Can my old hardware support unRAID?

[PopSmith]

So I've been looking at unRAID but am not sure if my hardware is supported as it's kind of old (I bought it in 2004). If unRAID can't support my hardware (or it won't work very well) I understand and I'll just come back when I can purchase something more up-to-date. Also, for the moment I don't have any decently-sized internal HDDs (my largest is a 250GB), only external ones (A 1TB and a 2TB) can unRAID utilize these until I can buy some internal drives?

 

The hardware I am thinking of using is an old gaming machine; I don't remember the exact motherboard model but it's a Gigabyte board with an AGP slot and 4 SATA slots. It has 2GB of Kingston HyperX RAM and a 430W Antec power supply. The CPU is a AMD 3200+ (single-core). I mainly want to use the machine as a music/movie server and was hoping the DVDs I copy to it could be accessed via my PS3.

 

I intend to use this build only for a year or two and then, if I like it, I'll upgrade to a (much) better, newer rig. I'm thinking something "better" than the "Budget Box" but not quite as crazy as the "20 Drive Beast".

 

From what I've seen of the add-ons, I'm only interested in running UnMENU. As for the HDDs, if/when I buy internals I'd more than likely get the WD20EARS.

[johnny121b]

There's no definitive way to answer your question.  You can download UnRAID and use it with a couple of drives.  I think the free version supports 3.  MY real question- can you machine boot from USB?  After all, that IS how UnRAID normally launches.

 

There are much more qualified/experienced users here who can give you better advice, but that's my 2-cents-worth.

[SSD]

I'd also investigate the ability to disable having the Gigabyte MB disable HPAs.  This vintage HW is not a problem, depends on the specific MB.

[Rajahal]

I'd also investigate the ability to disable having the Gigabyte MB disable HPAs.  This vintage HW is not a problem, depends on the specific MB.

 

Yep, this is likely to be your biggest issue.  Consult the HPA thread for more guidance.

[PopSmith]

Thanks for the quick feedback, everyone. 

 

MY real question- can you machine boot from USB?  After all, that IS how UnRAID normally launches.

 

Yes, it can boot from USB. The USB options for a boot device in the BIOS show USB-Floppy, USB-Zip (?) USB-CD-ROM or USB-HDD.

 

I'd also investigate the ability to disable having the Gigabyte MB disable HPAs.  This vintage HW is not a problem, depends on the specific MB.

 

OK, I'll take a look. If this helps at all the motherboard model is a GA-K8NSNXP-939 Ultra. It does contain a "Dual BIOS" feature which I believe is the same thing as HPA (I'm not sure as I've never heard of HPA until I was researching unRAID.) I checked the BIOS updates and none of them explicitly mention getting rid of the "Dual BIOS" feature, I also couldn't find anything on it in the current BIOS with a quick poke around.

 

I was thinking of just updating to the latest BIOS (It's currently running F2 and the most current release is F9G(!)) but figure I'll get your opinions first, here's a link to the updates:

 

http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=1881#bios

[Rajahal]

Dual BIOS is indeed the dreaded HPA feature/curse.  Here's the test:

 

0) Upgrade to the latest BIOS (not strictly required, but couldn't hurt).

1) Boot, reset BIOS to default values, reboot.

2) Check to see if Dual BIOS is enabled or disabled.  If it is enabled, then the board is no good for unRAID.  If it is disabled, then the board should be OK to use with unRAID.

[PopSmith]

OK. I followed exactly what you said and here is what the utility (pressing F8 while in the BIOS) shows:

 

Dual BIOS Utility v2.02

 

Boot From............................. Main Bios

Main ROM Type/Size........ PMC 49FL004T

Backup ROM Type/Size.... PMC 49FL004T

Wide Range Protection: Disable

Boot From: Main Bios

Auto Recovery: Enable

Halt On Error: Disable

Keep DMI Data: Enable

 

Since it shows "Auto Recovery: Enable" and not Enabled does that mean this computer will work?

[Rajahal]

Keep looking in the BIOS for a setting that lets you enable/disable HPA.  It goes by many names, but here's a few known ones:

 

Save a Copy of BIOS to HDD

BIOS Backup

Backup BIOS to HDD

Xpress BIOS Rescue

 

The results you posted confirm that the board is capable of using an HPA, but it doesn't tell us if the setting is enabled by default or not.  There are also some motherboards that are capable of storing a BIOS backup on a separate chip on the motherboard itself, instead of on a hard drive.  These motherboards are safe to use with unRAID.

