Supermicro MBD-X7SBE currently with (Qty. 2) AOC-SAT2-MV8's Upgrade question?


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Intel E3-1230V2 LGA1155 Processor - Best bang or?

 

I think that's probably the current price:performance leader in the 12xx lineup.  If you look at the PassMark benchmark scores, you gain relatively little by paying more for higher-end units;  but this one has significantly higher scores than some of the lower cost ones.    To put it simply:  if I was buying an E3-12xx, that's the one I'd buy  :)

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Intel E3-1230V2 LGA1155 Processor - Best bang or?

 

I think that's probably the current price:performance leader in the 12xx lineup.  If you look at the PassMark benchmark scores, you gain relatively little by paying more for higher-end units;  but this one has significantly higher scores than some of the lower cost ones.    To put it simply:  if I was buying an E3-12xx, that's the one I'd buy  :)

 

It's the one I will be purchasing also.  When used with ESX and paired with a Samsung PM840 SATA III SSD on the SATA III port it's almost like having a local windows machine. It's a top performer at a decent cost. I suppose if you wanted to save electricity and cost, you could find a good passive heat sink and let normal case air flow cool the processor. You could also turn off hyperthreading.

 

Also, if I remember correctly. Supermicro boards usually have a BIOS option to limit maximum speed of the processor.

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One other note:  The E3-1230v2 scores 8934 on PassMark's CPUMark.

 

It will idle fairly close to the same power level as an E3-1220L ... but will draw up to 69W under load instead of the 20W the E3-1220L would.  HOWEVER , the 1220L, because it's limited to that power level, only scores 3563 on PassMark.

 

Note that 3563 is still a very respectable score ... a previous generation Core 2 Quad Q9400, for example, scores 3427.    But clearly the 1230v2 would have a lot of "reserve horsepower" ready if needed  :)

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Okay so now for the 10 million dollar question. I use my unraid solely for storage and streaming directly to my home media box (Western Digital). I run a few add-on's such as Notify, Unmenu, APC etc. I just upgraded to version 5.0 rc 12 without any problems. I plan to upgrade all drives to WD RED 3TB or 5TB  (once they come out).

 

My current Unraid setup is as follows:

 

Supermicro MBD-X7SBE LGA 775 Motherboard

(1) XEON QUAD CORE X3360 2.83G-12M 1333 I64 S775

8 GB Ram

(20) WD Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drives

(1) Parity Drive - WD Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drives

(1) Cache Drive - WD Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive

(2) Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8's hooked up on the 133MHz PCI-X bus

 

Will I see much of any difference in anything if I upgrade my specs as follows? If so exactly what & where please?

 

MBD-X9SCM-F Motherboard

Intel E3-1230V2 LGA1155 Processor

(2) AOC-SAS2LP-MV8's

20 WD 3 to 5TB RED Hard Drives

1 cache drive (not sure which yet)

1 parity drive (not sure which yet)

 

Thanks again for following along with me on these questions...I'm just trying to determine overall performance boosts with a new MOBO and processor and controller cards - along with the larger hard drives.

 

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Okay so now for the 10 million dollar question. I use my unraid solely for storage and streaming directly to my home media box (Western Digital). I run a few add-on's such as Notify, Unmenu, APC etc. I just upgraded to version 5.0 rc 12 without any problems. I plan to upgrade all drives to WD RED 3TB or 5TB  (once they come out).

 

My current Unraid setup is as follows:

 

Supermicro MBD-X7SBE LGA 775 Motherboard

(1) XEON QUAD CORE X3360 2.83G-12M 1333 I64 S775

8 GB Ram

(20) WD Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drives

(1) Parity Drive - WD Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drives

(1) Cache Drive - WD Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive

(2) Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8's hooked up on the 133MHz PCI-X bus

 

Will I see much of any difference in anything if I upgrade my specs as follows? If so exactly what & where please?

 

MBD-X9SCM-F Motherboard

Intel E3-1230V2 LGA1155 Processor

(2) AOC-SAS2LP-MV8's

20 WD 3 to 5TB RED Hard Drives

1 cache drive (not sure which yet)

1 parity drive (not sure which yet)

 

Thanks again for following along with me on these questions...I'm just trying to determine overall performance boosts with a new MOBO and processor and controller cards - along with the larger hard drives.

You might see some improvement just moving one of your AOC-SAT2-MV8s to the 100Mhz port so that you have one on the 133 Mhz port and one on the 100Mhz port with nothing else plugged into the PCI-X ports.  But it would be much smaller that you should get upgrading MB, CPU and controller.  I got 50-90MB/s on my SAT2-MV8s on my X7SBE with a Celeron 430 and WD green drives.  With my SAS expander on my M1015 controller and WD Red's I get 70-120MB/s even with a Virtualized unRAID VM on a X9SCM class MB (Tyan S5512GM2NR).
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If it's only a storage server, then your won't see such a radical improvement that you absolutely need to upgrade the motherboard, CPU, memory and controllers.

