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3 TB drive hardware compatibility testing results

Rajahal

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Rajahal Mentor

Rajahal

Posted
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I ran a suite of hardware compatibility tests on 5 different motherboards and one SATA controller.

 

The hardware I tested is as follows:

 

Supermicro X7SLA-H with a built-in Intel Atom CPU and 2 GB of DDR2 533 RAM (2 x 1GB)

ZOTAC GF6100-E-E with an AMD Sempron 140 CPU and 2 GB of DDR2 800 RAM (1 x 2GB)

Biostar A880G+ with an AMD Sempron 140 CPU and 2 GB of DDR3 1333 RAM (1 x 2GB)

Supermicro X8SIL-F-O with an Intel i3-540 CPU and 4 GB of DDR3 1333 RAM (2 x 2GB)

Asus M4A78LT-M with an AMD Sempron 140 CPU and 2 GB of DDR3 1333 RAM (1 x 2GB)

SIL3132 2 port PCIe x1 SATA Controller

 

The results were positive for each and every piece of hardware that I tested.  I also found that if you plan to preclear a lot of 3 TB drives, more RAM and a faster processor can help speed up the process by as much 10 hours.  You can read the full review in the GreenLeaf Blog here.

Johnm Rising Star

Johnm

Posted
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I'd like to see some test results for the WD 3TB drives..

I am hearing horror stories about them. I'd like some myth busting verification on them.

goodasgone81 Noob

goodasgone81

Posted
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I can confirm the Biostar A880G+ with an AMD Sempron 140 CPU and 2 GB of DDR3 1333 RAM (1 x 2GB)..... although I'm running the Sempron 145, on the 5400 drives I'm having a preclear run time of around 42 hours.  The 7200 rpm drives I'm using for parity and cache finished up on average around 36 hours.

prostuff1 Mentor

prostuff1

Posted
Posted

BIOSTAR TH67B LGA 1155 Intel H67 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s Micro ATX Intel Motherboard, 4 GB Ram and a i3-2100 (I am having troubles with the on-board NIC)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138308

 

Onboard LAN

LAN Chipset
    Realtek 8111E

Max LAN Speed
    10/100/1000Mbps

 

unRAIDs favorite chipset...

Pick up a PCI or PCIe 1x Intel NIC. a CT or something inexpensive.

 

Actually unRAID's favorite chipset is just about anything Atheros.  The Realteks have only recently, 8111E, have been causing problems.

Rajahal Mentor

Rajahal

Posted
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I'd like to see some test results for the WD 3TB drives..

I am hearing horror stories about them. I'd like some myth busting verification on them.

 

Send me some and I would be happy to ;).  I don't have any to test at the moment.  The Hitachis are cheaper and better so there's little incentive to go WD at the moment.

 

Nice job Raj!

 

How about the BIOS versions?

 

All motherboards used the stock BIOS, I didn't have to do any firmware upgrades.  If you need the BIOS revision number on any particular board just let me know.

 

were these all pure 3TB builds? or did you intermix 2TB and 3TB?

 

Most tests were run on pure 3 TB systems.  However, as part of my recent budget board testing I did run tests on the Asus M4A78LT-M with a mixture of 3 TB drives and much smaller drives (80 - 160 GB).  Nothing interesting to report, it all worked as expected.

JackBauer Contributor

JackBauer

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All motherboards used the stock BIOS, I didn't have to do any firmware upgrades.  If you need the BIOS revision number on any particular board just let me know.

 

I wouldn't mind knowing what the X8SIL-F-O firmware was :)

Rajahal Mentor

Rajahal

Posted
  • Author
Posted

 

All motherboards used the stock BIOS, I didn't have to do any firmware upgrades.  If you need the BIOS revision number on any particular board just let me know.

