keyvan Posted February 21, 2011 Share Posted February 21, 2011 This is my 2nd unRAID build, my first (current box) is a basic Cooler Master Centurion case with icy dock drive caddies (2x 4 bay) - Adaptec 1430, Gigabyte MA785GT UD3H. I am now building a new, bigger box. I plan to copy the (about 9Tb) files from the current server to this build when I am happy that it is fully stable. OS at time of building: unRAID 4.7 final release - also running unMenu and cache_dirs script. CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 2.93GHz Socket 775 1066FSB 3MB L2 Motherboard: ASUS P5Q3 -taken from a retired Windows Home Server system USB Drive for OS: Lexar JumpDrive FireFly USB Flash Drive 2GB RAM: 2GB (2x1GB) DDR3 1333MHz HyperX Blu Memory Kit CL9 1.5V Non-ECC Unbuffered Case: XCase RM420[/b] http://www.xcase.co.uk/X-Case-RM-420-Hotswap-4u-p/case-rm420.htm - 20 bay 4U rack mount (also known as NORCO in U.S) with replacement fan bracket to house 3x 120mm fans Drive Cage(s): N/A - Built-in 20 Hot Swap caddies Power Supply: Corsair 850W HX Modular PSU - 80plus Silver Certified Efficiency SATA Expansion Card(s): 1x Adaptec SATA/300 AAR-1430SA (4port) -1x Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 (8 port) see note below.[/b] Cables: 2x SAS/SATA Internal Cable Multilane 30cm SFF8087 (miniSAS-36) to SFF8087 (miniSAS-36) for SASLP-MV8 - 3x SAS/SATA Internal Cable Multilane Reverse 50cm 4x SATA Controller to SFF8087 (miniSAS-36) Device Fans: 3x Xilence Red Wing 120mm Quiet Fan - 3&4pin connection - 2x Sharkoon Silent Eagle 2000 80mm Case Fan - 3pin and 4pin Connector Parity Drive: Hitachi Deskstar 2TB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 32MB Cache - OEM Data Drives: 8x Hitachi Deskstar 2TB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 32MB Cache - OEM Cache Drive : not using one...! Total Drive Capacity: 16Tb Will add 2Tb drives as needed to full capacity of 38Tb Primary Use: DVD and BluRay movie file storage. About 550 DVD's stored in Video_ts folders and 130 BD's in .iso format. Serving 5/6 viewing zones with HTPCs running windows media centre and MyMovies with full control from iPads Note: The ASUS mobo has 8 sata ports - 6 driven by the Intel ICH10R Southbridge chipset and the other 2 by JMicron® JMB322. I have seen reports from others using this chip-set(JMB322). They seem to have problems with SMART monitoring (temp.) info from these ports and it seems they will not spin down either. So I am going to try it and see - if this is indeed a problem on my setup then I shall add a 3rd sata card PCIe x1 with 2 sata ports. Currently I would look at either the Adaptec 12xx or a generic Silicon Image based card. Quote Link to comment
vexhold Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Looks pretty decent. Wondering why you chose 7200rpm drives over green drives? Note: The ASUS mobo has 8 sata ports - 6 driven by the Intel ICH10R Southbridge chipset and the other 2 by JMicron® JMB322. I have seen reports from others using this chip-set(JMB322). They seem to have problems with SMART monitoring (temp.) info from these ports and it seems they will not spin down either. So I am going to try it and see - if this is indeed a problem on my setup then I shall add a 3rd sata card PCIe x1 with 2 sata ports. Currently I would look at either the Adaptec 12xx or a generic Silicon Image based card. Did you have the 4 port card already, or did you buy it? It seems kind of a waste if you bought it over getting another AOC-SASLP-MV8. The PSU is some major overkill, well maybe not I guess if you are using 20 7200rpm hard drives. Looking forward to your build. Quote Link to comment
