Johnm

Well RC10 is up and running on my main server (Atlas Virtual unRAID) .. So far is seems stable. Did full parity test and moved 1TB on to the server and a different TB Off the server at the usual speeds. First upgrade I have done since RC5 or RC6. Since I am about to leave town for 3 months.. eep.. I am getting low memory errors while doing a parity check. but that,s not new. (and I think I had found that was due to Cache_dirs)

Your data is safe... its not erased. you just need to find the parity drive and then re-create the array. then recreate the shares.. (technically, a reboot will create the shares with out any settings or permissions) the parity drive is the one listed as unformatted. If you accidentally assign a data drive as parity and start the array... you will lose that disks data.. take your time. dont rush.

Nice to see another MicroServer owner! In case you hadn't seen all the discussion on forums.overclockers.com.au , there are some sets of RAM that work in the MicroServer until you either reboot or power off and re-power (I can't remember which). I suggest you do a few (5-10) cycles of soft rebooting and hard power cycling and each time check that the BIOS sees all 16GB. As you're only booting in to the BIOS, it shouldn't take long. There are reports that Patriot RAM works, and I think one or two other types, but most 8GB DIMMs do not work -- the HP Microserver doesn't officially support 16GB. Cheers, Neil. Good info.. I Have been pretty successful with 2x Samsung 8GiB ECC Unbufferd UDIMMs... but i have not powered it on and off more then a dozen times since I installed it. Ok, about the same as 14-15" laptop. thanks for the info. that should work... I'll probably get one when I get back stateside.

Nice setup. A little off topic. what is the max resolution on that portable monitor? I have been looking for something like that for a while. I have a rack mounted mac mini server that gets used offsite quite often. most of time it needs no monitor. but every now and then we need to put a monitor on it. We found out that none of the normal portable USB monitors work as the primary/only display on OSx. the HDMI of this one should work for us.

I am pretty sure the 880G chipset does not support IOMMU. The Asus M4A88TD-V xxxx boards are 880G if i am not mistaken (88)..... (Also if you use the core unlocker, it might be unstable)

.... those are special anti static socks.. very expensive.. (i stole my GF's.... she has small feet) they have cables that use the power from a molex plug and read the sense data from the mobo header. the one i have has 3 fan headers on it. I tend to use those on my desktops though. not in my servers. Something like this. I picked up a nice braided one. PWM: http://www.amazon.com/Splitter-Molex-headers-CONNECT-MULTIPLE/dp/B009D3HV1Q http://www.amazon.com/Evercool-EC-DF001-Braided-Splitter-Multiple/dp/B009D3KQ54 http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Connector-Splitter-Sleeved-CA-PWM-03/dp/B0067LWQ1C/ref=pd_sim_sbs_pc_1 for my Norco fan walls. I got something like this NON-PWM: http://www.watercoolinguk.co.uk/p/BitFenix-Molex-to-3x-3-pin-adapter-20cm-sleeved-black--black_33804.html I am thinking if you get the PWM one and NOT plug the pwm header in, it will go full speed. if they were the same price, i'd prolly keep the pwm. unless the non-pwm had more static pressure. thats the key to get the air through the drives.. high static pressure fans keep speed when dealing with restricted airflow (like cpu cooler fins) or when trying to pressurize a chassis. the norco has both issues at once. I have heard of people drawing to much power with their fans on SM boards and causing problems. Personally, I always use power supply to power the fans and then a sense wire to monitor/control them.

Honestly. I have my 120's at full speed. I can hardly hear them and at times my drives can get a bit hot (never having passed the 41C mark mid summer). but can hit 38ish under normal heavy load. and low 30's idle. I can hardly hear my server unless I'm right next to it. the drives make the most noise. i do like that chassis.. the pullouts look a tad more like supermicro bays cosmetically. but sigh, they are norcos. PS. dont forget to fill in the opening in the fanwall after you get it. EDIT. Those qnap boxes are a nice form factor. I wish you could buy a miniITX chassis like that. put a SM ITX server board into it...

damn.. I didnt see that it was not biggen that i responded to.. yeah. there will be more.. check the newegg open box deals daily. this time of year they are posting the Christmas returns

That makes me think it is something else like the psu as I had suggested originally. The chances of swapping the backplane and popping the drives again sounds suspicious. That's the common denominator each time.

I hear yah weebo. I actually am on the road for work until may-june. they would sit at my place until then unless i pop back home for a weekend. this week cali, next week most of western Europe and italy. i should probably update my sig.

Heh. I am a bit slow today. I was just about to post the same deal. If I had $440 in my pocket, I would defiantly buy a 4pack of these for one of my servers.

Honestly, I would probably still stick with my current build. It is tried and tested. and remains very stable for me. If you need a 16x slot, then I would start looking at a Tyan or other SM boards. For my desktops, I have migrated almost all of sandy' to ivys and Z77 chipsets. for servers, I am still on sandys because of the better compatibility with c202 and c204 motherboards. I have yet to test a SM C216 based board. They might be the next best thing. I just hate beta testing for SM with my data. (although, when the Goliath thread started, it was built on a beta X9SCM board from Asia. that's still running) As far as green, that's hard to get with tons of hard drives, but I'll say, the 1240 was not much more of a hog then the I3 chip. when idol, the newer XEONS are pretty energy efficient. I honestly forgot my power usage. I want to say it idols at about 35-40 with (everything spun down) and peaks at 200ish with 28 drives on it. I know it has been posted more then once in this thread.

