Decade Old System Upgrade Path

[Exil Risedo]

I built an Unraid system back in March 2011 (Unraid 4.7) using 2 SuperMicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 controller cards
with thirteen 2 TB (3Gbps) drives (single parity drive) - even though that controller card uses a Marvel SATA controller chip,
I have had no major issues.

 

However, the system (now running Unraid 6.11.1) is aging rather fast it seems -- some of the drives are 10 years old and starting to
have read errors.

 

My research tells me that I should be able to replace the two SuperMicro cards with two LSI 6Gbps SAS HBA 9200-8I IT Mode
8 port cards, but I am wondering if there are any other gotchas that I need to be aware of? Especially since my base system

components are ancient.

 

My intent is to slowly migrate out all the old 2TB/3Gbps drives for larger capacity modern 6Gbps drives (Seagate Exos is the plan).

Plus the fact that I chose ReiserFS back in 2011 and I would like to move to XFS or some file system that is supported

by the Linux kernel goring forward.

 

Anyway just wondering how bumpy the road ahead might be. Thanks for your time reading all of this...

 

Base System Components circa 2011:
    Intel DP55WG Motherboard w/ 6 SATA 3Gbps ports, 8 GB RAM
    Intel i5-760 Quad Core 2.8GHz LGA1156 95W CPU
    Lexmark JD-Firefly 8GB USB Boot Flash
    Intel 250GB SSD Cache drive
    2 x SuperMicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 4xPCIe Controller Cards
    4 x iStarUSA 5-in-3 SATA Trays
    PC Power & Cooling Silencer MkII 950W PSU
   

[Lolight]

10 hours ago, Exil Risedo said:

I built an Unraid system back in March 2011 (Unraid 4.7) using 2 SuperMicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 controller cards
with thirteen 2 TB (3Gbps) drives (single parity drive) - even though that controller card uses a Marvel SATA controller chip,
I have had no major issues.

 

My research tells me that I should be able to replace the two SuperMicro cards with two LSI 6Gbps SAS HBA 9200-8I IT Mode
8 port cards,

I'm sorry but I don't quite understand your dilemma and the perceived need for HBA cards in the new system.

I also don't think that there're any advantages left nowdays (reliability wise) to running the business oriented gear in a home environment.

The modern consumer boards proved to be very reliable.

By buying new SATA 16-18 TB drives and building a new system with a consumer market motherboard having at least 6 SATA ports, you could have plenty of the onboard SATA ports left and would still have lots of room for future expansion, if judged by your current amount of stored data.

 

Edited January 7, 2023 by Lolight

[Exil Risedo]

Thanks, I like your perspective. Sometime one can't see the forest for all the trees.