don't want to be messing around with this more than I need to. Plus I need to start transferring content from my WHS to my second unRAID to free up the enclosures and drives to add to the N54L setup. I'll plan to use twenty five of the 2TB drives from my WHS for the N54L unRAID setup. And then I can repurpose the other six drives to my second unRAID. I just need to get my second unRAID stable. I was having some issues with the drives I added to it. It seems like it was a bad sata cable. I'll find out when I get home if I still have errors from the drive it was connected to. Otherwise I've already tried multiple drives and the same issue cropped up in that slot with the old cable.

So I just turned on my N54L. So am I correct that I cannot use the eSATA port with a port Multiplier enclosure without modding the BiOS. I tried it with two enclosures and only the first drive is seen in unRAID.

I plan to try this without modding the BIOS(Although it sounds like my speeds would suffer if I don't). I'll only have five drives inside with the fifth drive(the Parity drive) connected to a SATA port in the x1 PCI express slot. Then the rest of my drives would be in external enclosures connected to a x4 PCI express card in the other slot. Basically my HP MSS WHS is setup in a similar fashion. A small main case with four drives and then seven external cases housing 27 drives. Ideally I would like to replace my HP MSS WHS with the N54L. Since the closet where I have these enclosures does not have space to use a larger enclosure.

I used that two port one(or one like it) in my first unRAID. But with the N54L I will also need to use the x1 PCI express slot. So is there still a way to route the cables outside with both PCI express slots in use?

Note that there may be a hard limit on the number of drives you can attach to the MicroServer. I think I read on HardOCP that the limit was 12. Having said that, just because the BIOS can't see a drive, it doesn't mean the OS doesn't also. I can't remember where it wasn't "seen". Thanks. I guess I'll need to test it out first to make sure it can handle more than 12 drives before I order the Rosewill card. If there is a 12 drive limit using unRAID then I guess I will need to get a second N54L when they are on sale again.

FYI, you don't want to have more then 4 Drives that are accessed immediately one after the other. I bet if you rotated/staggered the drive assignments you would be fine. I.E. Disk1 on one controller, Disk 2 on another controller, Disk 3 on another controller. etc. etc. One drive access via PMP connection is as fast as 1 drive can go to a max of 120MB/s. It's when you access multiple drives at the same time on the same channel/cable that it gets slow. The caveat is it brings up an issue of complexity when configuring and troubleshooting. My main unRAID has most of the drives staggered. In my testing though I don't remember it making a huge difference doing it that way but that was what was recommended. Being staggered it's more of a pain to keep track of the drives with all of the enclosures. It's alot easier to keep track of by adding the drives to the array in the order they are in each enclosure. Which is what I plan to do with the N54L.

I like that card. I had it at one time. it worked OK. You could search for an another low profile eSATA adapter to externalize the other two ports. This is the X1 card I used for SATA III. StarTech PEXESAT322I PCI-Express x1 Low Profile Ready SATA III (6.0Gb/s) 2 Int/2 Ext SATA Controller Card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816129101 For me the SATA III was important for the two new additional internal drives. ICY DOCK MB971SP-B DuoSwap 5.25" Hot-Swap Drive Caddy for 2.5" and 3.5" SATA HD/SSD http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994143 Although expensive, it's what I needed. 1 SATA III SSD and 1 SATA III 3TB 7200 RPM drive. I was looking at the ICY dock last night. But I was wondering about cooling. With that ICY Dock, does the N54L still keeps those drives cool since that enclosure doesn't have a built in fan? Although if my plan for the setup works I would only need an ICY dock enclosure that houses one 3.5" drive. I have one in my second unRAID that has a built in fan under the drive that works very well. If it will fit in the N54L my plan was to purchase another one. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816215033

But can I do that with the N54L? I've been using external enclosures for over two years with my first unRAID. So I understand what speeds I will get. During the parity check I get speeds around 30 MB/s with twenty data drives. I use a cache drive so I can get good speeds when transferring data and the cache drive transfers it to the array later. I just want to make sure this is possible with the N54L. My other unRAIDs I setup with regular motherboards. But the N54L is a micro PC. The Technology is there. You can rebuild it. The issue is how fast your party speed will be, As I mention. The micro servers only support low profile cards. Two PCIe x1 cards with 2 eSATA ports each. 1 or 2 extra internal drives. or 1 internal drive and an external drive. That external drive can possibly be PMP, but I don't know about the performance of it. With a PCIx1 card, you really don't want to have more than four drives on it. At least this is what I found out with my testing two years ago. Which is why with 16 drives on a x4 card I can get the 30MB/s speeds during a parity check. Adding more drives than that really slows things down. I guess I need to make sure that Rose will RC-218 has a low profile adapter. Until I look at the inside of the N54L I won't know for sure if it will fit. With my first unRAID the RC-218 handled four enclosures and then I had an PCI express x1 card for fifth enclosure that got me to twenty drives. My hope will be to be able to use the built in port multiplier for the fifth enclosure and get four enclosures from the Rosewill RC-218. Then use the four internal bays for four drives, and my parity drive would be connected to an x1 PCI express card in the x1 slot. Although I would need to route two cables from the inside to the outside in that setup since there is not space to add a bracket that creates two external eSATA ports from the internal sata ports on the RC-218 like I use with my first unRAID.

It sounds like I'll need to try the same card in the N54L that I use in my first unRAID. That is an x4 PCI express SataII port multiplier card. It has two external ports and four internal ports. So you can set it up to use all four internal ports or two internal and two external. I use four, four bay external enclosures with it. The Rosewill RC-218. I got one from Newegg back in March 2011. It looks like they still sell it. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132018 I was hoping there might be something a little cheaper now but I guess not. $80 is good for what it does although it was $5 cheaper back then.

But can I do that with the N54L? I've been using external enclosures for over two years with my first unRAID. So I understand what speeds I will get. During the parity check I get speeds around 30 MB/s with twenty data drives. I use a cache drive so I can get good speeds when transferring data and the cache drive transfers it to the array later. I just want to make sure this is possible with the N54L. My other unRAIDs I setup with regular motherboards. But the N54L is a micro PC.

I have four SANS DIGITAL TR4M enclosures(4 bay) and one SANS DIGITAL TR5M enclosure(5 bay). One of the TR4M enclosures has 3 drives. Well I guess I should say had. I moved those three drives to the main PC case this past weekend so I could use that one TR4M enclosure with my my second unRAID setup. But I had all five enclosures connected for almost two years without issue. I'm running unRAID 4.7 on that system. My second unRAID setup is using 5.0 rc12.

So with the N54L. Am I able to use the built in eSATA port for a 4 bay port multiplier enclosure. And also use a x4 PCI express card to also have four other 4 bay port multiplier enclosures? And also use the four internal drives and also have a fifth drive attached to a card in the x1 PCI express slot? This is my plan anyway. My first unraid build I use five multi bay external enclosures with twenty drives without issue. And my second unRAID build will eventually use a couple as well. But I want my third unRAID build to replace my WHS which currently uses seven, 4 bay, external enclosures. So I would like to use as many of those as possible with the N54L Micro Server. So ideally with the N54L I would like to use five external, 4 bay enclosures, and five internal drives. Is this possible with the N54L Micro Server?

Twenty drives in the external enclosures(four 4 bay and one 5 Bay--one four bay has 3 drives in it). Then I have the cache and parity drive in the 3in2 enclosure in the PC case.

Here are some poor pics of my unRAID setup with my external enclosures.