~golf clap~.. Good deal. so when are you inviting us over for movie night? (jk)

Score. i hope you got it

What he said above but I think with the blue changes above. I mentioned this in another thread but I only use WinSCP to modify the "passthru.map" file for the hack. I update the .vmx files from the vCenter web console. Look at the graphics in the attached archive. Basically find the "Configuration Parameters" button on the Options tab - Advanced/General selection. Then add the "...msiEnabled" key and value. The graphics show the screens involved. yes, what he said.. thanks for the edits.. that's what i get for making a post while on a conference call at work..

You thought you could get off that easy?!?!? thanks for the update.. I think I'll take this for a test spin...

I think i'm using kingston in mine. the one that is "over-ramed" i want to say is crucial. I would look in the newegg reviews.

I have several atom PC's (literally like 10) on my network. all of them can stream DVD ISO's just fine over wire. most are D510's or D525's but even my older 330 and N270 (single core) can keep up. All of my desktop atoms can even playback/decode just fine because of the videocard or decoderchip I have added. A few things i have seen with some older atom boards (zotac boards are notorious for this) with 4 SATA ports. They are really only 2 ports with a port multiplier. Thus killing read/write speed when accessing multiple drives. I would suggest you try XBMC on your HTPC and see if that solves your issue.

I would do it maxinc's first way. It is time consuming, but your array is never "down" except while powered off to replace the drives at those particular steps. I would take several evenings and let it do each build/check step overnight.

I am running several of those Atom boards. i did get most of them though sales or open box deals. I have 1 running unread just fine. but I know it cant handle a lot of plug-ins or transcoding on the fly. the IPMI feature is great on the HF boards. That saves having a keyboard. mouse and monitor for the server. the DDR3 version i have (D525 I believe), I did actually double the max ram to 8GB without any issues (if you find the correct ram, it will support 8GB at 667Mhz). I have that one also running a software based raid at speeds comparable to Ford. I believe i am getting slightly better NIC speeds though.

mmm.. honestly. I would not make that move.. ESXi was never meant to pass video cards and it is really hit or miss. only a few cards have worked for doing it. I would spend a few bucks and get a rasberry PI or build an htpc from leftover parts. the headache saved is well worth the extra PC.. I bet you could even hide the PI inside the the same case or mounted behind the TV. As far as everything else, lets see.. dives will move over (V5x will help) Video card.. unknown see above. TV card.. i get a lot of google hits about it and esxi.. all in german. i would check it out..unknown. (bob might know) adaptec card. most likely it wont work out of the box. blu ray.. check. thats good. i think the challenge is is will the DVR work in passthough, I am not sure. If so, your best bet is still go 2 boxes. a heftier server (for unRAID and DVR duties along with other VMs) and a light client (Pure HTPC). you could also do a bit a research and see what others have done for the video card passthough. I know people that have done it and it was a PITA to get it working. If you want to continue with this, then we can look at additional hardware.

With you're list of hardware, this should be a breeze. you will need an additional flash drive for esxi to boot from and a harddrive for a datastore. If you want to add the datastore drive to a backplane, you need a reverse breakout cable (I assume you have this) (some people mount the datastore drive internally) More ram if you like. 8 is bare minimum. 32 if you can. ram goes fast. CPU, not so fast. You dont mention it, but I can see your on 5x because if the 3tb drives. best solution is to first move all of your drives to the MV8's and boot up plain old unraid and make sure there are no issues.. V5 will automatically handle the drive movement from MB to MV8 (you could run a parity check at this point with correct off if you're paranoid). if it boots fine you're good to move on to esxi. I would pull the MV8s from the board or pull the sas plugs from the MV8's (you could pull the drive bays halfway out instead if thats easier because it is in a rack) bottom line is, ESXI will erase all hard drives it can see (i would pull the ESXi flash also, maybe even back it up in case) mount the esxi installer iso via ipmi and install esxi to the esxi flash. unmount iso, reboot. Create a VM for ESXi. do the controller hack twice. once for each controller. do the passthough config. reboot server. and then boot the VM with only one drive and see if unraid boots and sees it. if so shut it all down (i would not hot swap that many drives). reboot and you should be fine.. whole thing.... under an hour start to finish. a good way to spend a sunday.

You can always full the hole with a plexi window. A sheet of that is only a few bucks. You glue it to the inside or drill a few holes and bolt it on. if you are really adventurous, you can go old school mod and actually open up the fan hole to make a proper "window". maybe you can get some moders mesh and plexi or black plexi to make it less noticeable if you don't like the whole mod look. $25 is a bit expensive. $40 is a joke since it just the panel off the other side of the $50 case.

I think i missed the question. are you looking to replace just the unRAID box with a baremetal unraid? replace both boxes with 1 esxi all in one? replace everything but the htpc part?

@ ford. have you seen any of those for less then $675? a bit expensive.. @ weebo http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=16622.msg152330#msg152330 NIC is not compatible without a hack. but the hack works because it is only a single nic. @Biggen, the X7SPA's are nice for only file serving, but in my opinion are at end of life. if you can find one on sale maybe. Also check out the HP microserver (N40l or N54L). it is not the case you want, but is the best deal in a SFF server. search the forums for that case and see what what others have used..