Herdo

OK, that was pretty much how I understood it as well. Thank you.

Well boo. I'm going to be very bored for the next three days and then very busy the week after. Thanks johnnie.black!

I've gotten my new unRAID server up and running. Here are the specs: SUPERMICRO 12-bay Hot-Swap Chassis with SAS2-826EL1 Backplane SUPERMICRO X11SSM-F Motherboard Intel G4400 CPU Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) 2133Mhz DDR4 ECC Memory Dell H310 flashed the LSI P20 firmware Hitachi Deskstar NAS 4TB 7200 RPM x 2 2 x SUPERMICRO 500W 80+ Platinum Redundant PSUs So far I've done the following: Flashed Dell H310 to LSI P20 firmware Ran Memtest for about 16 hours (15 full passes), no errors S.M.A.R.T short tests x 3 on both drives, S.M.A.R.T. long extended test on both drives, no errors And I'm now in the process of preclearing the disks I'm currently still preclearing the two disks. 3 passes total and I'm currently 24 hours in and about 15% through the final phase (Post-read) of the first pass. This seems to correlate pretty accurately with the "Preclear Times" section of the wiki which states these drives should take about 36 hours to preclear per pass. By that math, the 3 passes should complete sometime mid day Wednesday... My main issue is that I still have a lot to do. Setting up Docker for Syncthing, Sonarr, CouchPotato and some others is most likely going to take me a couple days. So on to my first question; can I start an array with only a cache disk? My thinking originally was that I had no need for a cache disk. I will never be writing anything to the array that isn't being directly downloaded to it. In other words, my connection is going to be the bottleneck, not the write speeds of the disks. I have a very fast connection (300Mbps/50Mbps), but even so the write speed of the array should be faster than that (about 30MB/sec). My thinking now though is that I don't want Docker and my apps contained on the data/parity disks. I can pick up a Samsung 850 Pro 128GB for $90 delivered today, and I'm wondering if I can start the array with only the cache drive and then start setting up Docker while my disks are preclearing (with no data or parity disks in the array). Next question. I have another Hitachi Deskstar NAS 4TB that I've been using for the last few months. It's got data on it currently that I plan to transfer to the unRAID array and then I will preclear it and add it to the array. My question is, do I need to run 3 preclear passes on it? I understand the idea of running 3 passes is to stress the drives and simulate that first few weeks/months of use to weed out infant mortality. Since I've been successfully using this drive for a few months, is that entirely necessary? I currently plan on running 3 S.M.A.R.T. short tests and 1 long extended test, 1 preclear pass, then add it to the array. Would it still be a good idea to run 3 passes? I guess if I think of anything else I will post it here. Thanks.

HA! I knew I should have asked here first. I was pretty sure I wasn't the only person encountering this problem but my google-fu failed me on this one. Thank you digitalfixer, you've lived up to your name! And thanks for the reply jonathanm.

I noticed unRAID and BIOS were only recognizing 4gb of my 8GB (2× 4GB) of memory. Checked both sticks and they were fine. Then I checked the DIMM slots and one was not working. I remembered seeing 8GB in the BIOS early so I tried various things to troubleshoot. Sure enough, when I remove my Dell H310 (flashed to LSI) all DIMM slot works perfectly. I've been poking around in the BIOS for hours, but I'm not finding anything helpful. I also tried posting this on a more traditional tech support forum but it hasn't gotten any responses. My motherboard is a SUPERMICRO X11SSM-F and it's got the latest BIOS. 2× 4GB DDR4 2133Mhz Unbuffered ECC RAM. Intel G4400. unRAID 6.19 Any advice, or even wild guesses would be appreciated.

I just had this really dumb idea of trying the USB in a 2.0 slot instead of a 3.0 slot. It actually worked. Wow.

I'm trying to flash my new Dell H310 using this: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12767.msg259006#msg259006 I'm using the "Avago P20" firmware. Everything was going good until I tried to flash to the P20 IT mode and I got an error. Failed to validate mfg page 2 After some digging I learned that I actually need to flash to the Dell IT firmware first. OK, that makes sense, so I try to execute 5ITDELL.bat, and I get another error. ERROR: Failed to Upload Image! Firmware Image Validation Failed! Due to error remaining commands will not be executed. Unable to Process Commands. Exiting SAS2Flash. I've tried searching for a solution, but I'm not finding much, and what I do find I don't really understand. The odd this is that now if I try to flash the P20 firmware using 5ITP20.bat, I get a different error message. It's now not the "Failed to validate mfg page 2" error, but the "Failed to Upload Image!" error. Any ideas?

Thanks for the responses everyone. I have everything assembled and memtest is currently running. 4 passes so far and no errors. I'm gonna let it run overnight and then start on the disks tomorrow.

Alright, I'll keep that in mind. Thanks John_M.

Wow, danioj thank you so much. I have read a bit about the preclear utility previously and that sounds like the way to go. It's also extremely convenient for both preclear and memtest to be included with unRAID. I'm planning on using 6.19 until 6.2 is stable. Thanks again, I think you've given me all the information I need!

My new unRAID server components have all shown up except for the ECC memory which should be here early today. I know it would probably be a good idea to run some tests on my hardware to insure its integrity, but I'm not sure where to begin. I have two new Hitachi Deskstar NAS 4TB HDDs; is there some sort of program or command I should run before committing them to the array? As for the memory, is memtest still the go to memory tester? Anything else I should be doing before diving into this?

Oh OK, thank you.

