Hi,

 

As i can't make my unraid server to work with 15 drives inside, this might be a motherboard issue.

 

This is why i ask for your help in case someone is having a modern motherboard (so one i could buy, not like the one in the 1500 server that doesn't sell anymore, at least in France) that has 8 sata ports (or more) and that works well with unraid 4.3.3

 

I want to use Intel Core 2 Duo (for power saving), but i don't care about the type of RAM (DDR2, DDR3). If it has onboard VGA graphic, this is a big plus (less power used).

 

Actualy i will put 2 pci promise sata card to get to 15 drives. But if someone uses with some other sata card (like a PCI Express), then i am interested by the brand/model to try it.

 

So if anyone has something like this with NO ISSUE with unraid 4.3.3, i would be very interested so i would be sure having this board that if it still doesn't work it won't be the motherboard.

 

Thanks in advance

the only board that can meet the criteria of "with NO ISSUE with unraid 4.3.3" is the official board. Yes there are lots of members running other boards that give them no problems but that doesnt guarantee they will work for you. The testing Limetech has done is based on the official board and with that comes the reassurance you are looking for.

 

Other will now post saying "board xx works fine for me" and "loads of people run board yy with no problems" and this is perfectly true but for the level of confidence you are looking for use the official board. I assure you it can be found in the EU.

A number of users have started posting their motherboard models in their personal text (see left of this post), along with a "grade" (A-F) on compatibility with unRAID.  A=highly compatible, F=not compatible

 

Although not terribly scientific, models that are getting "A"s from experienced forum users are likely good choices to consider.

 

I agree with NAS that the P5B VM DO motherboard has the fewest risks for compatibility issues.  This is NOT becuase it is any better motherboard than others, but because it is the one that has the most testing at LimeTech.  I personally bought one and am happy I did.  I think they can still be found with some effort.  The ABIT AB9 Pro motherboard is pretty popular here including being used by WeeboTech, a senior forum contributor.  It has a couple known minor issues (can't run without a video card), but has lots of SATA ports (10 I think).  I would certainly consider that a good choice as well.

 

You've certainly had your share of issues in getting unRAID up and running.  I hope a new motherboard helps. 

 

I really hope that others reading your stories learn how important it is to get a basic 3 drive configuration up, running and thoroughly tested for stability before paying money for PRO licenses and adding a ton of drives.

I think a few people (myself included) are using Gigabyte boards similar to the GA-P35-DS3R.  "Similar" includes the one named plus GA-EP35-DS3R, GA-P35C-DS3R, and there might also be a GA-EP35C-DS3R.  These have 8 SATA ports, and are perfect if you are using only SATA drives.  The one issue I had with my board was when I was using IDE mode (I wanted to have an IDE CD-ROM drive attached in case I ever needed to boot something from CD...yeah, bad reason), some of my 1TB drives would loose about  2 MB of capacity.  This is a minor loss of space and it never affected operation other than some trickiness with the parity drive.  Since the parity drive has to be the largest, the 2mb loss could make a big difference.  Now that I ditched the IDE CDROM and put the motherboard in ACHI mode, there isn't any loss of drive capacity (granted, the source could have been something else).

 

These motherboards do not have integrated graphics.  The GA-G33-DS3R does, but it might be a bit hard to find.

I want to use Intel Core 2 Duo (for power saving), but i don't care about the type of RAM (DDR2, DDR3). If it has onboard VGA graphic, this is a big plus (less power used).

 

Actualy i will put 2 pci promise sata card to get to 15 drives. But if someone uses with some other sata card (like a PCI Express), then i am interested by the brand/model to try it.

 

A few points I would like to make.  If you are going to put in 2 promise PCI cards, then saving some power by not having a video card is a moot point.

Better to select a board with more onboard high speed PCIe available ports, then select the cheapest pci video card with the least amount of ram possible. In the long run the SATA ports on the PCIe bus are going to serve you better (unless you already have the 2 promise cards).

 

As far as saving power, the conroe-l is rates at 35 watts. About the same power usage as a mobile processor.

With my ITX machine, during spin down with a 35w processor, I was pulling around 40 watts. I probably could have gotten this to less if CPU freq was installed, but at that time it wasn't.  CPU freq now with a core 2 duo does not really save power (possibly some heat).

 

The ABIT AB9 Pro motherboard is pretty popular here including being used by WeeboTech, a senior forum contributor.  It has a couple known minor issues (can't run without a video card), but has lots of SATA ports (10 I think).  I would certainly consider that a good choice as well.

 

I really like this board. Although it has it's quirks. It's finicky with memory so choose recommended memory and update the bios.

Thereafter, you can get 9 internal ports + 1 external port.

