"New" old server

[Darkoverlord]

Hi!

 

Need advice on a very tight budget machine. And when I am saying tight....I mean it...

 

Parts to be re-used.

 

Mobo: MSI 865-P

Processor: P4 @ 2.8 GHz

Memory: 768MB

SATA card: SIL-3114 chipset card

USB stick: Micro Cruzer 2GB

PSU: Nexus 4090 PSU 430W

 

New stuff to be bought:

 

3 2TB Samsung F4 drives

 

Here goes nothing:

I can boot to unraid, but it seems that for some reason I can only boot using USB 1.1 and not USB 2.0. That takes the boot time to 6 mins before I can log to Tower.

Anyone knows why that is happening? Since the motheboard supports USB 2.0, what is the reason for only being able to boot with 1.1? setting it to 2.0 results in boot failure.

 

Also many times the system might hang with network being inaccesible. Is that an indication that that my USB stick is slowing living its last days?

 

Considering that the mobo is old and that also it only supports PCI, is the SIL-3114 card going to be very slow with the SATA drives?

I have been testing the system with 3 old 40GB IDE drives and I am achieving 10MB/sec when writing my pictures from my WIN7 machine.

What speeds should I be hoping for with the SATA drives and the current system? Is my low memory somehow affecting the network speeds?

 

I also have read the extensive thread on the Samsung drives. Is it safe now that Samsung has patched the new firmware to use those drives? These are the cheapest drives we can get in Europe right now.

 

Thanks in advance for reading, and would be greatful for some answers from you guys that have the knowledge on these!

 

A very confused noob 

[PeterB]

I can boot to unraid, but it seems that for some reason I can only boot using USB 1.1 and not USB 2.0. That takes the boot time to 6 mins before I can log to Tower.

Anyone knows why that is happening? Since the motheboard supports USB 2.0, what is the reason for only being able to boot with 1.1? setting it to 2.0 results in boot failure.

 

Also many times the system might hang with network being inaccesible. Is that an indication that that my USB stick is slowing living its last days?

 

What do you mean by 'boot failure' with usb2?  Is it the same as the hang that that you also experience?  I'm guessing that you're using a 4.x unRAID system.  I also experienced the hang/no network problem, intermittently, with 4.x.  Since updating to 5.0b4 and later, this problem has gone away.  Despite all the dire warnings, I would suggest that you experiment with 5.0b6a.

 

Considering that the mobo is old and that also it only supports PCI, is the SIL-3114 card going to be very slow with the SATA drives?

 

Your disk performance is going to be restricted by the PCI bus - but probably only obvious when transfers are happening on more than one drive simultaneously.

 

I have been testing the system with 3 old 40GB IDE drives and I am achieving 10MB/sec when writing my pictures from my WIN7 machine.

 

I'm not surprised - 40GB IDE drives are not going to be high performers and this may be even more restricting than the PCI bus bottleneck!  Don't forget that when you write to a parity-protected array that you have to read from the parity drive, as well as write back to that and the data drive.

 

 

What speeds should I be hoping for with the SATA drives and the current system? Is my low memory somehow affecting the network speeds?

 

Given the PCI bottleneck, I wouldn't expect too much of an improvement.

 

I also have read the extensive thread on the Samsung drives. Is it safe now that Samsung has patched the new firmware to use those drives?

 

I would suggest that you check the manufacturing date - there may still be some older production drives in the supply chain.  IIRC, the statement from Samsung was that January production should be okay - read through the thread which discusses the F4 problem in detail.

[Joe L.]

The 10MB/s speed is highly likely to be the limit of your networking card/chipset.  That is about all you'll get out of a 100Mb/s LAN connection.

[Darkoverlord]

Yes, my internal network is 100MB/s.

 

The USB 2.0 problem that I mentioned, is that USB stick cannot be read and it doesn't even go to the unRaid boot menu.

 

Thanks for the answers!

 

[SSD]

You can buy a gigabit pci card. 100 megabit is slow.

[kizer]

I bought 3 GB cards for 20bucks off ebay a while ago. I think mine might of been either netgear or dlink. Don't know because it was a while ago.

 

As for boot I've been able to boot just fine in 4.7. Have you tried using a different USB drive? Have you tried the front and the back of your machine to see if it makes a difference? My old rack mounted machine for some reason would only get full speed if I used the rear ports, but not the front ports. Kind of a hassel too since I spent so much time getting the front to work only to end up using an extension to plug into the rear. LOL

[Darkoverlord]

Yes, I have tried 3 different sticks. All the same problem. I have tried only from tha back ports as the front ones, I am missing the connector to the motherboard and cannot find it anymore...

 

Forgot to mention that I am using 4.7 version.

[kizer]

I don't have access to my machine right now, but is there a setting in the Bios to enable or disable 2.0 support? I know I'm reaching at straws right now, but I figured why not throw out some more ideas.

