April 29, 20242 yr Hello, Apologies if this is not the appropriate subforum to address in ... I currently have an unraid server setup using a HP DL380P G8 platform, however due to reason i wont detail here i would like to move it from a server hardware "form" to a desktop "form" / case. (its functioning great btw, did the fan hack and everything) The current setup has the OS (unraid) stored on a flash drive, the "apps" are installed on a separate PCIE card that has an NVME drive on it, and it also contains 2x 500gb ssds on yet another pcie card that serves as the "cache". The Storage itself consists of 6x 4TB iron-wolf pros (4x storage - 2x Parity). My question is, if i just move the boot flash and the 2x PCIE cards and take note which are the parity drives (to set them up as such) can i just MOVE everything over to the desktop case ? Or would there be other considerations ? My biggest fear is having to redownload my Plex Media library which is about 12-13 TB strong. (this would be just a chore to do). Bonus question : As the mobo of the desktop is a x99 platform i have about 10-12 Sata ports which would suffice for the current drives i have, but i have an ITCH ... a really big ITCH to buy the bellow listed HBA card off of Aliexpress ? As in the future i would also like to add a couple of 2,5 8x drives enclosures to the desktop case and populate those with sata ssds. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005485314377.html The Seller seems to be reputable enough and while there will be some hoops to jump through (updating firmware, swapping out thermal paste & strapping a 80mm fan to it) i just could not find a better deal on this card + cables.
April 29, 20242 yr As long a RAID controllers are not involved you can move the disks. HBA is good option, if genuine.
April 30, 20242 yr Not much more to say, as long as all the drives are seen by the hardware it should just fire up and be straight ready to go. Disable array autostart before swapping so you can check first. Edited April 30, 20242 yr by Kilrah
April 30, 20242 yr Also if you are using VMs with HW passthrough you should stop their autostart and check the HW IDs. But, there should not be a problem as stated by JorgeB.
April 30, 20242 yr Author Cool cool guys, thanks for confirmation. On that 2nd part, about the HBA card. Uhm ... any thoughts ? i mean i know everyone frets on buying anything hardware related on aliexpress but like for real while i have found that particular card in my country, its like 50% more expensive and thats without the cables, which would literally take it in to the 70% -_-. And while i can afford it ... my momma said i should not squander my hard earned greenies $_$
April 30, 20242 yr 5 minutes ago, Animosity said: everyone frets on buying anything hardware related on aliexpress This is due to the high incidence of counterfeit hardware from China. Stuff on Aliexpress could be genuine or it could be counterfeit junk that may or may not have problems. It's a roll of the dice. They don't advertise with "hey, our prices are so low because this is counterfeit junk" so you never know.
April 30, 20242 yr Author @Hoopster Would you be able to recommend a PCIE card that gives me roughly another say 8-10 SATA ports ? (if those exist ?). Imma roll the dice on that HBA, see dafuq it becomes of it, but while just mucking around google, for a smaller use-case such as DYI Unraid / NAS thing i have going, found various posts floating around that if NOT for a HBA a Sata PCIE expander card could be used ? Something that actually has a SATA Controller chip on it ? (as i learned there are also these boards that do sata sorta "virtual multiplication" but everybody warns about those as well u take 1 Sata port use your voodoo and turn it into 2, the speed for the drives drops as its basically 2 drives 1 port.
April 30, 20242 yr SATA cards with the 5-6 ports that most chipsets do are fine, SATA expanders aren't recommended and such cards with more ports usually use them. Oh and one warning I just remembered, you say you're using X99, these boards tend to have multiple SATA controllers onboard to provide more ports than those the chipset provides, and some may be old enough so as not to support drives >2TB. If you plan to use non-chipset ports it'd be a good idea to grab an empty large drive and plug it to each port to check whether some don't see it correctly. Plugging a larger drive with data to one of those old controllers could wipe it instantly. Edited April 30, 20242 yr by Kilrah
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