The card arrived today (7:25pm local!!!), and I brought the server down from its shelf and got to installation. I was concerned about recent threads with people using this ASUS M4A785-M and the Supermicro.

 

First, I moved some disks around, and got them into better slots. The internal 3.5" disk cage that comes with the CM 590 is now full. Cache disk is on the top slot, with three data disks below. Above that is a new Cooler Master 4 in 3 cage. From bottom up: blank, blank, Samsung, Samsung.

 

I almost didn't have enough sata power cables. I had planned for an Icy Dock cage in that slot, so my cables are sata male to 2 molex male. I had to rearrange a few existing cables to get power to the two new disks. Swapped the low profile rear panel bracket for the full size bracket. Connected the forward breakout cable and slid the card into place. Took the server into the bathroom and stepped on the scale: 52 pounds... That's for eleven disks.

 

I booted everything up, and it took a bit before it would respond, either via Putty or browser. I must have swapped the cables for the two previous disks, as they were not found upon unRAID Main load. I reassigned them, and assigned the new F4 disks to their own slot. Went back into the main page and started the array. Two new unformatted disks found. Checked the box, and began the format. No issues.

 

Performance: Wrote to the IDE cache at 55MB/s (higher than before). Wrote directly to the new F4 disks between 25 and 40MB/s.

Glad to hear this worked, there may yet be hope of unRAID expansion with my current board. After hearing about Raj's troubles with this setup (multiple boards if I recall) I'm interested in what might be different.  Perhaps Supermicro changed firmware or rev'd their hardware.  If we can find a toggle that's easily identifiable such as a part number or board rev number change that'd be a big help to people with this board wanting to expand beyond the onboard SATA (*ahem* me ) .

Surprising results, but I'm glad it is working for you.  In my tests I tried out two different boards and three different SASLP cards (all three of which I confirmed to be working in another system).  More details here.  Note that I decried the board as faulty when it wouldn't run multiple simultaneous preclears (as this is one of my hardware burn-in tests).  I never got to the point of actually testing it in a live unRAID array.  So perhaps it will work fine in unRAID, just not for preclears?  I'm tempted to ask you to try some preclears, but if it is working for you now maybe it is best to leave it be.

 

By the way, if you ever need to find my thread about this board, just search the word 'doozy'

I'm having excellent results with my laptop and an eSATA dock running preclears. So yeah, I'm actually reluctant to try a preclear using the Supermicro card. No reason to try it, really. I'm not confident enough to run tests like some of the other users.

I'm having excellent results with my laptop and an eSATA dock running preclears. So yeah, I'm actually reluctant to try a preclear using the Supermicro card. No reason to try it, really. I'm not confident enough to run tests like some of the other users.

 

You should be safe to run a single preclear at a time, I believe that what some people were having trouble with was running two preclears at the same time on the Supermicro card.  I've never had any problems running a single preclear but I've never tried running two at once.

 

Regards,

 

Stephen

You should be safe to run a single preclear at a time, I believe that what some people were having trouble with was running two preclears at the same time on the Supermicro card.  I've never had any problems running a single preclear but I've never tried running two at once.

 

Regards,

 

Stephen

 

Using the same motherboard as I am?

I'm having excellent results with my laptop and an eSATA dock running preclears. So yeah, I'm actually reluctant to try a preclear using the Supermicro card. No reason to try it, really. I'm not confident enough to run tests like some of the other users.

 

You should be safe to run a single preclear at a time, I believe that what some people were having trouble with was running two preclears at the same time on the Supermicro card.  I've never had any problems running a single preclear but I've never tried running two at once.

 

Regards,

 

Stephen

 

I ran 3-pass preclears on two 2tb drives connected to my supermicro card over the last weekend with no trouble.  And my array was down a drive and live at the time so I was really playing with fire.  I use a supermicro X7SPA-H motherboard, tho.  Maybe it sets the "be more reliable" bit to 1 when it's plugged into a supermicro motherboard.

"be more reliable" bit

 

They really need to make that something you can jumper 

Maybe it sets the "be more reliable" bit to 1 when it's plugged into a supermicro motherboard.

 

I like that.  It's the kind of software language that I can understand.  

 

They really need to make that something you can jumper  

 

Yes - it could be hardware as well or instead...

Unfortunatly I bought my M4A785-M when I was only considering FreeNAS so Im' stuck with it until I spend the money for a new MB.  That said I also am not in a position to need more than 6 drives anyway, and even 8 or 10 using two PCIE SATA cards is a long way off.  That said, as a noob to unRAID I'm hoovering the forums for info.  This thread just makes me wonder if there has been a motherboard bios upgrade that solves the problem.

 

My board is fairly new so I'm on the current 1006 bios.  Raja, based on your build date it is "possible" that you were on 0906 since the release date for 1006 was 12 Nov 2010 and you might have gotten boards that had been sitting on the shelves with the older BIOS.  I know, not really that likely, but it is possible [shrug]

 

Any chance you noted the bios version during that build?

[EDIT] sigh ... ok rereading your "doozey" thread I see that you DID upgrade the MB bios (hey I was right in that one respect    )

 

As for flashdrive booting, I've booted this MB with three completely different (and from different time periods) flash drives with no trouble (yeah I know, that doesn't mean you didn't have problems ).  The only thing I noticed is that I always had to go into the BIOS to tell it to use the "new " flashdrive as the primary boot device and then from there on in it boots fine.  So my point of saying that is, where ahve all the reoprts been coming from about it being finicky about what flash drive it is willing to boot from?

Those reports came from the Level 1 thread for that board.