Rajahal

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Posts posted by Rajahal

    Raj's Prototype Designs [Discussion Thread]

    in Unraid Compulsive Design

    Posted

    All of my designs are built for unRAID 4.7 (the latest stable version). I simply don't have the resources to update them with each new beta/RC release, especially with the recent flurry of development activity. The SASLP card works perfectly well in 4.7. RC-5 was released just a few hours ago and the release notes mention some issues with the MVSAS drivers. If you are building for a trouble-free 5.0 build, then some more research may be in order. However, given that the SASLP is one of the most popular, if not the most popular HBA card used in unRAID, I think it is a safe bet that LimeTech will give it a lot of preference in solving any issues that arise. The attention paid to the MVSAS drivers in the recent RC releases seem to indicate this is true.

    Which 4 TB drive should I buy?

    in Storage Devices and Controllers

    Posted

    Raj, I have two of these drives I'm about to preclear. However, I'm curious if you used the -A option in your preclear, to force the partition to start on sector 64 instead of 63. On my 3TB Hitachis I found they still needed to start on 63, and were using 512B alignment.

     

    Yes, I used the -A option to preclear (actually, I just had the MBR: 4k aligned setting enabled in unRAID, so I didn't have to add any modifier when starting preclear). You should force the preclear start on sector 64 for every single drive except for an Advanced Format drive that has been modified to start on sector 64 already (such as the WD EARS drives with a jumper installed on pins 7-8). I'm not sure what you mean by your 3 TB Hitachis 'needing' sector 63, I don't believe that is correct. Even a 512B aligned drive will still perform optimally when using 4k alignment starting on sector 64, since 512B is an even multiple of 4k.

    AOC-SASLP-MV8 firmware

    in Hardware

    Posted

    Although I get into FreeDOS no problem, it doesn't see my flash drive as 'C:' :(

    I'm use a Kingston MobileLite G2 card reader.

     

    If you have another flash drive or SD card handy, I would suggest just creating a boot disk with nothing but FreeDOS on it. That disk should then be seen as 'C:'. If it still doesn't work, you may need to disconnect all your hard drives. I always flash firmware with nothing but the CPU, Mobo, RAM, SASLP card, and boot disk, no other HDDs installed.

    Critique this build

    in Hardware

    Posted

    I always say 'I cannot guarantee this motherboard will work' whenever I or another forum member I trust haven't personally handled it, tested it, run it through the gauntlet, and come out the other side with a smile. I hesitate to recommend hardware to anyone that should work, looks good on paper, has all the right specs, etc., but hasn't actually been proven to work. This is one of those cases. Searching the motherboard model number does come up with a few threads in which others asked about the board. I don't see any conclusive evidence in any of them that the person actually built a server from the board and was happy with it. If you want to be thorough in your research, I suggest sending a PM to each of those people and asking them if they did end up using the board and how well they like it.

     

    Since you asked, the following are somewhat common issues to have with motherboards:

    • Unsupported NIC - by far the most common problem. You won't have this problem with this particular motherboard as long as you stick with an unRAID 5.0 beta or RC release. One of the simplest problems to fix, as adding a $20-$30 PCI NIC and disabling the on-board one will solve it.
    • Unsupported Chipset - more rare, and typically not an issue with modern boards. See here for a list of some known incompatible chipsets.
    • Unsupported CPU type - technically this is part of the chipset, by some cutting-edge CPUs aren't supported by Linux and therefore aren't supported by unRAID. Typically this problem is solved with Linux updates that filter their way into unRAID updates. The AMD F1 socket CPUs are a recent example.
    • Unsupported SATA controller - also somewhat rare, this typically is only an issue on motherboards that have more than one SATA controller, which is also a rarity these days. There is often no solution for this besides using a PCIe SATA controller and disabling the onboard one(s). However, sometimes a BIOS update will solve it.
    • Defective hardware - this can happen with any board, and is often very difficult to diagnose. Unfortunately quite common as well.

    Raj's Prototype Designs [Discussion Thread]

    in Unraid Compulsive Design

    Posted

    20 - 24 Drive Prototype Builds updated! Some new hardware in the mix, notably the Supermicro X9SCM-F-O and Intel Pentium G620 combo. All 'beast' builds now have 8 GBs of RAM simply because I can't find any compatible 4 GB kits (if you come across any, please let me know). I also added the IBM ServerRAID M1015 as an alternative to the stalwart Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 for those having trouble finding the SASLP in your country.

