My Dated Mobo will not boot the Unriad flash drive

[demanding-chief3698]

My system:

Full tower case

GigaByte GA-X58A-UD3R Mobo circa 2008. 

I7 CPU from the same era

24GB of DDR3 RAM

6 - 2TB WD Red NAS drives, 2 - 3TB WD spinners, 2 - 1TB evo879 ssds

No matter how I configure the BIOS it will not boot the Unraid flash drive.  I get the message that the system only supports HHD and CDROM. 

I think I am screwed with this old system but wanted to get the final word from you good people before I invest half a grand into a update,

So even if I have to upgrade, I am still determined to at least try Unraid.

Any suggestions on an updated AM4 Mobo and what AMD CPU might work for a PlexNAS/media center would be most appreciated.  If I have to update, I would really like to have a mobo with 2 m.2 slots for NVMe drives.  I will probably put 64 GB of DDR4 into it.

Thanks for any advice you can provide.

Warm Regards,

Mike

[trurl]

My first build (2011) I had to tell BIOS to boot from floppy before it would let me select the flash drive.

[Frank1940]

You can look at the BIOS options.  I seem to recall that one would often find a setting for booting from a USB HD.  Also check to see if you can set it up to boot from a USB floppy drive.  (I booted Unraid back in 2010 era using a old AMD MB (~2005) where the BIOS only had drivers for USB1.  As I recall, USB1 reads data at 12Kb/sec!!!!)  That took forever--- Think minutes.  As soon as Linux got installed, the USB2 drivers took over. 

 

Make sure you download the MB manual and do some Googling about this boot problem.  I find it hard to believe that there is not a setting that you are missing.  Remember that you are repurposing this MB and in its previous use, it might have had the USB boot capability turn off. 

Edited August 2, 2023 by Frank1940

[Mainfrezzer]

A search on google would have done wonders.

This seems to be the most recommended answer "You might well find that you need to enable USB Legacy Storage and USB Legace Devices in the BIOS first." Also mentioning of disabling usb3 were found.





 

*it would be quite ridiculous if you couldnt get usb boot to work while i have a core2quad system here thats fully capable of doing so.

Edited August 14, 2023 by Mainfrezzer

[demanding-chief3698]

Many thanks for all who responded to this.  I should have been more patient.  When I did not hear back for a few days, I decided to do a rebuild with a more modern Mobo, CPU, dramatically enhanced amount and quality of RAM, plus 2- 2TB m.2 drives and 2- 1TB SSD added to the new system.

The old Mobo, CPU, RAM, cooler, graphics card, NIC and power supply going to my granddaughters for their first PC build. 

Truth be told, it appears that I was clearly, if somewhat unconsciously, just looking for an excuse to do this upgrade. 

I apologize for not waiting longer to work on the excellent solutions provided.  These wonderful responses tell me that the Unraid community is very helpful and caring about and within its members.  I will endeavor to be a positive actor in that community, my inherent impulsiveness notwithstanding.

Warm Regards, Mike

[Lolight]

8 hours ago, demanding-chief3698 said:

When I did not hear back for a few days, I decided to do a rebuild with a more modern Mobo, CPU, dramatically enhanced amount and quality of RAM, plus 2- 2TB m.2 drives and 2- 1TB SSD added to the new system.

 

It sounds like you consider AMD for your PLEX server.

 

You might need to look closer into some potential issues with that choice (if unaware).

Depends on your particular use case.

Edited August 16, 2023 by Lolight

[demanding-chief3698]

Well, the AMD CPU (Ryzen 7 5700G) and mobo (GigaBye X570S elite) are already installed.   I have been following Spaceinvader One's instructions on YouTube for setting up UNRAID with specific BIOS settings needed for that platform.  Are there any other items/issues than those he highlights for AMD that I need to consider?  I am looking to put up a Plex Server with Sonarr, Radarr and Sabnzbd.  I appreciate any advice on potential pitfalls. 

Looks like I could do it in either one of two ways:  Dockers or as a Windows 10 VM with these apps.  Again, any reaction or advice on this is most appreciated. 

[ConnerVT]

Early Ryzen processors (Zen/Zen+) were more problematic than the newer models.  For the 5700G, don't overclock your processor and set your memory speeds to match your DRAM (3200 or less, and not XMP), and if your BIOS has this setting, set Power Supply Idle Control = Typical Current Idle.

 

Things on the Internet are forever.  Then people repeat what they've seen/read/heard from long ago.  Modern Ryzen processors are not as problematic as you may read.  After all, the same Zen processor chips (and I/O dies) are the same in Ryzen and EPYC, and EPYC is a mainstay of datacenters, all running Linux.

[Lolight]

10 hours ago, demanding-chief3698 said:

Are there any other items/issues than those he highlights for AMD that I need to consider?  I am looking to put up a Plex Server with Sonarr, Radarr and Sabnzbd.  I appreciate any advice on potential pitfalls. 

Looks like I could do it in either one of two ways:  Dockers or as a Windows 10 VM with these apps.  Again, any reaction or advice on this is most appreciated. 

Do you need to use transcoding in Plex?

The hardware transcoding support on the built-in AMD graphics chips is still a work-n-progress, but it won't matter if only using direct-play.

Software transcoding would work but it's highly inefficient in comparison.

If shooting for transcoding support and maximum idle efficiency then Intel is considered to be a better choice in a home NAS.

 

No reason to run any apps in a VM if they're stable in Docker unless there's a specific need like is the case with Blue Iris.

Edited August 31, 2023 by Lolight

[demanding-chief3698]

Many thanks for this help.   If I understand transcoding (and I may not), I may not need it since essentially all of my Plex media files are mkv.    The reasons I might prefer Windows VM to a Docker is that I am very familiar with the apps in the Plex ecosystem in Windows format and much less so in Linux.   I will almost certainly at least start in the Dockers and try and learn something.  Thanks again, the support here is just magnificent! 

[ConnerVT]

I ran Plex on my daily driver Windows (7) PC for years.  Had it running as a service (vs under my user account) and never powered the PC off.  Not the best solution, but was good enuf for mid-late 2010's.

 

Setting up Plex on Docker is super easy, and once running, it is transparent as to what type of computer it is running on or how it is set up.  Once you start playing with Docker, you will never want to go back to configuring things in Windows (be it bare metal or in VM).