 

If you are unable to find the BIOS setting described above there is another test we can run, but it is a bit more complicated and requires the use of a hard drive as well.

[PopSmith]

I couldn't see anything inside the BIOS that mentioned a recovery or secondary BIOS other than the "Dual BIOS" option I pointed out in my previous post. When running through POST I saw a "Xpress Recovery 2" option and when I tried to access that it says it wasn't installed. I found the following when I Googled "Xpress Recovery 2":

 

Xpress Recovery2 is designed to provide quick backup and restoration of hard disk data.

 

The site doesn't mention BIOS recovery at all. Here's the source: http://www.gigabyte.com/webpage/21/Xpress-Recovery2.html

 

I also noticed that on the motherboard itself there are two chips for the BIOS with one labeled "Main BIOS" and the other is "Backup BIOS". Does that mean this board contains the HPA on the motherboard itself and doesn't touch the HDDs?

[SSD]

Auto Recovery: Enable

 

Not sure if this means it will create an HPA or not.

 

An HPA is unique to a hard disk.  So if you computer has a backup BIOS chip, it may back up the BIOS there but it would not be called an HPA.

 

The HPA is somthing that makes the hard disk look smaller than it actually is.  Could be a little smaller, could be a lot smaller.  But Gigabyte (in their infinite wisdom) thought the HPA feature would be perfect for backing up their BIOS.  So they create a little tiny HPA on a hard disk, and stuff a copy of the BIOS in there.  No harm, right?

 

HPAs aren't inherently bad, but the BIOS can be somewhat indiscriminate in putting HPAs on disks, and it has proven to create problems.  For that reason, it is recommended to not use a motherboard that does this.  Even if you can disable the feature, if the battery ever dies and the defaults reloaded, you are back to having a BIOS that wants to add HPAs.  (Hence the reason for Raj's suggesiont that you reset to defaults and see what you get).

 

As previously said, HPAs make a disk look smaller than it is, even by a small amount.  So if you have a 1T disk that goes bad, and you want to replace it with another 1T disk, if the disk gets the HPA on it it will look a tiny bit smaller than 1T and unRAID will refuse to build onto the smaller disk.  This is one example of the problems HPAs can cause).

[PopSmith]

Not sure if this means it will create an HPA or not.

 

I'm not sure what to look for but the HDDs installed are a 250GB WD and two 74GB Raptors (this used to be a gaming PC). For whatever reason I can only see one of the Raptors in My Computer. There is also a "System Reserved" disk in My Computer that I think Windows took from the 250GB and is sized at 104,853,504 bytes (99.9 MB) with 29,483,008 bytes (28.1MB) used.

 

The only thing I installed (and then removed) from the computer is the @BIOS update utility for the motherboard. Here are the reported sizes of the HDDs:

 

The WD 250GB has 10,125,643,776 bytes (9.34GB) used with 239,848,804,352 bytes (223 GB) free. The only Raptor I can see has a couple folders from the Windows installation in it named $WINDOWS.~BT and $WINDOWS.~LS. It has a size of 74,248,613,888 bytes (69.1 GB) with 648,802,304 bytes (618 MB) used and 73,59,811,584 bytes (68.5 GB) free.

[SSD]

I would suggest that you create an unRAID USB stick, and boot with your existing drives in the machine.

 

Booting unRAID will not distrurb the existing disks.  Only if you create an array and start it will it reinitialize your disks.

 

But before doing that, look through your BIOS settings and try to configure your SATA ports as AHCI (maybe called "Native SATA").  If you don't have that option, no big deal.  unRAID will work fine emulating IDE on SATA ports.

 

unRAID will create a syslog as it boots.  Search the syslog for "HPA".  If your disks have an HPA there will be signs in the syslog.

 

You can also run this command from the unRAID prompt:

 

hdparm -N /dev/sdX

 

(where sdX is the device of your disk.  Note for IDE drives - or SATA drives simulating IDE - it will be hdX not sdX)

 

If you have an HPA - you know the MB is creating them (unless the disk was in another computer previously that added the HPA).  If not, as a final test, you could try adding a new hard disk to the machine.  When booting, the new hard drive will be prime to have the BIOS add an HPA.  If it doesn't do it, you should be pretty confident that you will not have an HPA added in the future.

 

Good luck!  Post back with further questions.

[PopSmith]

I would suggest that you create an unRAID USB stick, and boot with your existing drives in the machine.