keyvan Posted February 22, 2011 Author Share Posted February 22, 2011 Looks pretty decent. Wondering why you chose 7200rpm drives over green drives? Did you have the 4 port card already, or did you buy it? It seems kind of a waste if you bought it over getting another AOC-SASLP-MV8. The PSU is some major overkill, well maybe not I guess if you are using 20 7200rpm hard drives. Looking forward to your build. I got the 4port because I have read several posts which indicate that having 2x AOC-SALP-MV8 has caused issues with several mobo's. If I had a supermicro mobo, I might risk it. But I figured better safe than sorry! As far as green drives are concerned (I know of only the seagate and WD EARS - Samsung F4 is out of the running..)- I have seen a lot of issues with AF, MBR alignment, etc. and I am thinking best to stick with the tried & tested - I also noted that the Hitachi's are Joe L's drive of choice - he is the drive guru here!!. I may install some green drives later if I am happy with stability issues. For now I am building as though I will have all 7200rpm - hence the high powered PSU... P.S. the case & fan mount arrived today! Will post photos soon... Quote Link to comment
bfeist Posted February 23, 2011 Share Posted February 23, 2011 Nice setup. I prefer the Hitachi 7200's too. I just finished setting up a different unraid server for a friend that contains 8 x WD green drives, 2 x Hitachi 5900rpm drives, 2 x 1.5tb Seagate 7200rpm drives, and 1 Hitachi 7200rpm parity drive. This mixed setup gets write speeds anywhere from 35MB/s to 8MB/s depending on which drive is being written to and where on that drive the data is being written. My system is all 7200rpm drives (hitachi and seagate) and I get a sustained write from 42MB/s to 27MB/s. I haven't done any real scientific tests, but I was surprised at just how slow the green drives can be. They run super cool though. I'm going to stick to 7200rpm drives. Electrons are cheap. Quote Link to comment
bfeist Posted February 23, 2011 Share Posted February 23, 2011 I quickly looked around and couldn't find any reports of people having trouble with more than one AOC-SASLP-MV8. Can you post a link to that discussion? Quote Link to comment
keyvan Posted February 24, 2011 Author Share Posted February 24, 2011 I quickly looked around and couldn't find any reports of people having trouble with more than one AOC-SASLP-MV8. Can you post a link to that discussion? There is no dedicated thread on more than one SASLP-MV8 just a few posts in the motherboard section. I think here in one of Raj's builds he complains that on a Gigabyte MB he looses the video output when puts a 2nd MV8 on the board. On the same topic/thread, another user highlights all the inconsistant results he gets with the MV8... I just did want to risk it on MB and price difference is not huge. I have 2 MV8's (planning another build for a friend if this goes well...) so I can try and see how/if the ASUS board likes 2 cards installed. Quote Link to comment
Rajahal Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 Wasn't me, I don't use Gigabyte boards. I've had no problems using 2 SASLP cards on Supermicro boards and once on an Asus server board. Quote Link to comment
Zen Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 I've used 2 AOC-SASLP-MV8 cards on an Asus P5Q-E board without any problem. Quote Link to comment
vexhold Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 The only board I have seen Raj have a problem with the SASLP cards is the ASUS M4A785-M, but it was not a problem of 2 cards, it was a problem with any of them. Quote Link to comment
keyvan Posted February 25, 2011 Author Share Posted February 25, 2011 Correct. My bad.. Sorry I thought I saw some posts re issues when using 2x MV8s in non-supermicro motherboards. Particularly when they are used on high bandwidth 16x PCIe slots generally used for graphics card. Again, I apologise if I caused any confusion. I am running preclear on 4x Hitachi 2Tb drives right now.. But I shall test 2 cards on the ASUS board as soon as I can. Quote Link to comment
Rajahal Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 No problem at all. I just wanted to clarify that it wasn't me who posted that particular issue in case someone was looking through my posts trying to find it. Quote Link to comment