    Recent site outage **Update**

    in Announcements

    Posted

    Since no one else is reporting trouble receiving the notification emails, I'll not mention it again, as it must be unique to me.  Tom should probably split the no-email posts to the Forum Feedback or Lounge boards.

     

    I've changed my forum and wiki email addresses several times, double-checked settings (toggling them back and forth) and adjusted and saved wiki and forum profiles, checked both of my ISP's spam folders as well as my own, and I am still not receiving any emails related to UnRAID (all my other email is fine).  I did not receive an email for yesterdays wiki change nor any emails for all of the many forum threads I've clicked for notifications.  And until the time of the server migration, I used to get a lot of them.  I continue to click the Notify button, as often as I see an interesting and active thread, and I verify that it changes to 'Unnotify'.  Out of ideas ...

     

    Side note:  I did find some surprising things in one of the ISP's spam folders.  With the constant back and forth battles over spam and its detection, I recommend re-checking your spam folders, as you may be surprised too at what is suddenly getting trapped, wrongly.  I suspect that most of us have found they work so well that we have stopped checking them, taking their accuracy for granted.

     

    A troubleshooting tip: create a secondary free Gmail account and update your forum profile to point to that account. See if you start receiving emails there. If you do, then you'll know it is an issue with your ISP's email service. I use Gmail and haven't had any issues receiving notifications.

    First Build Questions

    in Hardware

    Posted

    As a previous Antec 300 and 900 user.... I'd recommend just going with the 1200 from the start.  My only issue has been the USB 3.0 plugs on the front, my motherboard doesn't have the 15-pin connectors for USB so I've been trying to find a PCI-E card with the connectors x 2 (recommendations appreciated!).

     

    I ran into the same problem with a client's build. As Lian Li and other case manufacturers are including USB 3.0 to USB 2.0 pin header adapters with their cases, I felt justified in contacting Antec and requesting that they send me some of these adapters. Success! They got back to me fairly quickly and sent me one adapter. As I need two of the adapters to connect all three front side USB 3.0 ports, I requested that they send another. They claimed they have, it should be in the mail right now.

     

    Granted, this approach will limit the ports to run at only USB 2.0 speed. If you want USB 3.0 transfer speeds then you will need to find a PCIe card. I think this approach will be difficult since the card may need drivers not included in unRAID. Still, best of luck!

     

    See the Greenleaf Hardware and Software Blog for my brief review of the latest version of the Antec Twelve Hundred.

    Solved - dead motherboard and parity drive... issues bringing up array

    in General Support (V5 and Older)

    Posted

    You can safely ignore the shifting drive letters (SDB, SDC, etc.). Your new motherboard may be initializing the drives in a different order which will cause the drive letter assignments to change. unRAID uses the drive serial numbers, not the drive letters, to keep track of which drive is assigned to which drive slot (parity, disk1, disk2, etc.).

     

    It sounds to me like all you need to do is add a new parity drive. Since the old hardware RAID parity drive is no longer available, you'll have to replace it with a SATA one. At this point, all unRAID knows is that disk0 (the parity drive) is missing, and that is indicated in your syslog. It is also possible to make unRAID forget about the missing parity drive and start the array without parity protection, but it doesn't sound like this is what you want to do.

     

    The process is simple:

    1 - Power down, install the new parity drive

    2 - Power up, assign the new drive to the parity slot

    3 - Start the array. Let the parity sync complete (this will take a long time)

    4 - Run a parity check and let it finish (this will also take a long time)

     

    As long as the parity sync and parity check both complete without errors, then you should be good to go. If you do see any errors, post another syslog here. Keep in mind that your data is at risk until all 4 of the above steps complete successfully, so it is in your best interest to get the new parity disk set up as soon as possible.

     

    It is always a good idea to double-check your thought processes before taking action...so well done!

    please help... stuck at starting

    in User Customizations

    Posted

    There are definitely still some add-ons running as you boot your server, as they are logged in your syslog. Edit your go file (located in the config folder on your flash drive) using Notepad++ on Windows or TextEdit on Mac so that everything is commented out (meaning has a # in front of it) except for this line:

     

    /usr/local/sbin/emhttp &

     

    Now reboot. Your server should start normally without any add-ons. If that works, you can start removing the # symbols to re-enable your add-ons to start one by one.