 

What is your current parity sync speed?

I had the same setup and a mixed bag of drives, mine were around 60-80MB/s.

 

If you were to move 1 controller to the other slot you would see some improvement.

If you were to get one PCIe X8 controller now, you would see improvement.

 

My suggestion is to purchase 1 X8 PCIe controller and see how you do.

This could very well provide some measurable performance improvement.

Migrate to the new drives as you need to. use the others until EOL or capacity threshold.

 

The next measurable performance improvement would be to isolate the Parity drive on it's own PCIe controller and channel.

 

This would provide a small upgrade cost.

It should provide a measurable performance boost.

It will provide at least one controller for your future upgrade path.

 

One point to consider, your parity check/generate speeds are always going to be as fast as your slowest drive.  Thus, one slow drive in the build and they all wait for it to do it's I/O.

 

If you were going to do unRAID under ESX I would be totally pushing you towards the newer hardware. But for right now, you can wait and see how it goes with at least 1 newer controller.

 

Keep in mind, the market is prime for the parts you selected, so it is also a good opportunity to get good pricing.  you could possibly offer your older parts to another unRAID'er.

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Okay so now for the 10 million dollar question. I use my unraid solely for storage and streaming directly to my home media box (Western Digital). I run a few add-on's such as Notify, Unmenu, APC etc. I just upgraded to version 5.0 rc 12 without any problems. I plan to upgrade all drives to WD RED 3TB or 5TB  (once they come out).

 

My current Unraid setup is as follows:

 

Supermicro MBD-X7SBE LGA 775 Motherboard

(1) XEON QUAD CORE X3360 2.83G-12M 1333 I64 S775

8 GB Ram

(20) WD Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drives

(1) Parity Drive - WD Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drives

(1) Cache Drive - WD Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive

(2) Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8's hooked up on the 133MHz PCI-X bus

 

Will I see much of any difference in anything if I upgrade my specs as follows? If so exactly what & where please?

 

MBD-X9SCM-F Motherboard

Intel E3-1230V2 LGA1155 Processor

(2) AOC-SAS2LP-MV8's

20 WD 3 to 5TB RED Hard Drives

1 cache drive (not sure which yet)

1 parity drive (not sure which yet)

 

Thanks again for following along with me on these questions...I'm just trying to determine overall performance boosts with a new MOBO and processor and controller cards - along with the larger hard drives.

 

Okay ...

(a) Much lower power consumption [more efficient motherboard;  lower power CPU (69W vs 95W); and lower power drives (4.4W operating; 0.6 watts standby  vs.  6.8W operating; 0.7 watts standby).  Note the 2.4W difference in operating power for the drives = 48W difference when you factor in 20 drives !!

 

(b)  More than double the processing power [8934 on PassMark vs. 4044]

 

©  Higher bandwidth on the SATA ports ... enough to let the WD Reds operate at full bandwidth.

 

(d)  Faster sustained transfer speeds due to the higher areal density of the high-capacity WD Reds (1TB/platter), which is enough to offset the higher rpm's of the WD Blacks.

 

(e)  PROBABLY slower parity checks (How long do they take now??).    The reason for this is you'll have 3-5TB to go through instead of the 1TB you have to go through now [Remember, all drives are processed at the same time.].    Hard to predict for sure, but I'd guess that tripling (or quadrupling) the size of the parity drive will slow things down, even though the sustained read rate is faster for the new drives.

 

(f)  ... and of course tripling (or quadrupling) your data storage space !!  :)

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What's the easiest way right now to accurately test the current parity sync speed? Is this shown in the unraid interface during parity checks?

 

It shows the current speed -- but what you really want to know is how long does it actually take.    Just note the time you start a parity check ... then wait.  When it's done, it will show you the time it ended -- so you can compute the total time/speed/etc.

 

 

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Also, if I were to add on x8 controller card and one separate controller card for the parity drive, which pci card is recommended for just isolating the parity drive - taking my mobo into consideration of source?

 

NONE !!  You don't want to use a PCI card -- use a PCIe card  :)

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What's the easiest way right now to accurately test the current parity sync speed? Is this shown in the unraid interface during parity checks?

 

You can issue one from the emhttp front end.

 

If you've done a parity sync check recently, you can do

grep -i 'md: sync' /var/log/syslog

 

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Also, if I were to add on x8 controller card and one separate controller card for the parity drive, which pci card is recommended for just isolating the parity drive - taking my mobo into consideration of source?

 

NONE !!  You don't want to use a PCI card -- use a PCIe card  :)

 

 

PCIe x4 card in the x4 slot.  Plus I think there is a second x8 slot called the UIO slot. I have never tested it.

 

I had 15 data drives.

I maxed each controller with 5 drives.

5 drives on each PCI-X controller (there were two controllers).

5 drives on the motherboard

2 drives in RAID1/RAID0 on an x1 Areca RAID card.  The server ran pretty well.

