January 26, 201214 yr I just recently learned of unRaid and I really got excited about it. I'm currently running a 5 drive software raid 3 through Windows Server and it makes me nervous. So I decided to start over with unRaid. I plan on using all the stuff from my old system, however... I'm using a PCI sata card with 5 ports. At some point I would like to get the SAS card that so many unRaid users have recommended. Will there be a problem with switching that out and keeping my array going? Ben Update: I just received the AOC-SATA2-MV8 that I got off ebay. I'm currently running 4 data drives off a PCI sata card and the parity and cache drive off the motherboard sata. What do I need to do to swap it out and keep everything running smoothly?
January 27, 201214 yr None. The beauty of unraid. If you have pci slot open get the supermicro card everyone has (a bit easier to setup than the ibm/lsi one) Sent from my SGH-I727R using Tapatalk
January 27, 201214 yr Post a request in the good deals forum. Maybe there is someone looking to upgrade. I have two of the PCI-X AOC-SAT2-MV8 cards, they perform very well for me!
January 27, 201214 yr Author Ok good! Is there a good reason to go with "SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8 PCI Express x4" over the cheaper "SUPERMICRO AOC-SAT2-MV8 64-bit PCI-X 133MHz " the motherboard I will be using for the moment has 3 PCI-X 66mhz slots but no x4. I may upgrade the MB at some point and I was also looking at getting the Norco 4220.
January 27, 201214 yr It's based on what your future plans are and what your motherboard currently supports. If there is any wide PCIe slots, then I would consider the SASLP so you can use it in a future build. PCI-X is a dead end, but if you can get the controllers cheap, it's a cost effective way of gaining speed. 66Mhz/64bit wide is still better then 33Mhz/32Bit What motherboard do you have?
January 27, 201214 yr Author Intel Server Board SE7210TP1-E http://reviews.cnet.com/motherboards/intel-server-board-se7210tp1/4507-3049_7-30828369.html?tag=mncol;subnav I canabalized it from an old server. It also has a SCSI drive that I may use for a cache.
January 27, 201214 yr It's a nice old board. if you plan to keep it around, try and find used AOC-SAT2-MV8's I purchased a couple refurbs from newegg a while back at a great price. Post a WTB or in the trade section, maybe someone else will want to upgrade. If you know you will be upgrading soon, I would hold off until you know what you are going to get.
January 27, 201214 yr Author Thanks for the advice. To be honest, I haven't really checked to see if the MB was fully compatible with unRaid just yet. I was able to boot, but didn't dive in too much further. I decided i was going to build a server whether or not this motherboard was compatible. Though, it would be nice if everything worked without buying a bunch of new hardware.
January 27, 201214 yr Author Initially it will be total of 7. 5 data, 1 cache, 1 parity. Once I found out that it would in fact boot, I decided to just test it as I build. I just about have all my data from the raid array migrated to external drives (it's not really super important stuff). If that board doesn't work, I have another AMD board. If that board doesn't work, I'm going to buy a new one. Is there another reason other than eliminating uncertainty during the initial install that I should go ahead and test it out? I can't really test it out at the moment anyway, since my data is still being transferred. Oh, I just thought of another question, since you've been so helpful so far! I have a 256mb flash drive. I know this can handle unRaid, but will it severely limit my ability to include addons? My next option is an 8gb flash drive.
January 27, 201214 yr Is there another reason other than eliminating uncertainty during the initial install that I should go ahead and test it out? I can't really test it out at the moment anyway, since my data is still being transferred. I would not spend too much money on old tech, that's why you should test it, kick the tires make sure you can transfer data reliably and with an acceptable speed. (Don't see why not, just that it's old tech). Oh, I just thought of another question, since you've been so helpful so far! I have a 256mb flash drive. I know this can handle unRaid, but will it severely limit my ability to include addons? My next option is an 8gb flash drive. It will limit how much you can put on the flash, but you really only need it to boot unRAID. You can fit a number of packages on the 256MB flash, but then you hold up free space which will be used as sectors go bad (it's normal). You can also put packages in a hidden folder on your cache drive or another partition on the cache drive if needed. I've had 512MB on my boot flash for the longest time.
January 27, 201214 yr Author Oh yeah, you're right. I'm not going to spend any money on expanding this system with the old board until I know it's all going to work. Hmmm, I know it's overkill, but maybe I'll just use the 8 gb and keep an eye out for a good deal on a larger flash for my random needs. I've been meaning to get a larger thumb drive anyway. I may eventually install some programs on the cache drive. I didn't realize right away that SABnzbd/sickbeard/couchpotato could be installed on an unRaid server, which made me hesitant. But now that I know I can, I'm even more excited! Has anyone gotten headphones installed on an unRaid server (the sickbeard of music)? The only thing that I'm missing with switching to unRaid is the ability to run my EyeFi server. But I'll just do that on my HTPC.
January 27, 201214 yr I would use the 256MB until it wasn't large enough anymore. unraid bzroot/bzimage takes about 64MB. so a current copy and a new copy for any upgrades will fit in half of the drives capacity.
January 27, 201214 yr Author Ok, thanks for all the help. I would probably not have attempted this without such a strong support community.
January 28, 201214 yr I'd use the bigger flash because the license is tied to the flash drive. I was under the impression that this is just a basic test/free configuration for now. When you are ready to license the flash drive, you can go with the kingston mobile lite reader. (check good deals) License the reader and SD card. If the SD card gets corrupt or is to small you can change it without a licensing issue.
January 28, 201214 yr Author When you are ready to license the flash drive, you can go with the kingston mobile lite reader. (check good deals) License the reader and SD card. If the SD card gets corrupt or is to small you can change it without a licensing issue. That's a great idea! So the license will stay with the card reader and it won't matter if I change out the SD card?
January 28, 201214 yr When you are ready to license the flash drive, you can go with the kingston mobile lite reader. (check good deals) License the reader and SD card. If the SD card gets corrupt or is to small you can change it without a licensing issue. That's a great idea! So the license will stay with the card reader and it won't matter if I change out the SD card? Yes, the kingston mobile lite is known to have unique GUID's and work with unRAID.
February 1, 201214 yr Author Update: I just received the AOC-SATA2-MV8 that I got off ebay. I'm currently running 4 data drives off a PCI sata card and the parity and cache drive off the motherboard sata. What do I need to do to swap it out and keep everything running smoothly?
February 2, 201214 yr Take a screenshot of your devices page and store it somewhere safe (on your desktop/laptop, not on the unRAID server). Power down, swap the SATA cards. Power back up. Go back to the devices page and reassign all your drives to match the screen shot. Go to the main page and start the array. Done!
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