I'm using this with a Centurion 590 and 9 tray less SATA adapters, I could not be happier.. (well maybe, if I had 15 drives.. LOL).

 

On the plus side with this board, 4 of the ports are port multiplier capable already.

This means you could conceivably have 26 drives off the motherboard with the purchase of port multiplier hardware.

 

Conceivably you could have 3 internal ports each with a multiplier yielding 15 drives + 1 External SATA multiplier port capable providing 1-5 more drives.

 

The thoughts you have to consider are, 1 port multiplier performance vs a new hardware controller performance.

However in a pinch, the multipliers can help.

 

Just to add to the consideration.

Each PCIe slot usually can support 2 SATA drives, Whereas the 16X slot can support 16 drives with the right (expensive) controller.

I really hope that others reading your stories learn how important it is to get a basic 3 drive configuration up, running and thoroughly tested for stability before paying money for PRO licenses and adding a ton of drives.

 

Well not realy, as i tested unraid with the free version (3 drives) before buying the pro to see if it would work with my hardware and USB flash. The fact is that with 3 drives, the init went without any trouble, i could copy nearly 2To of data and make a parity check.

 

It is only when loading more discs that i ran into lots of troubles. As troubles happen for sure after 6 hours, with 3 drives it never took that long (i was getting 60Mo for the check, as with 14 drives a get a wonderful 13Mo/s, thanks to the 7 drives on PCI)

 

This is why i am looking for some feedback about motherboard, as i do have a trouble somewhere but still looking to find it

I think a few people (myself included) are using Gigabyte boards similar to the GA-P35-DS3R.  "Similar" includes the one named plus GA-EP35-DS3R, GA-P35C-DS3R, and there might also be a GA-EP35C-DS3R. These motherboards do not have integrated graphics.  The GA-G33-DS3R does, but it might be a bit hard to find.

 

Yes this board should work, mine is even in the hardware compatibility page. The fact is that it may work but only with another version of unraid, not said on the page.

 

I am trying to find which component is broken in my system. I eliminated the memory, the powersupply, now i am looking at the motherboard. Because just be faulty and in this case i will return it to get a new one. But as it works at the begining, i bet they won't change it as they test before to repro. So i want to be sure so i can prove them by phone it is the motherboard and get a return number.

I just remembered reading this. Maybe your issue is similar to this one;

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2316.0

 

Peter

 

I just remembered reading this. Maybe your issue is similar to this one;

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2316.0

Peter

 

Thanks, i checked and it doesn't apply to me. The kernel panic happens during the parity build and the parity disc is number 1, so the drives on the promise cards are just read at that time. My trouble seems to happen after 3 or 6 hours. Before that everything goes fine.

WeeboTech :

 

I am impress with the 40W usage when spin down. I am not searching that low, just 100W is ok for me (nearly what i get). I do already have the 2 promise card, as at the begining i was sure these would work with unraid as shiped with the 1500 server. When i tested unraid with 3 disc, those cards where already pluged with all the drives.

 

Now i don't care getting a PCI Express sata card, as the pci bus is just too slow when parity check. The fact is that nowhere i could find if the Adaptec RAID 3805, 5805, 31205 was working with unraid, or more the new 51645, as i can buy those easely in France. I know they are expensive, but i would be sure to have speed with those, with just one more card.

 

If i could use one of these, i would buy a cheap pci graphic card to free the x16pci express where i have a cheap graphic card in.

 

The search of a motherboard with graphic was just to eliminate the pci graphic card. But i don't mind having to buy one (not a money trouble, as they are so cheap compare to pci express x8 sata card ;-)  )

Now i don't care getting a PCI Express sata card, as the pci bus is just too slow when parity check. The fact is that nowhere i could find if the Adaptec RAID 3805, 5805, 31205 was working with unraid, or more the new 51645, as i can buy those easely in France. I know they are expensive, but i would be sure to have speed with those, with just one more card.

 

In this thread Jimwhite reports the Adaptec 4port 4 lane controller (AAR 1430SA) is working.

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=1871.msg14337#msg14337

 

http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/products/Controllers/Hardware/sata/entry/AAR-1430SA/

 

 

Yes....the Adaptec 1430sa works splendidly....

 

 

FYI, some (most?) motherboards with onboard graphics will disable the onboard graphics if a PCIe x8 or x16 card is plugged into the "graphics" PCIe slot. So, onboard really isn't much use if that is in the plans.

 

Maybe a PCIe 2 port card with port multipliers. Look for a thread called More on Port Multipliers just a few posts down for some PCIe port multiplier hardware.

 

Peter

 

Yes....the Adaptec 1430sa works splendidly....

