christuf

Hi, I have exactly the same issue with a X8SIL-F-O motherboard. Keep getting two-tone beeping warning noises which are giving me the creeps! I disabled both the iStat and bwm-ng addins, restarted, but am still getting critical warnings for fans (2-5) which are not installed on my system. I have not upgraded the stock BIOS, but from reading below, it seems that didn't help fix anything. Very grateful for any assistance! Chris

Pretty good deal - for a cache drive perhaps: Link

Get in quick if you want one... they sell like hot-cakes!

Here's a great deal on an APC BX1300G UPS It is $109.99 (with free shipping) from OfficeMax at: http://www.officemax.com/catalog/sku.jsp?skuId=21880591 You can get a further $15 off from a $15 off $75 coupon. I bought one of these (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260748314410) for $2.79. This brings it down to a total (exc. taxes) of $97.78. ----UPDATE (3/14/11)---- Price back up to $159.99

OK - those are easily found. I just wanted to make sure that a total dud wasn't going to land on my doorstep!

Starcat - do you have a link you could share for such a fan?

Awesome deal! Anyone bought one of these open-box items from NewEgg? How much danger is there of it not working properly? Appreciate any guidance you might have.

Hi, Does anyone have any experience with this Supermicro motherboard that you would kindly share? I want to use this AMD AM3 chip (AMD Phenom II X4 970) - I know it's waaay over the top for a UnRaid fileserver, but I want the flexibility to use VMs, transcoding etc. I can't seem to find any reference to this motherboard elsewhere in the forum, nor in the reccomended motherboard listing, so wanted to see if anyone else had used this successfully. Thank you!

Yes - those Norco's are great value for money... hadn't appreciated that. However the rack-mount format is a real drawback... has anyone come up with a good way to turn these into a tower-style server? It's pretty wasteful I know, but I really want hot-swap cages... I just think they look so cool. Also, I'm intending on building this piece-meal (putting in HDD as I need them), so there's some justification for it (in my mind anyway!) Thank you for the advice Superorb!

Thank you for the vote of confidence... I see the USB 3 port now. Honestly - after I fill this up with 5x4 drives, I think it'll probably be due an upgrade!!! Have you heard anything about the new Supermicro motherboards to support the new Sandy Bridge 1155 processors? Release dates seem (hopefully!) soon... what are the chances that these wouldn't be compatible with UnRaid?

Likely, although I'll defer to someone more expert on this! I should think the most foolproof way to check is to fire up the array and look in the listing - the failed drive should be clearly indicated. I understand why you wouldn't want to take the unnecessary risk in doing this though...

The parity drive contains no "real" data, but has information on the sum of all the individual bits on the other drive. So let's say you have 8 drives + parity, and for the same individual bit location, each of the disks are as follows: Bit 1: 1 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 = 5 = odd (stored as say 1) Bit 2: 0 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 4 = even (stored as say 0) and so on... The odd/ even data is stored on the parity drive. If drive 1 were to fail, the system would know: Bit 1: x(unknown state) + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 = x + 4 = odd, therefore x = 1 Bit 2: y(unknown state) + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 = y + 4 = even, therefore y = 0 and so on... Thus UnRaid is (slowly) able to calculate the state of the missing disk, and rebuild it. The array is even able to run without the drive by calculating the state of the missing disk 'on-the-fly'... but as you can imagine, this calculation has to be done in real time for each bit of data accessed, thus massively degrading the array performance. Note if parity is lost, then no actual data is lost, and the parity will just need to be calculated on the parity disk when replaced. The system (currently) works on the basis that a byte can only have one of two states, 1 or 0, and therefore is the state needed to get to the odd/ even state in total. However if you lose 2 (or more), the the solution to the "equation" is no longer unique, so the drives cannot be rebuilt. Yes - all data on 'good' drives are available by connecting them to a PC (SATA in a desktop/ USB adaptor for a laptop) - this isn't possible with normal RAID, and is one of the benefits of the UnRaid system. So as it currently stands for you with a dead (or dying) parity drive, you've had no real data loss. But if you lose another drive you end up with ? + 1 + 0 + ... = ?, which is a very unhappy place to be!

