Zen

I regret voicing my opinion because all it has done is stir up another round of pointless arguments. Let's just let it go and move on.

That's an opinion, not fact, despite the bold. Actually it is a fact. I'm not purchasing licenses until there's an official release with >2TB support. And if I find a better solution elsewhere in the meantime, then the opportunity to gain me as a customer will be lost. That's the long and short of it. As stated earlier, it looks like lime tech have decided some short term delayed sales is the price to pay for increased sales with a slick Big Bang release 5.0 If Toms livelihood depends on people who despite a tested and supported version of his software in RC that supports a potential users needs, refuse to buy but prefer to huff and puff in a forum because it hasn't been branded "final", then he might as well shut up shop now. Huff and puff? All I said was no production release, no sale. I have over 35 years experience as a Software Architect and Project Manager. While I could have expressed an expert opinion about Tom's software development process I have refrained from doing so for the simple reason that I acknowledge Tom's right to operate his company in any way he sees fit. However, as a potential customer I do feel it is perfectly legitimate for me to state what is preventing me from purchasing the product. As for your assertion that RC's are supported, I don't agree. Only production releases are officially supported.

That's an opinion, not fact, despite the bold. Actually it is a fact. I'm not purchasing licenses until there's an official release with >2TB support. And if I find a better solution elsewhere in the meantime, then the opportunity to gain me as a customer will be lost. That's the long and short of it.

I believe these are the screws you're looking for, direct from Norco: http://www.ipcdirect.net/servlet/Detail?no=211

5 hours (and counting) to install the patch? Wow. Read this VMware blog post that explains the quickest way to patch ESXi using the command line. The blog post talks about using scp/winSCP to upload the patch to the host but an easier method is to upload it to the datastore using the vSphere client. Then start the SSH service, login via SSH to the ESXi host, and run the esxcli command to install the patch. Nice and easy.

I've also used the Noctua NF-R8 as a replacement fan in the Norco SS-500 (I have the second generation SS-500, the one with the flat back). Works great.

Have you installed the ESXi510-201212001 patch? If not, install it and see if that fixes your pink screen problem.

ESXi 5.1 has had a couple of serious problems. First, passing through PCI devices would cause ESXi to crash. There was a patch released in December that fixes this. Second, you can't pass through USB controllers. When you select a USB controller for passthrough and reboot the host to apply the settings, the controller won't show up as a passthrough device. I haven't seen VMware release a fix for this yet.

You talk about using 2 drives for your datastore. Were you planning to set them up in a RAID1 configuration? If so, then you'll need to use a RAID card that's supported by ESXi such as the IBM M1015 and that will impact your decision about how to connect up the remaining drives.

It looks like the Azza Helios 910 case has been discontinued: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811517007 It's too bad it's discontinued because it was a nice option for a 15 drive build using the Norco SS-500. Raj has an example of such a build here: http://greenleaf-technology.com/our-servers/15-drive-tower-server/ Luckily I was able to find one a couple of weeks ago so I'm good to go when I get around to building mine. If you're interested in the case, you might still be able to locate one by searching around.

As you found out by looking it up in the UL database, E307858 is registered to Corsair which doesn't tell you who the real OEM is. With Corsair, sometimes different models within the same model line use different OEMs. For example, in the original TX series, the TX650 was a Seasonic design but the TX750 was a CWT design. Confusing, huh? But I buy a lot of Corsair PSUs, mostly ones using Seasonic designs but occasionally I'll buy one with a CWT design. I just do some research ahead of time to know what I'm really getting. Supermicro boards can be picky about PSUs, but you can always ask what others are using. I recently installed a SuperMicro board (not a X9SCM) with a Corsair AX750 PSU (Seasonic design) and had no problems with it.

I have a couple of hot swap bays that look the same as the Kingwin, but mine are branded as Startech. They work well but I've never used them in an unRAID system. I believe with the Antec bay, the drive will stick out a bit when it's inserted so that you can pull it out again. The Kingwin/Startech bay would be flush with the front of the case.

Are you sure the TX750M is a Seasonic design? Every review I've seen that mentions the TX750M's OEM has said that it's a CWT design. I don't have one on hand so I can't check for myself.

Yes, you can use the same cable on the M1015. The M1015 and BR10i both have SFF-8087 connectors.

If you're familiar with the OEM designs, you can open up the power supply to determine who made it. But most people usually just Google for the information.

I agree that the M1015 would be the better choice. In fact, I just bought another one today. But the Br10i would probably be fine for your needs as long as you are OK with the 2.2TB limitation.

I believe the OEMs for the different Corsair TX750 models are as follows: TX750 - CWT TX750v2 - Seasonic TX750M - CWT I personally prefer power supplies that are based on Seasonic designs.

You need to go into the MV8's BIOS setup and disable INT13. That will stop any of the drives attached to the MV8 from showing up as possible boot drives.

Monoprice sells a 10 inch SATA cable. I've used lots of them in system builds.

I've experimented with running unRAID in a ESXi VM and like it, but didn't like the idea of having all my storage on my ESXi system as well. What I would really like is a separate machine that manages all of my storage with chunks of storage being allocated to different VMs as required. Yesterday I decided to run an experiment by setting up an Ubuntu server as an iSCSI target, using the ESXi system containing the unRAID VM as the iSCSI initiator, configuring ESXi to map the drive on the Ubuntu server to the unRAID VM, and then adding the drive to my unRAID array just as if it was a local drive. I'm happy to say that it worked just fine! I rebuilt parity, checked parity, copied a movie over to the remote drive and played it back on another machine without any problem. Beacause this was just a quick proof of concept, I set up the Ubuntu server acting as the iSCSI target as a VM on another system instead of on its own hardware, but even with all of the virtualization and network overhead, everything seemed to work fine. The parity build ran at a speed of 59169K/sec and the parity check at a speed of 85635K/sec which seems respectable to me. This was with the parity drive and 1 data drive on the unRAID VM machine, and 1 data drive as an iSCSI target on the Unbuntu server machine. I suppose the next thing I should try is to configure all 3 drives as iSCSI targets on the Ubuntu server and see what happens. At some point the network bandwidth will become a bottleneck, but that can be migitated by setting up a separate subnet for the storage related traffic.

I have rev 2.0 of this board with BIOS version FC and HPA is off by default. On my board, the HPA setting is labelled "Backup BIOS Image to HDD" and is found under the Advanced BIOS Features menu.

Yeah, the power LED problem is definitely a motherboard issue. I know the case LEDs work fine and I've tried reversing the polarity of the connector without any success. No, I haven't tested sleep/resume. I leave my servers on 24/7.

I received my replacement board today and did a few quick tests. The power LED connector on the replacement board doesn't work either. Argh! With 2x2GB of memory installed, unRAID only sees 3GB of the memory. Windows 7 (64 bit) sees all 4GB. With only 1x2GB of memory installed, unRAID sees all the memory. In all cases, there's actually less memory available because some of it is allocated to the video, but that's not really the issue. I'm not sure why unRAID isn't seeing all the memory in the 2x2GB configuration. Thoughts anyone?

I own this case and it's a very nice case. The bottom three 5.25" bays don't have any tabs sticking out so it's easy to install a 5x3 module like the Norco SS-500. You may want to consider the Norco 4224 as an alternative. It's a bit more expensive but right now you can get it with free shipping from NCIX (it's not advertised but add it to your cart and see for yourself). However, the fans on the Norco are very loud so you would either have to put it somewhere out of the way or plan to replace the fans.

The SuperMicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 is a popular choice for unRAID but I don't know if it will support drives over 2TB.