 

 

 

I have 2 of the 1430SA cards in my unRAID server. They work great (I had to disable the bios in both of them).

FYI, some (most?) motherboards with onboard graphics will disable the onboard graphics if a PCIe x8 or x16 card is plugged into the "graphics" PCIe slot. So, onboard really isn't much use if that is in the plans.

Well, it DOES give you an opportunity to set up the BIOS and all before plugging in the card and running headless...  of course a PCI video card can always be stuck in if req'd for troubleshooting...

 

 

FYI, some (most?) motherboards with onboard graphics will disable the onboard graphics if a PCIe x8 or x16 card is plugged into the "graphics" PCIe slot. So, onboard really isn't much use if that is in the plans.

 

Maybe a PCIe 2 port card with port multipliers. Look for a thread called More on Port Multipliers just a few posts down for some PCIe port multiplier hardware.

 

Peter

 

 

Thanks a lot for the info. I was even wondering first if a sata card could go in the graphic x16 slot. By reading the forum i guessed it was possible.

 

As what you say is what i was searching to do, i now know it is useless and have to go the "simple pci graphic card" way.

 

Even more, i tried to boot headless and it didn't work, even selecting halt on no errors in the bios.

I've found that Intel cuts off the onboard but nvidea and ATI should be OK, especially the hybrid SLI capable boards or AMD's version of that. Here's a quote I found "Every NVIDIA IGP chipset since GeForce 6150 (September 2005). I am not sure since when for ATI IGP (as it has an old history since 2002), this applies to at least AMD 690G/780G."

 

Now - is one of these supported? http://www.ciprico.com/Products/RaidCore.cfm

 

Peter

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2432.msg18942#msg18942  Here's a link to the newest P45 DFI motherboard I use, I get between 54 to 72 MB/sec parity check, but warning I've only had it up and running for about 4 days now.

 

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2432.msg18942#msg18942  Here's a link to the newest P45 DFI motherboard I use, I get between 54 to 72 MB/sec parity check, but warning I've only had it up and running for about 4 days now.

 

Thanks. This is also what i got when just using 8 drives. Well with 8 discs it was more 50Mo/s, i got more than 60 with 6 drives (all this average at the end of the parity build, all my drives are 1To)

 

The trouble comes in when plugin plenty of drives on PCI bus. This is why i will have to find a pci express card for the 7 other drives. Now it falls to 10-12Mo/s with 15 drives (couldn't pass 6 hours building) and with 12 drives i got a 15-20Mo/s

In this thread Jimwhite reports the Adaptec 4port 4 lane controller (AAR 1430SA) is working.

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=1871.msg14337#msg14337

 

http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/products/Controllers/Hardware/sata/entry/AAR-1430SA/

 

Thanks for this information. But in fact i need an 8 port sata card on pci express, as i only have the x16 pci express graphic port. So i can only put one of these card in my server. Therefore, i need an 8 ports to plug my 7 drives to get to 15 drives (8 sata port on the motherboard).

Can anyone comment on the Adaptec 3805 or 3085 instead?

 

Peter

 

In this thread Jimwhite reports the Adaptec 4port 4 lane controller (AAR 1430SA) is working.

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=1871.msg14337#msg14337

 

http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/products/Controllers/Hardware/sata/entry/AAR-1430SA/

 

Thanks for this information. But in fact i need an 8 port sata card on pci express, as i only have the x16 pci express graphic port. So i can only put one of these card in my server. Therefore, i need an 8 ports to plug my 7 drives to get to 15 drives (8 sata port on the motherboard).

 

The DFI board quoted prior has 2  PCIe X16 slots and 2 PCIe X1 slots.

A cheapie PCI video card and you would be set.

 

I think if you want to go more advanced, you may have to compile the drivers in yourself.

Yeah I planned on using 2x Adaptec RAID 1430SA  to expand to 16 HD, and adding PCI video graphics card. With that setup would hope to keep my parity check around 50 MB/sec.

I've found that Intel cuts off the onboard but nvidea and ATI should be OK, especially the hybrid SLI capable boards or AMD's version of that. Here's a quote I found "Every NVIDIA IGP chipset since GeForce 6150 (September 2005). I am not sure since when for ATI IGP (as it has an old history since 2002), this applies to at least AMD 690G/780G."

 

Now - is one of these supported? http://www.ciprico.com/Products/RaidCore.cfm

 

Peter

 

Sorry for reviving this old post.  You were questioning whether a Ciprico Raidcore card works with unraid.

 

Did you ever get an answer or try it out?  Another poster and I have Raidcore 4852 cards and we are wondering if we can use these for additional SATA ports for an unraid array.

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=4952.msg45624#msg45624

 

thanks,

Murray