 

Hmm, I forgot you said up above when you set it to 2.0 you got boot failure.

[PeterB]

That is about all you'll get out of a 100Mb/s LAN connection.

 

Ooops!  I neglected to check the specification of the on-board network interface!

 

Of course, Joe is absolutely correct - you'll not achieve better than approx 10MB/s on a fast ethernet interface.

[Rajahal]

Do you plan on expanding past 3 drives?  If not, then your PSU is fine.  I saw that it has four +12V rails, but I can't find the rating of each one.  For just a few drives it is fine, just keep in mind that as you add more drives you may have to balance the rails.

 

Your server certainly won't be fast, but I think you'll find it suitable for a while.  If the purpose is just to backup your photos then it should be fine.

[Joe L.]

Do you plan on expanding past 3 drives?  If not, then your PSU is fine.  I saw that it has four +12V rails, but I can't find the rating of each one.  For just a few drives it is fine, just keep in mind that as you add more drives you may have to balance the rails.

On MOST multi-rail power supplies, there is absolutely no way to "balance" the rails between hard disks.  All the MOLEX and SATA connectors are on one rail, and frequently that rail is also shared with the motherboard.  The other rails are used to power the CPU and the PCIe cards and cannot be used for disks since they lack the 5 Volt supply.  (In other words, their capacity is completely un-usable in an unRAID array)

[Darkoverlord]

Raj, here is the PSU page with the power charactheristics.

 

http://www.nexustek.nl/NXS-nx4090realsilentpowersupply400watt.htm

 

I managed to get hold of one of those USB connectors that connect to the mobo pins. Maybe USB 2.0 will work with this.

 

As for the question of expanding the array. As I mentioned already, money situation is a bit tight at the moment, and if I cannot make the machine work the way I want it (without having out of the ordinary expectations), then I will probably give up Unraid all along. I am testing it right now, and there are things I like and things I don't. Without wanting to sound impolite to Tom's work, I think that even in the free version of Unraid, there should be security in the folders. This is something that is deterring me from going one step up, because I would have loved to test that feature before commiting any money. Probably this conversation doesn't belong to this thread, but it something I wanted to get out of my system.

 

And yes, majority of my data is personal pics and some 720p videos.

 

Thanks all for the active participation.

[Rajahal]

Joe is right, there may be no way to balance the rails on your PSU.  Without seeing a block diagram or similar, there's no way to know.

 

The important specs are these:  +12V1 - 14A; +12V2 - 15A

 

Let's assume that the smaller one powers all your molex and SATA power ports.  Estimate 2A for each green drive and 3A for each 7200rpm drive, then leave a little headroom for case fans.  So with that PSU you can support around 5 or 6 green drives or up to 4 7200rpm drives before pushing the PSU's limits.

 

Of course to support past 3 drives you'll need to buy an unRAID Plus or Pro license, and then you'll get the security features that you want.  I agree that unRAID Basic should allow the user to test out the security features, this is a point that has been discussed before.

[S80_UK]

One thing that the technically curious can do is to physically measure and examine their power supply internals (respecting all necessary safety obligations on the way).  I have a couple of lower cost supplies that have two 12 volt rails, but those rails are in fact joined inside the supply with about half an inch of very thick wire and PCB trace, and are fed from a single switching regulator circuit (a single set of coil, rectifier and filter components).  In such a supply the ratings for each rail are somewhat nominal and are related to the current carrying capacity of the cables.  The implication is that for power supplies where this is the case, one can look at the total capacity of the 12 volt supply (which is limited by the regulator) and one can then split that as needed between motherboard and drives, with the possibility that such a supply can be used for a good number of drives.

 

Having said that, I still have a brand new Corsair CX 430 in my new server box.  I didn't want to use an older supply given that it's going to be there hopefully for a few years.

[Rajahal]

Wouldn't opening up the PSU void the warranty?

[S80_UK]

Wouldn't opening up the PSU void the warranty?

Of course, always (assuming that any warranty was still in force).

 

Hardware hacking isn't fun unless warranties are ignored!    Such methods are only for those that really want or need to go to those lengths - not for those who are just faintly curious.

[PeterB]

I have a couple of lower cost supplies that have two 12 volt rails, but those rails are in fact joined inside the supply with about half an inch of very thick wire and PCB trace, and are fed from a single switching regulator circuit (a single set of coil, rectifier and filter components).

 

This sounds like a feeble attempt to meet the requirements of the old ATX12V v2.2 specification, although it fails because the specification required 'independent overcurrent protection' on each rail .... unless the PCB trace is intended to act as a fuse!

[S80_UK]

Interesting - I wonder if the half inch of wire is intended as a means of detecting a voltage drop and hence checking the current.  But, as you say, rather a feeble attempt.