March 16, 201313 yr I'm just about finished with my build, waiting on my memory (Newegg failed me on the memory unfortunately). I picked up a Highpoint RocketRAID 640L SATA controller, however upon looking at the VMware HCL it didn't look like it was on there, but was still curious if anyone has had any luck using this as a passthru for ESXi? If not what cheap 4+ drive capable SATA3 card would be suggested for this build? CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1220 V2 Ivy Bridge : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117288 Memory: Kingston 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Unbuffered DDR3 1333 : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239117 Motherboard: SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCL-F-O : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182251 Hard Drives attached to motherboard controller: (These will be used for ESXi + VMFS datastore/UnRAID cache if it works) Western Digital Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136319 Western Digital Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drives attached to add-on controller: (All will be passed thru to the UnRAID VM) Seagate Barracuda STBD3000100 3TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148907 Seagate Barracuda STBD3000100 3TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Seagate Barracuda STBD3000100 3TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive Enclosure: iStarUSA BPU-350SATA-BLACK 3x5.25" to 5x3.5" SAS/SATA 6.0 Gb/s Hot-Swap Cage : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816215177 Case: LIAN LI PC-A16B Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112132 PSU: Thermaltake toughpower W0105RU 700W : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153035 The 2 640GB drives, the case and the PSU were things I had lying around.
March 17, 201313 yr Not being on the vmware HCL is a non issue. First, lots of things not on the HCL work. Second, since your application is pass thru, the question is does that guest (unRAID?) support the hardware? For the second, see http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=20197.0
March 18, 201313 yr Author Thanks! I may give it a shot to start out with, but if I can't get what I want out of it, I'll probably switch to this http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-SAS2LP-MV8.cfm It's generally a little pricier, but I'm sure is better supported.
March 18, 201313 yr Julez, If you intend to go the ESXi way, do yourself a favour and : 1) read the atlas thread 2) buy hardware that is KNOWN to work, so buy some M1015 (and/or a RES2SV240) from ebay. It will save you a lot of trouble... PS: you can expect already trouble by using a V2 processor with that MB...
March 18, 201313 yr My setup (see sig) also works fine, also cloned from Atlas for the most part.. MV8's are performing without issues. I also went for the V1 processor because of the stuff I read about errors with it. Sounds like they will be fixed in the end though.
March 18, 201313 yr Author Is the issue with the Ivy Bridge CPU a problem with ESXi that people are seeing? Or is it more with UnRAID.
March 18, 201313 yr Is the issue with the Ivy Bridge CPU a problem with ESXi that people are seeing? Or is it more with UnRAID. My particular issue is that the bios timings that were implemented to support Ivy Bridge breaks compatiblity with some v1 PCIe cards - they just become invisible to MB and any OS. That is true even when using a Sandy CPU if the bios is Ivy Compatible. This issue has been fixed with bios update from other manufacturers (Intel MBs) so if X9SCL has a new bios with similar fixes it may not be an issue any more. I upgraded my X9SCM-F bios to 2.0a and my AVerMedia duet tuner droped out never to be seen again. RockDawg had problems with Ivy CPU and 3 M1015s in ESXi and the solution was to go to Sandy CPU or bare metal unRAID.
March 18, 201313 yr Author Thanks Bob. At this point I think I'm just going to give it a shot, the thing is already built, just waiting on my RAM from Newegg...which has been an absolute cluster... No reason to send stuff back since it's already put together unless I have issues.
March 18, 201313 yr Is the issue with the Ivy Bridge CPU a problem with ESXi that people are seeing? Or is it more with UnRAID. My particular issue is that the bios timings that were implemented to support Ivy Bridge breaks compatiblity with some v1 PCIe cards - they just become invisible to MB and any OS. That is true even when using a Sandy CPU if the bios is Ivy Compatible. This issue has been fixed with bios update from other manufacturers (Intel MBs) so if X9SCL has a new bios with similar fixes it may not be an issue any more. I upgraded my X9SCM-F bios to 2.0a and my AVerMedia duet tuner droped out never to be seen again. RockDawg had problems with Ivy CPU and 3 M1015s in ESXi and the solution was to go to Sandy CPU or bare metal unRAID. I wonder if this could be the issue I'm having with my X9SCM-F. Is there anyway to drop the bios back to a known working rev?
March 18, 201313 yr Is the issue with the Ivy Bridge CPU a problem with ESXi that people are seeing? Or is it more with UnRAID. My particular issue is that the bios timings that were implemented to support Ivy Bridge breaks compatiblity with some v1 PCIe cards - they just become invisible to MB and any OS. That is true even when using a Sandy CPU if the bios is Ivy Compatible. This issue has been fixed with bios update from other manufacturers (Intel MBs) so if X9SCL has a new bios with similar fixes it may not be an issue any more. I upgraded my X9SCM-F bios to 2.0a and my AVerMedia duet tuner droped out never to be seen again. RockDawg had problems with Ivy CPU and 3 M1015s in ESXi and the solution was to go to Sandy CPU or bare metal unRAID. I wonder if this could be the issue I'm having with my X9SCM-F. Is there anyway to drop the bios back to a known working rev? I did it with my Tyan MB but I bricked my first X9SCM-F so was scared to try it on the replacement - one reason but not the main one for switching to Tyan. For my Tyan MB I contacted Tyan support and they sent me a customized install script and it down graded fine.
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