keyvan Posted March 1, 2011 Author Share Posted March 1, 2011 These are photos of the finished system. I have connected everything and replaced the 120mm fans with 2000rpm cooler master fans. The disks are running much cooler with the cooler master fans than with Xilence Red Wing 120mm Quiet Fan (1400rpm) - the noise is up slightly, but still no louder than a big modern desktop with a couple of high end graphics cards. I also installed a 2port PCIe x1 host card (JMB363) as the J Micron JMB322 ports on the motherboard did not work porperly. Although I have seen no error messages in the syslog, I not certain if all the ports actually work. Short of installing a disk drive on each port, is there a way to tell if all the sata ports are recognised by unRAID and functioning as they should be?? I know the cable positioning / routing is not up to the standard of the other posts here, but I just don't have the skill or patience.. Any comments or critisims would be welcome... Quote Link to comment
keyvan Posted March 5, 2011 Author Share Posted March 5, 2011 I've used 2 AOC-SASLP-MV8 cards on an Asus P5Q-E board without any problem. Did you preclear any of the drives attatched to these ports? Another user and I are having an issue where preclear does not work when used on drives attatched to this card:http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=11357.msg109545#new I presume given that you have 2 cards, the blue (graphics / 16x) slot has one of the cards installed? Thanks Quote Link to comment
Superorb Posted March 5, 2011 Share Posted March 5, 2011 I know the cable positioning / routing is not up to the standard of the other posts here, but I just don't have the skill or patience.. Sad Cabling looks pretty spot on to me. Quote Link to comment
kizer Posted March 5, 2011 Share Posted March 5, 2011 Nice looking build. I like how clean it looks. Quote Link to comment
Chris Pollard Posted May 19, 2011 Share Posted May 19, 2011 Did you get the 120mm fan tray from x-case? Quote Link to comment
S80_UK Posted May 19, 2011 Share Posted May 19, 2011 I know the cable positioning / routing is not up to the standard of the other posts here, but I just don't have the skill or patience.. It works, doesn't it? Beauty can come later if you feel so inclined. The key thing is that the bundled cables do not impede the airflow as much as if you'd left them loose. Anyhow, it looks pretty good to me. Quote Link to comment
keyvan Posted June 2, 2011 Author Share Posted June 2, 2011 Did you get the 120mm fan tray from x-case? Yes I did. They will ship one with the case (no charge) if you ask for it in the comment section of your online order. Quote Link to comment
Chris Pollard Posted June 2, 2011 Share Posted June 2, 2011 Did you get the 120mm fan tray from x-case? Yes I did. They will ship one with the case (no charge) if you ask for it in the comment section of your online order. Nice. Thanks for the info. Still considering rebuilding my box in a norco Quote Link to comment
defected07 Posted June 2, 2011 Share Posted June 2, 2011 Yeah, the cabling looks great. Can you buy those clips that stick onto the case? My Thermaltake only came with one, and I'd like to route my cables off to the side a bit, instead of having them all in the middle. Thanks Quote Link to comment
Chris Pollard Posted June 3, 2011 Share Posted June 3, 2011 Yeah, the cabling looks great. Can you buy those clips that stick onto the case? My Thermaltake only came with one, and I'd like to route my cables off to the side a bit, instead of having them all in the middle. Thanks Most DIY places should sell sticky cable tie anchors :- http://www.screwfix.com/p/2-way-adhesive-base-natural-19mm-x-19mm-pack-of-100/37931 Cheap as chips Quote Link to comment
Johnm Posted June 3, 2011 Share Posted June 3, 2011 Monoprice has them in the US Quote Link to comment
Kaygee Posted June 3, 2011 Share Posted June 3, 2011 Stick on clips tend to lose stickiness, if you must use them, spot of hot glue is recommended. The only potential thing I can see is the USB cable to the front panel looks too tight and might pull off the header. Could just be the camera angle but it looks a bit like "a bow string". CPU fan needs rotating 90 degress so cable comes out toward PSU and needs braiding black, sorry OCD kicking in... Otherwise nice job. I think it was Asus P5B-VM someone was having issues with, MV8 wouldnt work in x4 slot only in the x16 slot. Different chipset than your board. Loop back from eSATA port for an emergency sata port. Like you say pcie 2 port is much cheaper than second mv8...its cheaper than the cables for an mv8 thinking about it. Quote Link to comment
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