Hey guys,

 

It's holiday season, so a bit more time to play around with the server at home

Today i started experimenting around with ESXi on my main unraid server.

 

All well and good, up until the point of passthrough, obviously.

Since my i3-2120t does not support vt-d it's a clear NO-GO.

 

So, i was thinking of changing the CPU to something that DOES work for ESXi.

The i3-2120t was chosen for its low TDP of 35Watt, so i thought to go as low as possible TDP wise but apparently the motherboard has issues with 12x5 cpu's.

 

The main goal of the setup is to run unRAID (obviously) together with a low-demand linux version for my home-automation and another linux distibution for a camera DVR system.

unRAID is running plex and crashplan and should be able to stream 1080p of very large blurays without any hiccup.

 

So what i recommended in terms of performance (enough with margin!) and acceptable TDP. (Price isn't my main concern)

1240, 1230 and 1270 all have same TDP, so the consume equally with different performance?

 

Secondly, as you can see i'm running a SAS2lp-mv8 to host the data drives (parity + cache on motherboard).

After a lot of googling the forums, it still haven't found a conclusive answer if they DO work with ESXi.

Is there actually anyone who can confirm them?

 

Current hardware list:

 

CPU: Intel i3-2120T

Motherboard: SuperMicro X9SCM-F

Controller Card: SuperMicro AOC-SAS2LP-MV8

Memory: Kingston 8GB

PSU: Seasonic SS-850HT

 

the 12x5 "should work", but there is no point. the 12x5's have on board video (and one more thing to interfere)

You're paying for an CPU video card that the Mobo wont recognize.. so don't waste your money (or power).

 

The 1230 is probably all you need for most normal server use. when i got my 1240, it was priced so close to the 1230, it was a no brainer to do that upgrade ($25 or so?).

as far as the 1270, I have never maxed my 1240. unless you're doing bluray ripping on your server, I don't see a need for it. maybe in the future you might need the extra CPU IO if you think about future proofing.

 

SAS2lp-mv8 = unknown. I have gotten conflicting answers on that one also (as i recall, none from a definitive trustworthy source). I do not own one so i cant help.

The obvious answer is no. they don't work because they are not supported. but neither are the SAS(1)LP-mv8 and I know they can be hacked because I use them....

 

I guess the answer you dont want to hear is.. one of the 3...

1. Delay: wait for someone to confirm.

 

2. Move Ahead: go ahead with the build and see what wall you run into. possibly replacing the card when you cross that bridge (being our guinea pig). falling back to baremetal unraid until you can swap out cards.

 

3. Move ahead with no downtime: Buy an M1015 (or equivalent) now. then do step 2. if the card is not compatible,  then ebay it to try and get your money back for the m1015 (or a second one). IF the SAS2LP does work, I'd honestly only put one drive on (with the rest of the drives on the other card) it for a few days or a test array if you have the drives to spare. just in case of some sort of odd issues (aka : dont put the main array at risk).

 

 

I wish I had a better answer for you.

 

 

 

When you say you don't know if the AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 will work on not, is that for unRAID in general, or just for ESXI?

 

I am currently have server issues with drives disconnecting during parity sync, and suspect it may by my AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 causing the issue.  Not sure if it is drive/unRAID support issue, or a hardware failure with my card.

 

 

When you say you don't know if the AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 will work on not, is that for unRAID in general, or just for ESXI?

 

I am currently have server issues with drives disconnecting during parity sync, and suspect it may by my AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 causing the issue.  Not sure if it is drive/unRAID support issue, or a hardware failure with my card.

 

For esxi actually i mean.

I have this setup running ( without esxi) for a couple of months now. Seems to be fine ( had a red ball recently with no direct cause ),

So for bare unraid they seem fine.

Have you run many parity checks since installing the supermicro?

 

My server boots every time, and can serve up and store files and rebuild drives no problem.  But when I run parity check, a random drive red-balls.  So far the 5 drives that I have tracked red-balling are all on my supermicro.

About 5 times now i guess.

Last one was tuesday morning, all went fine with an average of 104mb/s.

The red balls i had didn't occur during or after parity checks.

But they were always on the SM also. Though i'm pretty sure one of them was really a bad (older) drive.

Ok good to know that it is more likely a hardware issue than a driver issue, thank you.

You stated above that price wasn't an issue with the CPU upgrade, so maybe a small additional cost of a M1015 isn't either?  I'd highly recommend just going with what works and picking up a M1015 - the great thing about the M1015 is the userbase is large, and any issues that you might have (which is unlikely!), you'll have a large pool of knowledge to draw from.

If I could find one in Canada, I would order one right away, but controllers are quite hard to find in my experience, or I just don't know where to look.  I checked all my local stores, then went online and could only find NCIX that carries the supermicro, could not find a M1015.

 

I ordered another supermicro AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 today, and 2 new sas cables, so I will swap it out when it arrives and see if that fixes the issue.

 

I also did a mobo bios upgrade, and pulled one of my PCI 1x sata cards out of the mix in case there was some sort of conflict happening. 

 

Parity check is extremely slow since upgrading to rc8a from rc6-test2.  Parity check went from 75+ MB/s average, to 35-40MB/s average, I am 20% through a parity check right now after 5.5 hours. 

 

You stated above that price wasn't an issue with the CPU upgrade, so maybe a small additional cost of a M1015 isn't either?  I'd highly recommend just going with what works and picking up a M1015 - the great thing about the M1015 is the userbase is large, and any issues that you might have (which is unlikely!), you'll have a large pool of knowledge to draw from.

 

yes, i am looking at that option also.

 

I found it available at a shop i ordered recently, seems they have 2 M1015's with different part number.

 

http://www.markit.eu/be/nl/serveraid-m1015-sas-sata-controller/v2p6725673

http://www.markit.eu/be/nl/serveraid-m1015-sas-sata-6gbps-raid-0-1/v2p2654543

 

Anybody who know's the difference?

Old & new version perhaps?

I just ordered 2 from an ebay seller truesys02 from South Korea, they have contacted me already and are shipping it right away and will be here within a week.

 

 

True to their word, they shipped out the same day and arrive in under a week from South Korea to my door in Canada, including customs clearance.