Moving to Proliant G10 from homegrown Proliant G6

[larson]

As suggested in topic, I have gotten hold of a more recent machine to remake into Unraid server. This one arrives with 12x4TB SAS 3,5" drives in 3 bays, on the original SmartArray P816i-a SR Gen10. From what I have found, it seems drives on that card will run in HBA mode if not configured to an array. Sounds fine to me. If I wanted to keep sane, I'd probably just install Unraid, and be done with it. I don't want to keep sane  

 

In my current setup, I have a 8 TB SATA for parity, and another that I haven't installed yet. Other drives are 2, 3 and 4 TB for a total of 11 data drives. I also have a 128GB SATA SSD cache installed. 

 

Would I gain performance by purchasing a new SAS 8 TB disk for parity, instead of reusing my current 8's? Would I gain performance by running all disks in a bay (SAS backplane) on SAS, and not mix SAS and SATA on the same channel on the controller? Should I install my new SSD cache disks (2x480GB SATA 2,5") on the current RAID card, or maybe rather on (probable) onboard SATA ports? I believe there is a fourth SAS channel on the card, and I got breakouts to connect them outside of the bays, to keep it homegrown.

 

If it is not recommended to use the SA P816i-a or onboard SATA, should I try to reuse controllers from my current build? System devices tells me I have an Adaptec 1430 SA (unknown number of ports, 4?), Highpoint Rocketraid 230x 4 port SATA II and a LSI SAS2008 SAS-2 (Probably an HBA:d IBM Serverraid, 2 or more SAS connectors) My vaugeness here is from buying and installing this stuff a long time ago, and just checking Unraid system devices now to see what I got.

 

Should I try to get hold of a 10Gbit ethernet card for my old server, to transfer data to my new server, the new has one installed already. I have bad experiences with mounting drives outside of the array to copy files, I'd rather set up an empty array and copy (Rsync?) the files across. What could be good value for money, and good track record with SFP(+) ports, I can find HP 552 and 562 and others at my local used hardware dealer.

 

Well, many questions, I'm hoping for some initiated answers. I'd rather be stopped before I start doing stupid things, than to discover them after doing all the hard work.

 

/Lars Olof Norell

 

 

[larson]

To put some answers here for someone searching in the future. I have successfully begun transferring data to the server. 

 

The on-board (or rather proprietary socket card) SA P816i-a raid adapter runs fine in Unraid. When the drives is not configured in an array, they are automatically set for HBA mode. Just start using them in Unraid. Minor trouble remaining, spindown and possibly some SMART features are not running correctly on SAS drives. As expected.

 

Found a bunch of SATA interfaces on the board, but no free power interfaces. One SATA was mini-SATA combo power and data (supposedly for a DVD). Did a MacGyver, ordered a 2x2.5" in 3.5" bracket, a couple of adapters and split the power from the mini-SATA to both drives, and used another data only port for my two SSD. Taped the bracket to the bottom of the case, lets me use 6" cables, keeping it neat. Seems to work fine so far.

 

i have precleared the 12 4TB drives that came with the machine, replaced a couple with one SAS and one SATA 8TB drive. When preclearing the 8TB drives, the SATA ran 10% shorter time. That will be my parity drive. Have currently created an array with one 8 TB and 7 4 TB drives without parity and have started transfering data from the old server. 

 

Purchased a HP 562 2x10Gbit SFP+ card for the old server, using a DAC. Set up the 10G interfaces on both servers in their own IP net, and direct connected the NICs. Copying files with rsync initiated on the new server, Three transfers simultaneously, from and to separate disks (using /mnt/diskx/folder/ path) Total network load, about 2 Gbits on the link. 90% cpu over 4 cores on old server. 10-20% load over 16 vcores on the new server. 

 

Looking good. Planning on transfering everything over network, to much trouble trying to move disks.