 

-snip-

 

unRAID will create a syslog as it boots.  Search the syslog for "HPA".  If your disks have an HPA there will be signs in the syslog.

 

You can also run this command from the unRAID prompt:

 

hdparm -N /dev/sdX

 

Good luck!  Post back with further questions.

 

So I ran unRAID and after loading it went to a prompt saying "login:". I thought it might be asking me to make one so I typed in something somewhat random and it didn't work. I put in "root" and that worked so then I tried the following (no quotes):

 

 

"hdparm -N /dev/sd1" "hdparm -N /dev/sd2" "hdparm -N /dev/hd1" "hdparm -N /dev/hd2" but none of them produced anything. I typed the following command to make a log file and searched it for HPA but that didn't find anything (yay!):

 

cp  /var/log/syslog  /boot

 

What is the next thing I need to do to get started (and/or do any more tests I need to)?

[SSD]

Great job getting the stick built and unRAID booted!

 

The device ids are letters not number (sda, sdb, ...; hda, hdb, ....)

 

You can try them randomly, or use a web browser from your workstation and go to ...

 

http://tower

 

That should open the Web GUI.

 

If you are running 4.7, click on the devices page.  If you drop down the list of drives next to one of hte drive slots, it will tell you what is the device id for each disk.

 

Do not start the array.

 

In 5.0b9, you don't have to go to the devices page.  Just dropdown one of the slots and you'll see the device ids.

[PopSmith]

Thanks again for the help (and the congrats). I booted into unRAID again and typed

 

hdparm -N /dev/sdX

 

for "a" through "c" and it showed this:

 

/dev/sda:

HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(identify) failed: Invalid exchange

 

/dev/sdb:

max sectors = 145226112/145226112, HPA is disabled.

 

/dev/sdc:

max sectors = 145226112/145226112, HPA is disabled.

 

Since they are the same size those are probably the Raptors.

 

The computer that unRAID is on is running and is currently sitting at a command line with just "root@Tower:~#" and a blinking line. However, when I try to go to http://tower on my laptop (what I'm using right at this moment) Chrome just throws an error after a second or two saying "Oops! Google Chrome could not find tower".

 

Just FYI, since this is a fresh unRAID build I decided to run 5.0b9.

[kizer]

Sometimes you can't see tower right away when you type http://tower sometimes its a DNS issue or something else freaky on your network, but that can be addressed later.

 

You can type this command to get your ip address on your unRAID machine ifconfig which will spit out a bunch of information. Then from there you can get the ip address. Now if there is no IP address when you run ifconfig then there might be a problem with your nic on your motherboard with unRAID

 

http://192.168.1.214 or whatever you ip address is.

 

[PopSmith]

Huh, I tried running ifconfig but it doesn't show an IP address. The motherboard has two Ethernet ports so I ran the following:

/etc/ifplugd/ifplugd.action eth0 down

 

Then I took out the Ethernet cable and put it in the other port then ran:

/etc/ifplugd/ifplugd.action eth0 up

Followed by ifconfig and neither of them show an IP. 

 

The motherboard has a Marvell 8001 Gigabit Ethernet controller which, as far as I can tell, is on several of the motherboards verified as working in the Hardware Compatibilty section of the Wiki.

[PopSmith]

I just wanted to post an update, I finally got my router to give the server an IP address which I verified via the MAC Address (and that is says it's named "Tower"). However, when I try to visit http://tower/'>http://tower/ on any of my computers it gives up after only a second or two and goes to the OpenDNS "search" page I typed in the IP address of http://192.168.0.188 on my laptop and Chrome just says it can't find that address.

 

Since I thought OpenDNS might be giving me trouble I disabled it but it didn't solve the issue. Visiting http://tower just searches Google for "tower" on my Netbook (via Firefox). Trying to navigate to the IP address just shows "Oops! Google Chrome could not connect to 192.168.0.188" or "Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at 192.168.0.188."

[Traxxus]

Well I have never used chrome, but to get around typing tower, login on your unraid box, and type  

ifconfig eth0

 

This will return a bunch of information about the network.  The second line after inet addr: is the ip address for your server.  You can type in the address into your browser and that should work.  Make sure it isn't being blocked by noscript or something similar.  

 

Edit:  Oh missed there was a second page. 

[PopSmith]

I'll play around with this some more tomorrow but I couldn't find much on solving my problem. :'(

 

To summarize my issue: My unRAID server has a static IP. But no computer connected to my router, wired or wireless, can see/browse the unRAID server either via http://tower or http://192.168.0.188 . All connection attempts just time out.

