October 31, 200718 yr Not sure if this is so much a hardware or software question but here goes. Finding LARGE IDE drives is getting harder and SATA is faster with less cabling issues. I'd like to begin migrating my system from an IDE interface to a SATA interface. How can I best accomplish this? My original unRAID Intel board has some SATA ports onboard, can I bring these online and add drives? How will they appear in the software? Could I then decomission my current Parity drive and use the new SATA port for this? Then use the next port for one of the data drives? At some point I'll have to pull a Promise card out and replace it somehow, what then snice I'll lose access to multiple drives at once - must I copy the data elsewhere and back? I'm surely not the only one finding themselves in this position. I'm looking to the future and 1TB drives, apparently they have decided to discontinue the IDE versions of these <sigh>
October 31, 200718 yr I too have been wondering the best way to go from IDE to SATA configuration and look forward to seeing responses from the gurus. I currently have the 2 SATA ports on the original MOBO from Tom in use as we speak, but I am thinking about upgrading MOBO and CPU + new cards, but I am just not sure how to do this. I started thinking maybe I should just build another array and keep this one as is... Great topic
October 31, 200718 yr Author I'm purchasing a couple of SATA to IDE adapters from EBAY and some SATA drives. Fingers crossed that these do not cause funky issues. I'm building a second array anyway so I'll have place to move drives anyway. Now I need to figure out what MB to use in the next system and what expansion cards to use heh. Off to the hardware forum!
October 31, 200718 yr I believe this is a lot easier than you think ... To start shifting data drives from IDE to SATA: * Buy some SATA drives * Plug them into the mobo or add-on SATA card * Turn on the system * Assign the new drives to the array via the web interface If you want to shift your parity drive from IDE to SATA: * Pull out the IDE parity drive (or unassign) * Add SATA drive * Assign new parity drive and build parity via the web interface Bill
November 1, 200718 yr Author I believe this is a lot easier than you think ... To start shifting data drives from IDE to SATA: * Buy some SATA drives * Plug them into the mobo or add-on SATA card * Turn on the system * Assign the new drives to the array via the web interface If you want to shift your parity drive from IDE to SATA: * Pull out the IDE parity drive (or unassign) * Add SATA drive * Assign new parity drive and build parity via the web interface Bill Well, as it stands now the system has 12 drives in it. The M/B has 2 slots I think for SATA drives. I know the software can now goto 14 drives but it seems I'll hit a wall there. Hrm... I have a 4port adapter coming. It sounds like what you are saying I can do is unassign a drive, assign a SATA in it's place, and it will rebuild - yes? If so yeah that IS much easier than I expected! I have 3 750Gig drives on the way and the parts to finally buildout my second NAS so maybe moving stuff will work out. I've got IDE to SATA adapters coming too so I guess if no one has tried them we'll soon find out if they suck or not The big question will be if I ought to move to 4.2x or not. On 4.1 now watching, lost data on my last attempt so I'm being cautious heh. Maybe after I've moved a few drives...
November 1, 200718 yr I believe this is a lot easier than you think ... To start shifting data drives from IDE to SATA: * Buy some SATA drives * Plug them into the mobo or add-on SATA card * Turn on the system * Assign the new drives to the array via the web interface If you want to shift your parity drive from IDE to SATA: * Pull out the IDE parity drive (or unassign) * Add SATA drive * Assign new parity drive and build parity via the web interface Bill Well, as it stands now the system has 12 drives in it. The M/B has 2 slots I think for SATA drives. I know the software can now goto 14 drives but it seems I'll hit a wall there. Hrm... I have a 4port adapter coming. It sounds like what you are saying I can do is unassign a drive, assign a SATA in it's place, and it will rebuild - yes? If so yeah that IS much easier than I expected! I have 3 750Gig drives on the way and the parts to finally buildout my second NAS so maybe moving stuff will work out. I've got IDE to SATA adapters coming too so I guess if no one has tried them we'll soon find out if they suck or not The big question will be if I ought to move to 4.2x or not. On 4.1 now watching, lost data on my last attempt so I'm being cautious heh. Maybe after I've moved a few drives... The unRaid software can now handle 16 drives... As per the release notes, the upper limit was raised a few versions ago. Changes from 4.0 to 4.1 ----------------------- Improvement: support up to 16 hard drives Joe L.
November 2, 200718 yr Author Ah! I knew that changes had been made but didn't recallit being as high as 16! Not sure I want to stuff that many drives into this machine but mebbe' I'll try it. since I can sort of swap drives around I'm not sure I'll need to, can just pull a drive and rebuild with an adapter or with a sata it sounds like if I've got ports - that's nice! Parts for the second box are on their way. The USB key is on an ancient revision so it'll be intersting getting it all going - I look forward to it. I'm slightly crapped for storage now, that won't last long it seems
November 2, 200718 yr Author Oookay, it really was pretty much that easy! The Primary Master disk is not seen, the SATA shows as SCSI, the interface shows Parity with a blue ball Unassigned. Assign it with the new "SCSI" drive, and Parity creation begins. Just one issue - Parity speed is all of 13K with an estimated completion time of over 900minutes Prior to this I'd see times more in the 500min range. I do not recall speeds but a friend sees as high as 20K with his all SATA system. I do not think I was ever all that much faster than what I'm seeing right now if at all but the time concerns me. It's possible that this is showing a long time period because it wants to do the entire 750Gig space whereas previously my Parity was only 500Gig. I do not think my speeds are so far off from what I had before so I'm not 100% sure what's occured. <shrug> Anyway, for those contemplating this it really doesn't seem very hard at all to do - go for it!
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