official hardware???

[bdee1]

i have been reading up on the unraid solution on avs and now here but there is just so much info to read.  i am wondering if there is any official list of supported hardware (mobo, cpu, ram, power supply, RAID controller cards...)

 

i would like to purchase the usb drive with the os and config on it and just build my own system.

 

my problem is though that i have several smaller IDE drives that i could use, but i also have 2 recently purchased 500 GB SATA drives.  so is there any way to do a setup that has one IDE RAID controller and one SATA RAID controller?

[PGPfan]

Hi bdee1,

 

Your best bet is to look at the hardware that Tom sells. He has a 'starter kit' that has the mb, cpu, memory, OS on USB, controller cards, etc. Basically everything needed except case, pwr supply, hard drives. You don't have to buy from him, but if you get the same hardware elsewhere, you WILL have a compatible system.

 

-PGPfan

[bdee1]

Hi bdee1,

 

Your best bet is to look at the hardware that Tom sells. He has a 'starter kit' that has the mb, cpu, memory, OS on USB, controller cards, etc. Basically everything needed except case, pwr supply, hard drives. You don't have to buy from him, but if you get the same hardware elsewhere, you WILL have a compatible system.

 

-PGPfan

 

hey thanks i don't know how i didn't see that before.  i am very surprised however to find that newegg does not have the mobo.  and zipzoomfly has them but they are on backorder.  can anyone suggest another site that carries them and has reliable service like newegg?

 

also what about the whole SATA vs PATA thing?  i have about 4 older smaller PATA drives an 2 500GB SATA drives.  and moving forward i would like to buy SATA drives.  is there a starter kit i can but from lime that includes a SATA controller card and a PATA controller card?

 

OR if i could get a starter kit with all SATA cards, then i could just forget about my old PATA drives and just use my big SATA drives and but some new ones when i get money.

[Joe L.]

Tom does not currently ship an SATA configured product, however, there is limited support in the newest BETA for SATA drives.

 

From Tom's release notes:

The firmware directory also contains a 'go-sata' script.  This can serve as a template for creating your own 'go' script which sets up SATA drives.  Refer to the Support page on our website for more information about SATA support in this release.

Now, he has not updated his web-site, so don't go looking on the "Support" page there yet. However ... also from his release notes for the 2.060324 beta...

- SATA support has the following restrictions:

  1. Can not read SATA hard drive temperatures.

  2. Can not spin down SATA hard drives.

  3. Supports only Intel on-board SATA controllers, and Promise SATAII-150 TX4.

  4. System occasionally will "hang" writing the Master Boot Record of new SATA disks.  Upon manual reset, the disk MBR is correctly written and you can proceed.

 

I've never tried any of this (my unRaid is all IDE), the sample "go-sata" script is for a 12 disk configuration where disk0 (the parity drive) is an SATA drive and the others are IDE drives.  I would guess that would not be too difficult to edit to handle other configurations.

 

When you order your unRaid software, if you tell Tom of how you plan to configure your disks he might be able to give more specific guidance.

 

Joe L.

[bdee1]

hmm - seems like it might still be a bit too beta for me.  thats a real bummer because the unRAID looks like a great solution but until they come out with the sata version (out of beta) i guess i will have to wait.   is there any eta on when they might release a sata version?

 

and actually i asked over on AVS but nobody replied yet - is it possible to use mu sata drives with the IDE unraid by using some kind of SATA to IDE adapter for the drives?

[Joe L.]

Tom has said that the current Linux kernel version he is using does not support spin-down or temperature monitoring of SATA drives.  Those features will not exist until he ports the unRaid driver to the newest Linux kernel.

 

As far as the "beta" status.  Only Tom knows the ETA before it becomes the production version.  The "beta" had a "limited release" in mid march and a subsequent "limited release" near the end of march... I'd have expected it to be out of the "beta" testing period by now.  I know at least one or two folks have reported issues in the newest version when upgrading disks, perhaps Tom is working that issue before making a final release of the current version.  I've read others say it is the version he is currently shipping if you place an order. Who knows?

 

Personally, if you are not Linux savy, an SATA version will not be a good match for you unless you get a lot of support from Tom.

 

Joe L.

[bdee1]

Personally, if you are not Linux savy, an SATA version will not be a good match for you unless you get a lot of support from Tom.

Joe L.

 

yea thats what i am afraid of - i have done only a little with linux so i would be reluctant to get into this.  what a shame.  i guess i just have to wait until he officially releases the sata version.