 

I wouldn't mind knowing what the X8SIL-F-O firmware was :)

 

Hmmm, that motherboard has since been shipped off to a client.  :-\  Sorry, not sure I can help you with that request...  Do you have a Supermicro X8SIL-F-O that doesn't work with 3 TB drives?

JackBauer Contributor

JackBauer

Posted
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Hmmm, that motherboard has since been shipped off to a client.  :-\  Sorry, not sure I can help you with that request...  Do you have a Supermicro X8SIL-F-O that doesn't work with 3 TB drives?

 

No - I do have one of those freaking awesome motherboards though and plan to move to 3TB when 5 goes RTM.

 

And since that MB is now over a year old, I wasn't sure what type of effort it would require to support 3TB.  Either way it is possible - I was more just "curious".

 

TY though :)

  • 2 weeks later...
kingpin Explorer

kingpin

Posted
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i am currently pleclearing a WD 3TB that i got in from Newegg.

 

================================================================== 1.13

=                unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sdd

=              cycle 1 of 1, partition start on sector 1

= Disk Pre-Clear-Read completed                                DONE

= Step 1 of 10 - Copying zeros to first 2048k bytes            DONE

= Step 2 of 10 - Copying zeros to remainder of disk to clear it DONE

= Step 3 of 10 - Disk is now cleared from MBR onward.          DONE

= Step 4 of 10 - Clearing MBR bytes for partition 2,3 & 4      DONE

= Step 5 of 10 - Clearing MBR code area                        DONE

= Step 6 of 10 - Setting MBR signature bytes                    DONE

= Step 7 of 10 - Setting partition 1 to precleared state        DONE

= Step 8 of 10 - Notifying kernel we changed the partitioning  DONE

= Step 9 of 10 - Creating the /dev/disk/by* entries            DONE

= Step 10 of 10 - Verifying if the MBR is cleared.              DONE

= Disk Post-Clear-Read completed                                DONE

Disk Temperature: 31C, Elapsed Time:  37:10:19

========================================================================1.13

==  WDC WD30EZRX-00MMMB0    WD-WCAWZ0974005

== Disk /dev/sdd has been successfully precleared

== with a starting sector of 1

============================================================================

** Changed attributes in files: /tmp/smart_start_sdd  /tmp/smart_finish_sdd

                ATTRIBUTE  NEW_VAL OLD_VAL FAILURE_THRESHOLD STATUS      RAW_VALUE

      Temperature_Celsius =  121    122            0        ok          31

No SMART attributes are FAILING_NOW

 

0 sectors were pending re-allocation before the start of the preclear.

0 sectors were pending re-allocation after pre-read in cycle 1 of 1.

0 sectors were pending re-allocation after zero of disk in cycle 1 of 1.

0 sectors are pending re-allocation at the end of the preclear,

    the number of sectors pending re-allocation did not change.

0 sectors had been re-allocated before the start of the preclear.

0 sectors are re-allocated at the end of the preclear,

    the number of sectors re-allocated did not change.

 

according to the MyMain Plugin i get the following

 

Preclear Successfull

  ... Total Time 37:10:19

  ... Pre-Read time 9:36:53 (86 MB/s)

  ... Zeroing time 8:33:48 (97 MB/s)

  ... Post-Read time 18:58:38 (43 MB/s)

 

here is my system for reference

 

Norco 4020 Case

Supermicro MBD-X7SBE motherboard

Intel E3200 2.4Ghz

4GB DDR2 800

(2) Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 PCI-X133Mhz controller cards

 

bonienl Veteran

bonienl

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I thought a 2 TB drive was already quite a long wait, but 3 TB moves the barrier... you are at 34 hours and still counting  ;D

 

Patience is a virtue...

kingpin Explorer

kingpin

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actually, if you look at the blog posted in the first post, 37 hours was the fastes with the slowest being around 50 or so. while patients is a virtue, i just "set it and forget it" (i miss those silly late night sales shows). i check it before i leave for work and then when i get back. the server is still running in the background so everything is fine.

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