cprn.1337 Posted April 11 Share Posted April 11 I reached the limit of my NAS motherboard which is 12 drives, no more PCI lanes I can use to add more drives, unless I remove the cache pool which is a no go. Now my question is if you add a JBOD and connect it via usb type C can the additional drives be added to the existing array? Or maybe someone has a better solution to expand storage than what I was able to find online, for reference I am using a mini itx n305 motherboard https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Motherboard-SATA3-0-HDMI2-0-Routing-Firewall/dp/B0CWYTMLBL?th=1 Thanks! Quote Link to comment
JorgeB Posted April 11 Share Posted April 11 USB is not recommended for array or pool devices. Quote Link to comment
cprn.1337 Posted April 11 Author Share Posted April 11 8 hours ago, JorgeB said: USB is not recommended for array or pool devices. So there's no other solution unless I upgrade the motherboard in the future? Quote Link to comment
itimpi Posted April 11 Share Posted April 11 1 minute ago, cprn said: So there's no other solution unless I upgrade the motherboard in the future? You can try USB and some people seem to use it successfully. However other experience problems and it is difficult to predict which camp any particular user will fall into. If you must use USB then you might be better off running without parity and ensuring that you have a good backup strategy in place to handle any drive failures. Quote Link to comment
cprn.1337 Posted April 12 Author Share Posted April 12 16 hours ago, itimpi said: You can try USB and some people seem to use it successfully. However other experience problems and it is difficult to predict which camp any particular user will fall into. If you must use USB then you might be better off running without parity and ensuring that you have a good backup strategy in place to handle any drive failures. If the drives are connected through USB will I able to add them to the existing array where I already have 12 drives? Basically go from 12 to 20 drives in the same array with 8 hdd connected via usb in a jbod. From what I was able to find online, it seems that you are forced to create a separate pool with the jbod drives, is that true? Quote Link to comment
itimpi Posted April 12 Share Posted April 12 16 minutes ago, cprn said: If the drives are connected through USB will I able to add them to the existing array where I already have 12 drives? Basically go from 12 to 20 drives in the same array with 8 hdd connected via usb in a jbod. From what I was able to find online, it seems that you are forced to create a separate pool with the jbod drives, is that true? As long as the JBOD exposes each drive individually to Unraid with their unique serial numbers then you can treat them just like any SATA connected drive and use them for any purpose supported by Unraid. As was said earlier the potential issues would be: Problems if the drives have a tendency to disconnect and then reconnect as a different device ID (as many USB connected drives often do) as Unraid arrays are not hot-plug aware. performance bottlenecks due to putting multiple drives through a single connection to the host. Quote Link to comment
bmartino1 Posted April 12 Share Posted April 12 (edited) You would need a lsi HBA with a controller to use outside jbod then use the fiber link to connect via the scsi interfaces to connect more disk drives. example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/324620033356?chn=ps&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&amdata=enc%3A1lRwHEkoQT6WvnN7XhzD9bg84&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&mkscid=101&itemid=324620033356&targetid=1585159290651&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9021811&poi=&campaignid=20398892845&mkgroupid=154424565809&rlsatarget=pla-1585159290651&abcId=9317279&merchantid=101707307&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwt-OwBhBnEiwAgwzrUohIdFOJZED4ZTVftyP4dMFmag9o8eu12kapj8K2ZG-NwIccThPMrxoCRKEQAvD_BwE example: https://www.newegg.com/adaptec-2258600-r-serial-ata-300-serial-attached-scsi/p/N82E16816103215 You would need to find one with ports internal to replace and use a pcie device. usbc thunderbolt done't have the bandwidth for a jbod. While not recommend, yes, you could in theory attach something like a QNAP NAS/disk shelf vai usbc and the unassign disk plugin to unraid. https://www.serversupply.com/ENCLOSURES/EXTERNAL/8 BAY/QNAP/TL-D800C-US_356235.htm?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwt-OwBhBnEiwAgwzrUunrAJ6IbmyayXcPAqYSg78DjJ-MbZX50Nqh2rgfCI9h1n0iNNgTAhoCMjoQAvD_BwE ^terrible performance and highly not recommend. But possible... Not sure the disk could be seen to be added to the unraid array. But via unassign disk plugin could be used. Edited April 12 by bmartino1 Quote Link to comment
bmartino1 Posted April 12 Share Posted April 12 There is also the iscsi plugin and attach another machine via iscsi plugin -not sure if iscsi is useable in a array. as theses are network attached disks... Quote Link to comment
cprn.1337 Posted April 12 Author Share Posted April 12 2 hours ago, bmartino1 said: You would need a lsi HBA with a controller to use outside jbod then use the fiber link to connect via the scsi interfaces to connect more disk drives. example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/324620033356?chn=ps&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&amdata=enc%3A1lRwHEkoQT6WvnN7XhzD9bg84&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&mkscid=101&itemid=324620033356&targetid=1585159290651&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9021811&poi=&campaignid=20398892845&mkgroupid=154424565809&rlsatarget=pla-1585159290651&abcId=9317279&merchantid=101707307&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwt-OwBhBnEiwAgwzrUohIdFOJZED4ZTVftyP4dMFmag9o8eu12kapj8K2ZG-NwIccThPMrxoCRKEQAvD_BwE example: https://www.newegg.com/adaptec-2258600-r-serial-ata-300-serial-attached-scsi/p/N82E16816103215 You would need to find one with ports internal to replace and use a pcie device. usbc thunderbolt done't have the bandwidth for a jbod. While not recommend, yes, you could in theory attach something like a QNAP NAS/disk shelf vai usbc and the unassign disk plugin to unraid. https://www.serversupply.com/ENCLOSURES/EXTERNAL/8 BAY/QNAP/TL-D800C-US_356235.htm?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwt-OwBhBnEiwAgwzrUunrAJ6IbmyayXcPAqYSg78DjJ-MbZX50Nqh2rgfCI9h1n0iNNgTAhoCMjoQAvD_BwE ^terrible performance and highly not recommend. But possible... Not sure the disk could be seen to be added to the unraid array. But via unassign disk plugin could be used. Thanks for your detailed response, I don't have any PCI lanes I can use which is why I was looking at an usb-c connection. Quote Link to comment
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