 

If I were to add more drives, I would have added the x8 controller keeping 5 drives on each controller.

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Which pci-e x4 controller card would you suggest I use for isolating just the parity drive then? Since I will be adding the x8 controller, the only pci-e slot left is the x4.

 

If you install just about any PCIe x4 controller and only put one drive on it you'll be fine  :)

[You could actually put 4 or 5 drives on it  8) ]

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Okay so now I'm totally confused.....

 

Keep 1 AOC-SAT2-MV8 pci-x 133

Add 1 AOC-SAS2LP-MV8

Add 1 ??? pci-e x4 (just for parity drive)

 

or what would happen if added

1 AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 pci-e x8

and

1 AOC-SASLP-MV8 pci-e x4

 

and keep or not keep one pci-x AOC-SAT2-MV8

 

Yikes...I'm lost

 

 

ALSO....are the sata ports on the motherboard slower than pci-e cards?

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Which pci-e x4 controller card would you suggest I use for isolating just the parity drive then? Since I will be adding the x8 controller, the only pci-e slot left is the x4.

 

I might wait until you absolutely have the need for the speed. Do s'more research.

If it were me I would look for a 4 port SATA III card that fits in the x4 slot and has internal and eSATA ports.

 

The SATA III matters a little with very modern SATA III drives and matters ALLOT with SATA III SSD's.

 

Hech, on my 2 port x1 SATA III card I was reaping 400MB/s tests on a Samsung PM840 PRO.

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Okay so now I'm totally confused.....

 

Keep 1 AOC-SAT2-MV8 pci-x 133

Add 1 AOC-SAS2LP-MV8

Add 1 ??? pci-e x4 (just for parity drive)

 

or what would happen if added

1 AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 pci-e x8

and

1 AOC-SASLP-MV8 pci-e x4

 

and keep or not keep one pci-x AOC-SAT2-MV8

 

Yikes...I'm lost

 

 

ALSO....are the sata ports on the motherboard slower than pci-e cards?

 

>>>> what would happen if added 1 AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 pci-e x8

 

This is all I would do at the moment. Even a used card with free shipping.

 

At the very least, you will not loose any investment should you decide to upgrade later.

 

you would have 4 controllers in the machine.

2 PCI-X

1 motherboard.

1 PCIe x8.

 

Test things out, move some slots around see how it performs.

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Would you leave the AOC-SAT2-MV8 in the 133 or 100 pci-x slot? I assume 133...

 

Also, will this only speed up the drives that are technically plugged into this new card - or the entire system?

 

It's been a long time since I set up my machine (which is now dead). I believe I left BOTH controllers in the same 133MHZ slots. When I looked at the block diagram the 100Mhz slot shared the bus with something else. I think it was the ethernet ports.  I'll have to go back and look.

 

At the very least, this will speed up the drives you move to a slight degree.

It will offload the communication on the 133Mhz bus.

It could improve parity speed a little in the whole system. You are still a slave to the slowest drive.

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I stand corrected, the block diagram looks different now. I thought I remember reading it once before and seeing 2 of the PCI-X controllers attached differently. The latest manual shows all 4 PCI-X slots attached to PXH which is attached to an X8 slot.

 

As a point of reference, a PCI-X (133 MHz 64-bit) device and PCIe device at 4-lanes (×4), Gen1 speed have roughly the same peak transfer rate in a single-direction: 1064 MB/sec. The PCIe bus has the potential to perform better than the PCI-X bus in cases where multiple devices are transferring data communicating simultaneously, or if communication with the PCIe peripheral is bidirectional.

 

In Reviewing the AOC-SAT2-MV8

• 8-channel Serial-ATA adapter with 300MB/s per channel

• 64-bit PCI-X interface

• Software RAID supported

Other Features

Bus Type    64-bit PCI-X133MHz

 

I would suggest you review the manual and the block diagram so you understand how things are connected.

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Leave the PCI-X cards where they are.

Install the new x8 card.

Move some of the drives off the PCI-X cards onto the PCIe x8 card.

 

See how you do.

 

I doubt you will see a very large change until you start to go with faster drives.

Put the fastest, or most used, drives on the x8 card.

 

This is the cheapest way to go towards an upgrade and your investment will be useful later on if you choose to upgrade further.

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So overall with Unraid what is the fastest possible file transfer speed and how can I get there hardware wise with a straight unraid config off usb stick? And what hardware would it take to get the speeds there?

 

I think I'm just going to upgrade the entire box, mobo, cards, drives everything! I want the absolute fastest possible transfer speeds over our gigabit network.

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So overall with Unraid what is the fastest possible file transfer speed and how can I get there hardware wise with a straight unraid config off usb stick? And what hardware would it take to get the speeds there?

 

I think I'm just going to upgrade the entire box, mobo, cards, drives everything! I want the absolute fastest possible transfer speeds over our gigabit network.

 

Go with your quoted spec of the X9SCM and all it's associated parts.

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