bluepr0

Hello guys, I was thinking about buying a lighting fast SSD for my hopefully-soon-to-arrive Supermicro MB. Specs says it has a M2 PCIe 3.0 x2. I'v been searching through Google and I couldn't find exactly what's the speed for a PCIe 3.0 with 2 lanes, but I found this article where they mention that a PCIe 3.0 x4 has a max speed of 3.9 GB/s. Am I right to think that then a PCIe 3.0 x2 has a max speed of 1.95 GB/s? I was looking at the Samsung 950 Pro M2 which says it has a speed of 1.5 GB/s write and 2.5 GB/s read speed. Considering the speed of my M2 slot am I right to think that then I could get a full write speed of 1.5 GB/s and 1.9 GB/s read speed from this SSD?. Or maybe I should take a look to a cheaper SSD that has less read speed?

Thanks a lot! so the speed is 144MB/s for write and 149MB/s for read? That's actually less than half of it's bare-metal performance

did you manage to fix/improve the issue? I'm very interested on getting almost bare-metal speeds too!

Hello guys, I'm about to become a new unRAID-er very soon (just waiting for components to arrive). I have been searching A LOT through the forum regarding SSD performance on Virtual Machines. General feeling seems that "it's fine" but: - I would love to know real overhead. Let's say I have a SSD capable on bare-metal of doing 520mb/s read and 520mb/s write. What would be the speed in the VM? I tried to benchmark my current VMs on VMWare OSX using CrystalDiskMark but I'm getting unrealistic results. Is there a way to benchmark a VM? - Is the passthrough the best option to get bare-metal performance? If yes, as for what I've been reading it seems I cannot pass only one SATA port but the entire "set" of ports, Am I right? Thanks a lot!

thanks John_M! I had no idea BTRFS was that smart setting up the disks. I'm clear that if I have 250gb+250gb+500gb, that will be effectively a 2x250 RAID0 + 500GB for redundancy. However, the RAID0 will outperform the 500gb disk alone... would this affect the performance of the RAID0*? Also, how is supposed to work when I have 3x250 drives? Would I get the performance of a RAID0? *sorry for saying "RAID0", I'm not entirely sure if the BTRFS system creates a RAID0 or something else that is called differently.

Hello guys! I'm new to unRAID (actually, I haven't received yet the components to put together my new rig). In any case, I'm a Mac user, I do graphic design and I currently use an iMac i7 from late 2013. It's funny because what got me into the Mac world was actually building my first hackintosh back in 2008 when the InsanelyMac forums were the reference (I heard now its tonyx86). What got my attention from unRAID is the ability to get into one PC your NAS/Dockers/etc but also a perfectly-capable VM with all this passthrough technology. However we all know that keep running a hackintosh could be risky when new updates and stuff goes out, so I think making a virtual machine of OS X is a much better option for reliability as you can just back it up and have that copy safe in case something goes wrong after an update. So, my question is... can you create with unRAID an El Capitan VM that is as performing and stable as a normal Mac as you can actually do with Windows VM? (of course buying adequate hardware). I'm not thinking on doing this now, but it could be an option when the time to upgrade my iMac comes Thank you!

perfect. uptime is currently 7 weeks. Glad to hear that! are you using the virtio drivers or just doing passthrough of the NICs? Also, if you need to restart the unRAID server or do some maintenance, is there problems to get the pfsense VM running back again?

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=48193.msg467459#msg467459 ok soon™ then! thanks

is there any ETA for the stable release of unRAID 6.2?

Hello guys, I'm in the process of creating a new unRAID PC, I've been searching a lot and trying to adjust to Europe options when it comes down to rack mount cases. I've found this one http://inter-tech.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1139%3Aipc-4u-4410&catid=136%3A4u-storage-gehaeuse&Itemid=961〈=en which seems pretty good for my needs. HOWEVER it has a note in the product's description: Is normal to change this setting in BIOS in these hot swap cases? is this going to create problems with unRAID?. Thanks a lot for any info *Image of the actual case

uuuummm, very interesting! thanks a lot!. I will try to ask on a case thread and see if I can confirm this, just to make sure.

You can use BTRFS RAID0 on SSDs and use them for cache if you want to, but the use of an SSD as a parity drive is not supported. Oh, I was almost sure that you could select an SSD drive to be a parity of another SSD acting as cache . How do you do to make sure your cache data is safe then? just back it up to your HDDs? When you said "parity" I assumed you meant unRAID's parity disk(s). Do you actually mean some form of protection for the cache disk? If you do then just use BTRFS for the cache pool. If you then have a cache pool of two SSDs they will be set up as a RAID1 mirror. So a pair of 250 GB SSDs would give you 250 GB of protected cache. If that isn't enough you could use four 250 GB SSDs to give you 500 GB of protected cache. Various other combinations are also possible, such as three 250 GB SSDs to give you 375 GB protected, or two 250 GB and one 500 GB to give you 500 GB protected. Thanks! My idea was to improve the speed by doing a RAID0 (2x250gb = 500gb RAID0) and use another SSD for example a 500GB for parity. If there's no support for parity per se, then I guess I would need to do 2xRAID0 in RAID1?. BTW, the RAID is created on unRAID or is it created on MB's RAID controller?