Hey, thanks for the reply. That's basically what I have found. It's got two ports but the second is used for connecting to another backplane. I actually figured something different. If it's a SAS 2 port, wouldn't that be 6Gbps? 6Gb/s = 6000Mb/s 6000 / 8 = 750MB/s 750 / 12 drives = 62.5MB/s Or am I not understanding how this works? Thanks again!

I just ordered a Supermicro CSE-826 case (12-bay) which comes with a BPN-SAS2-826EL backplane. I'm starting to question my decision because after looking at some pictures of the backplane, there appears to be only 2 SAS connectors. https://www.thomas-krenn.com/de/wikiDE/images/7/76/Backplane-BPN-SAS2-826EL1-back.jpg How does this work? Shouldn't there be 3? I was under the impression that 1 8087 connector handled 4 drives, but maybe that isn't right? I'm questioning how I am going to connect 12 drives to this thing. Maybe it will just lower the throughput of the drives if they all run off of two? Also, this page https://www.thomas-krenn.com/en/wiki/BPN-SAS2-826EL1_SAS_Expander_Backplane is stating that: "All drive slots are connected by a single cable with the RAID controller" Now I'm more confused than ever. I did however find an old ebay listing selling the BPN-SAS2-826EL1 and it says in the description "3 sas ports", but the funny thing is that their picture only showed 2 ports as well. So maybe I'm just not seeing the third port somewhere? Can someone help me out here? EDIT: After talking to somebody else on Reddit, it appears I was right about it working with all 12 drives but limiting bandwidth, and all 12 drives connect through just 1 SAS connection. Considering there is no striping with unRAID and I'm connecting through a 1Gbps NIC, I shouldn't hit any sort of bottleneck with this backplane though. I guess my only question now is, will this still work with an H310 flashed to IT? It has 2 sas connectors, but the description says "8 ports". Will that matter, or should it still work fine with all 12 drives through 1 SAS connection?

Thanks, and yea I realized that other card I posted was a PCIX card. I'm thinking I might go with the Dell H310. Everyone seems to recommend it and it seems to work great for pretty much everyone once flashed. It's also cheaper. I think I'm going to start purchasing the parts today.

Ah ok. That makes sense. Thank you both.

I can't speak for the OP but I was thinking more like "what happens to my array?"

I was wondering the same thing.

Thanks for the reply! The SM motherboard I am buying has 6 x 6Gb/s SATA ports. Is there any reason I wouldn't want to you the motherboard connections?

I'm getting ready to build my unRAID NAS and I had planned on using the SUPERMICRO AOC-SAS2LP-MV8. I checked the hardware compatibility list and found that there are some issues with this controller and unRAID 6.xx. Looking through related threads, I'm having a hard time understanding if these issues have been fixed or not. Assuming it's still having issues, I've been looking at other options. People seem to like the Dell H310, which is really just a rebranded LSI 9240-8i, which you then crossflash to LSI 9211-8i IT firmware? I think? So does this mean i could use the H310, 9240-8i, or the 9211-8i? Or is there some reason I should use one over the other, or is just about price? I've also found the SuperMicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 but that is a SATA II PCI x2 card. How much will that matter? Someone was mentioning using a 2 lane card for 8 drives would cause poor performance. I'd like something that just works out of the box, but if that isn't possible I was leaning towards the H310. I need something that will support 12 x 4TB drives, and I'm using a BPN-SAS2-826EL backplane. Can anyone here help clear this up for me?

Excellent, thank you.

I don't think this warrants a whole new thread so I will just ask this related comment here. Can you add a second parity drive to an already existing array? I'm getting ready to build my unRAID NAS but I'd like to start with 3 disks (1 parity, 2 data) and add a second parity disk later. Is this possible without destroying the array?

Thanks again so much. You are probably right about one day getting more comfortable with unRAID and wanting to run all the processes through it. I was actually thinking the same thing. If that happens, it's just another thing I can play around with. I didn't even think to add a second parity disk later on. It makes sense that you would be able to do that, but it didn't cross my mind. The reason I wanted to add two now was because I thought that wasn't possible, but yes, it would probably be a better idea to add 4 drives now and then add a second parity drive when I start adding more.

Thanks for the reply and the advice. I actually thought about the same thing and did some parts lists about a week ago for several different scenarios. The i5 box is no longer being used as an HTPC and I thought about just canabalizing it to build the unRAID NAS, but I use the i5 for gaming in the living room (emulators mostly). I would lose the gaming, ECC support, IPMI and a few other things that I can't remember right now. I would only save about $280 and that doesn't really seem like an option to me. The next option was to buy something like a G3258 to replace the i5, but then I'm not really saving any money because I'd still need a motherboard and memory to match the i5 for the unRAID NAS. Also, I just like the idea of the NAS being the NAS and the server handling the operations. I have it so why not use it? I think I may be making it SOUND more complicated than it is haha. If I can point Plex, CP and SB (installed on an NTFS or ext4 file system) to unRAID (installed on an XFS file system) then it should work fine without having to even alter anything other than the directory locations. I wasn't sure if my Windows installed applications could "communicate" with the XFS file system, but after reading more about this, it appears that will be no problem at all. I've never messed with network storage in any way so this sounded like it may be a problem, but now I realize this is pretty much how it's intended to be used. Thanks again.

I should point out I'm using Windows 10. The server kinda doubled as an HTPC and I wanted to use the WMC, but then learned it was dropped from Windows 10. As a linux user I should be ashamed! That being said, I'm not sure how this would work exactly. Can the unRAID array be seen by Plex running on Windows 10 (NTFS)? If I can get the data off the NTFS drives and onto XFS I would probably install Lubuntu or something similar on my server/HTPC. If that's the case, can Plex installed on my ext4 drive interact with the XFS unRAID array directly? This is an area I know little about.