Yes - the array will run missing any one disk... although performance may be degraded. Also - please please remember that any other disk disasters, and you're looking at real data loss.

bjp999 - thank you for that very well written and enlightening note. I really feel I've learned something this morning!

What's the likelihood of an incompatibility between these new 1155-socket motherboards and UnRaid? I know that until it's actually released and put through level 1 testing we won't know compatibility for sure, but just wondered whether there is much of a chance of them not working. Thank you for any input...

Sadly dead early... thought for a moment I could get 10% off the new $79.99 price on the EARS drive. That would have been an amazing deal!

That would certainly be good, but we need a way to implement this across data that already exists... some people in this forum have 20+TB of data... that could be tens of thousands of files to go through to append ".skip" to each one. Perhaps instead it might be better to have an option to only encode files with a ".process" in them, so that the tool can be configured to work the other way? Sorry if I'm missing/ over-simplifying something here...

Hi, Does anyone know of a way to keep 2 UnRaid servers (remotely) synchronized via a USB-drive or the like (on a one-way basis)? Ideally I could plug in a USB drive to Server A, and changes since the last sync would be copied across automatically. Then plug into Server B and data would be pulled in the correct places in that server. I'm guessing that it won't be that easy, but wanted to ask!

Awesome concept - I love having routine tasks automated so you can "fire and forget". I just wanted to send you the link to this. Someone on the Handbrake forum spent a huge amount of time in building a similar Mac-based product. I love using it, and might give you some ideas as to features for the future and process steps. I haven't installed it, so perhaps this base is already covered. My only comment about this script would be to have some option to ignore data that has already been encoded, but doesn't follow the file format required by the script - I would rather not have to go and rename all of my already-encoded files (adding ".H264" to the filename) to ensure they don't get re-encoded! Thank you for the great work!

Oh man Rajahal... you've messed me up now. I love the look of the Icy Dock backplane, but the better build quality and, more importantly, cheaper price might really swing it for me! Ack - thought I had that decision nailed down... I just went to compare specs on the 1200 vs the P80 and found NewEgg has deactivated the 1200!!! Man you have to buy all this gear quickly... I already noticed that there's an update on the PSU (thank you for that in the deals forum). At this rate, I might have to totally re-spec the machine when I pull the trigger in a week! FYI - there's a new Antec 1200 (v3). You can see the manufacturer's website and NewEgg. Any thoughts on the new case...? The P80 is beautiful, but I don't think I can justify the comparatively big price tag to myself, unless there's something I'm not appreciating. Thank you so much for your input!

Understand - thank you... so I need a 600W PSU for my 20-drive (green) setup? Well, how many amps does it provide? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005&cm_re=corsair_650-_-17-139-005-_-Product Says 52A on the 12V rail

Understand - thank you... so I need a 600W PSU for my 20-drive (green) setup?

queeg - I have no practical experience mind you, but 15 seems a little low. On a 400W PSU, that would be 27W per drive at spin-up. Finding spin-up wattage is pretty difficult, but the unRAID calculator uses 30W for a regular drive, and the WD Greens have power saving technology to lower spin-up power drain. I did find this site that lists power consumption at spin-up to be 14W (see the chart about 3/4 of the way down the page). This would imply this PSU could handle 28 drives... am I missing something?

Thank you all for your very helpful replies. NodNarb012 - very good spot on the backplane indeed! Copied the wrong like, but have updated the OP. Thank you for pointing out the error! DoeBoye - thank you very much for the motherboard research - I have done some thinking and will almost certainly go with the SuperMicro. I have read nothing but good things about it on the forums, and think (like yourself) I might regret not going with it. It is a hefty extra $100 or so - but when you price out the whole system (I estimate $3k+ including drives), it isn't a big deal. I'm also not going to have a lot of patience with hardware issues - I don't mind spending hours to iron out software/ config, but hardware issues drive me crazy! In terms of the 1200 case - it looks like it has a lot of fans... with those included and the fans on the back of the backplanes, do you think that it will keep cool enough? Many thanks again all! Chris

Great suggestion - I kinda wanted to have 20+ drive capacity, but didn't like the rack-mount case in the standard builds... this will keep me going for another few years for an extra $200-300! Many thanks DoeBoye!