You can use BTRFS RAID0 on SSDs and use them for cache if you want to, but the use of an SSD as a parity drive is not supported. Oh, I was almost sure that you could select an SSD drive to be a parity of another SSD acting as cache . How do you do to make sure your cache data is safe then? just back it up to your HDDs?

Is this normal in these hot swap cases? is this going to create problems with unRAID? OK, First thing! unRAID is not RAID, hence its name! I believe that unRAID does not support 'hot swapping' of drives in any case. However, the use of 'hot swap' drive bays is recommended by many of us. They make the addition and changeout of drives so much easier which is a minor point. What their use does do is to prevent problems when one has to open up a case, unplug a drive, and get it physically out of the case and reverse the process to get a new one installed. If you are familiar with SATA connectors, you should have realized by now that they are the mechanically deficient connector arrangement that has ever been put into wide use. It is not a bad situation when you are only dealing with two or three drives but when you have more than seven or eight, the rat-nest of wire harnesses becomes unmanageable and loosing one connector while working on another seems inevitable. Plus if they are loosened up a little, they can vibrate off at a later time. Therefore, the use of hot=swap' cages is the norm for experienced unRAID users as I don't believe that there is any front quick-change drive housing that is not a 'hot-swap' compatible one. Hello Frank, thanks for your reply. Indeed, I was aware that I will have to turn off the computer to manage drives... but as you said it's much easier to have these hot-swap cases for that matter. However what worried me is what the case's description was saying, do you know if this is normal on any hot-swap case? or should I avoid these kind of cases requesting changes in the BIOS, etc?

Hello guys, I'm still waiting components to arrive. One of the things I'm still missing is the case. I've been searching a lot and trying to adjust to Europe options. I've found this one http://inter-tech.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1139%3Aipc-4u-4410&catid=136%3A4u-storage-gehaeuse&Itemid=961〈=en which seems pretty good for my needs. HOWEVER it has a note in the product's description: Is this normal in these hot swap cases? is this going to create problems with unRAID?

Hello! I'm planning on moving my pfSense box (currently a Mac mini) to a VM with unRaid (parts should arrive this week). How is working for your guys? Thanks!

I'm also interested to know if I can create a RAID0 with SSDs and use them as cache + another SSD for parity

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Here's the list: CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 v5 (TDP 80w), 9277 Passmark (it costs 100€ less than 1275!, but no integrated GPU). Can I use the IPMI port with unRAID or do I need a GPU? MOBO: Supermicro X11SSH-LN4F https://www.supermicro.nl/products/motherboard/Xeon/C236_C232/X11SSH-LN4F.cfm SATA x8, LAN 4x RAM: Kingston ValueRAM 8GB DDR4 2133MHz Module ECC 15-15-15-33 (2x8GB) Power: Corsair RM550x 80+ gold single rail Disks: 2x4TB WD RED NAS, 1x3TB WD, 1x2TB WD, 1x500GB WD, 1x250GB SSD Samsung Evo 850 (these are the disks I currently have) For the case, I will go with a rack-mount 4u, just not sure which one yet... but I'd like to have at least 8 hot swappable trays! Thanks! Have you chosen a heatsink yet? Keep us updated on how the build goes. Yep! Will go with this one http://noctua.at/en/nh-d9l

Here's the list: CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 v5 (TDP 80w), 9277 Passmark (it costs 100€ less than 1275!, but no integrated GPU). Can I use the IPMI port with unRAID or do I need a GPU? MOBO: Supermicro X11SSH-LN4F https://www.supermicro.nl/products/motherboard/Xeon/C236_C232/X11SSH-LN4F.cfm SATA x8, LAN 4x RAM: Kingston ValueRAM 8GB DDR4 2133MHz Module ECC 15-15-15-33 (2x8GB) Power: Corsair RM550x 80+ gold single rail Disks: 2x4TB WD RED NAS, 1x3TB WD, 1x2TB WD, 1x500GB WD, 1x250GB SSD Samsung Evo 850 (these are the disks I currently have) For the case, I will go with a rack-mount 4u, just not sure which one yet... but I'd like to have at least 8 hot swappable trays!

Okaaaaay guys, it's official. I've pulled the trigger, the MB will take a bit to arrive because they don't have it in stock but will post pics soon! thanks for all the help

Great, glad to hear that as I want it as silent as possible!

I'm in the process of building a unRAID PC and I'm currently using pfSense (on a Mac Mini) plus a QNAP NAS. Now, wondering if having IPMI (as my future rig will have) will reduce the headache in case when restarting unRAID the VM doesn't go up or something

Edited first post, found a single rail PSU that seems good enough Corsair RM550x 80+ gold single rail

Holaaa!