 

I'm not using a Mac and my router (a DIR-655 with 1.34NA firmware) gives the server it's reserved static IP address (192.168.0.188) without issues. I've tried browsing to both http://tower and http://192.168.0.188 via my laptop in Ubuntu Linux (both wired and wireless), my desktop running XP (wired), and another laptop running Windows 7 x64 (wirelessly). I've tried to browse to the mentioned addresses via Chrome and Firefox. All software firewalls are disabled for all of my PCs.

 

Also, I don't know if this matters much but none of the computers have problems printing to my networked printer.

[PeterB]

I'll play around with this some more tomorrow but I couldn't find much on solving my problem. :'(

 

To summarize my issue: My unRAID server has a static IP. But no computer connected to my router, wired or wireless, can see/browse the unRAID server either via http://tower or http://192.168.0.188 . All connection attempts just time out.

 

I'm not using a Mac and my router (a DIR-655 with 1.34NA firmware) gives the server it's reserved static IP address (192.168.0.188) without issues. I've tried browsing to both http://tower and http://192.168.0.188 via my laptop in Ubuntu Linux (both wired and wireless), my desktop running XP (wired), and another laptop running Windows 7 x64 (wirelessly). I've tried to browse to the mentioned addresses via Chrome and Firefox. All software firewalls are disabled for all of my PCs.

 

Also, I don't know if this matters much but none of the computers have problems printing to my networked printer.

 

What are the ip addresses and netmasks of the other devices on your network?

[PopSmith]

What are the ip addresses and netmasks of the other devices on your network?

 

As far as I'm aware all devices connected to my network use subnet mask: 255.255.255.0

 

IPs (static unless listed as dynamic) are:

 

Hardware Address Assigned IP Hostname Expires

192.168.0.100

192.168.0.101

192.168.0.182 (dynamic)

192.168.0.185 (dynamic)

192.168.0.186 (dynamic)

192.168.0.187 (dynamic)

192.168.0.188

192.168.0.189 (dynamic)

192.168.0.191 (dynamic)

192.168.0.192

192.168.0.193

192.168.0.194 (dynamic)

192.168.0.196

192.168.0.197

192.168.0.198

192.168.0.199

[PeterB]

Okay.  Can you try pinging the server on address 192.168.0.188?

[PopSmith]

Yes. I ran a ping command to the Tower IP (192.168.0.188) for ten "pings" and it was successful every time with no packet loss:

 

ch0ng@ch0ng-laptop:~$ ping 192.168.0.188

PING 192.168.0.188 (192.168.0.188) 56(84) bytes of data.

64 bytes from 192.168.0.188: icmp_req=1 ttl=64 time=0.556 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.188: icmp_req=2 ttl=64 time=0.635 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.188: icmp_req=3 ttl=64 time=1.14 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.188: icmp_req=4 ttl=64 time=0.670 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.188: icmp_req=5 ttl=64 time=0.634 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.188: icmp_req=6 ttl=64 time=0.574 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.188: icmp_req=7 ttl=64 time=0.593 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.188: icmp_req=8 ttl=64 time=0.536 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.188: icmp_req=9 ttl=64 time=0.560 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.188: icmp_req=10 ttl=64 time=0.522 ms

^C (Linux interrupt command)

--- 192.168.0.188 ping statistics ---

10 packets transmitted, 10 received, 0% packet loss, time 8996ms

rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.522/0.642/1.144/0.174 ms

 

I also ran a ping command on my netbook running XP and the ping command was 100% successful as well:

 

C:\Documents and Settings\ChOnG>ping 192.168.0.188

 

Pinging 192.168.0.188 with 32 bytes of data:

 

Reply from 192.168.0.188: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64

Reply from 192.168.0.188: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64

Reply from 192.168.0.188: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64

Reply from 192.168.0.188: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64

 

Ping statistics for 192.168.0.188:

      Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

      Minimum = 2ms, Maximum = 3ms, Average = 2ms

[PeterB]

This would suggest that your unRAID server is not completing the boot - that emhttp is not running.  Are you able to telnet to your unRAID server?

 

Do you have a console attached?  If you enter the command:

ps -eaf | grep emhttp

 

What is the response?  You should get two lines output, one of which will show: /usr/local/sbin/emhttp

If you don't see that then the unRAID web interface is not running.