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


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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.

 

The "absolute fastest possible transfer speeds" are going to be network limited to ~ 120MB/s.  Here's an example of a transfer from my Atom-based system: 

UnRAID_Xfer.jpg.15c9d87e643ef0e6b7a443b0336ea430.jpg

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So X9SCM, two AOC-SAS2LP-MV8's, memory??, and anything else to achieve 120MB/s speeds?

 

Also, with this setup should the cache and parity drives be connected to these cards or to the mobo 6.0 Sata III connectors or to their own separate third card?

 

Thanks....

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... so as already suggested, just go with the set of components you listed above.  WD Reds are an excellent choice for the drives -- they're not the "absolute fastest" you can get ... the Seagate 7200rpm 4TB drives are faster (same 1TB/platter areal density with higher rotation) -- but they run warmer, use more power, and aren't going to provide any faster transfer speeds, since the Reds can already saturate the network.    They would -- if you used nothing but them -- be a bit faster at parity checks;  but not enough to offset the low power, low temp, high reliability of the Reds.

 

I would also only buy what you actually need for now.  This fall the 4TB Reds are expected, and in Dec/Jan the 5TB units should be available.    You don't want to load up on 3TB drives when you know these are on the way  :)

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So X9SCM, two AOC-SAS2LP-MV8's, memory??, and anything else to achieve 120MB/s speeds?

 

Also, with this setup should the cache and parity drives be connected to these cards or to the mobo 6.0 Sata III connectors or to their own separate third card?

 

Thanks....

 

Parity to a motherboard connection;  cache probably the same [i don't use a cache drive].  Note a cache drive doesn't provide any better read access ... but does, of course, improve your write speeds.

 

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How much memory and type do you recommend?

 

8GB of ECC RAM is fine -- install 2 4GB modules.    If you want more, use 2 larger modules.  Do NOT install 4 modules ... with unbuffered RAM that puts more load on the memory bus than you really want unless you really need it.    So either 2 4GB ECC modules (8GB total) or 2 8GB ECC modules (16GB total).

 

Personally, I'd go with 2 8GB modules ... just so I had the max I could install in 2 slots.    But that's more than you really need, so if you want to save a few $$ ... and a few watts ... just install a pair of 4GB modules.

 

 

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I have 32GB in my X9SCM without any issues.

 

If I set the highmem_is_dirtyable=1 switch, then the ram becomes a large buffer cache. You can burst transfer at very high speeds since the ram will buffer the data.

 

You really only need 1GB to 2GB if you do not install allot of plugins.

If I were spending the money I would go with 2 8GB modules, or possibly all 4 if I really needed the burst upload speed.

 

If you want very fast transfers use a Samsung PM 840 PRO or better on the motherboard SATA III port.

If money were no object, I would get a 7200 RPM 4TB drive for the parity.  It really depends on your usage of the unRAID server.

 

I happen to write directly to disk shares. I don't use a cache drive. When I do multiple writes at a time.

i.e. bittorrent machine and other writes, The faster parity drive helps.

It won't improve your parity sync speeds, but it will provide more throughput when you do multiple disk share writes simultaneously. 

 

Only buy what you are going to fill up.  I would not purchase too many drives from one vendor at one time. While there's no written data to back it up, my experience has always been that too many drives from the same place at the same time usually end up failing around the same time. Spread out your drive purchase.

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Can more than 1 drive be used for the cache drive? Such as 2,3, or 4 ssd drives for the cache drive with Unraid?

 

Well... NO and YES  :)

 

No, not yet with RC12a.  But Yes, with v5 "final" ... which SHOULD be coming "real soon now" !!!

Look on the main UnRAID page at the new servers they're advertising.  The description says these will come with "our latest UnRAID release" ... "  which supports "... a cache pool..."  that you can configure as a "... RAID-1 btrfs cache pool."

 

In other words, it's going to ship with v5 Final, and that will support exactly what you just asked about  :)

 

 

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Can more than 1 drive be used for the cache drive? Such as 2,3, or 4 ssd drives for the cache drive with Unraid?

 

Well... NO and YES  :)

 

No, not yet with RC12a.  But Yes, with v5 "final" ... which SHOULD be coming "real soon now" !!!

Look on the main UnRAID page at the new servers they're advertising.  The description says these will come with "our latest UnRAID release" ... "  which supports "... a cache pool..."  that you can configure as a "... RAID-1 btrfs cache pool."

 

In other words, it's going to ship with v5 Final, and that will support exactly what you just asked about  :)

 

With all due respect to Tom and LimeTech, Don't count on this and purchase hardware for it yet.

 

We have not tested this feature yet. If you were making a purchase tomorrow, Hold off on a bulk purchase of SSD's.

Wait for the feature to be released and in our hands before investing in the hardware.

 

By the time it's ready for actual use and testing you could possibly get the SSD's at a lower price. (unless you can score some kind of holiday or special coupon sale).

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With all due respect to Tom and LimeTech, Don't count on this and purchase hardware for it yet.

 

Gee ... does that mean you don't believe the 1 June shipping data promised on the web site !!!! ?????  8) 8)

 

Whether it ships, or not, on the advertised date, I am pretty certain that not all the advertised software features will be available at that date.

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Whether it ships, or not, on the advertised date, I am pretty certain that not all the advertised software features will be available at that date.

 

In other words, no v5 Final yet  :)

<Sigh>

 

I know that Tom is keen to get 5.0 out, so I suspect that many of the new features will be held for a subsequent release.

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I know that Tom is keen to get 5.0 out, so I suspect that many of the new features will be held for a subsequent release.

 

I don't disagree ... but I think the btrfs cache pool MAY make it into "final".  I'd think he'd at least remove that from the web site description of the new server if it wasn't going to be included.

 

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Actually I know Tom is keen to getting V5 Final out. I know he's working on it. There is news to come. My point is, don't purchase specific hardware for a feature yet. The feature may be put out, or it may be released as a subsequent release rapidly after.  Just wait and don't count on the feature at the current moment.  Prices on SSD's are always fluctuating.  It's a wait and see thing. It's just like I say not to buy too many hard drives at one time, from one vendor.

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Actually I know Tom is keen to getting V5 Final out. I know he's working on it. There is news to come. My point is, don't purchase specific hardware for a feature yet. The feature may be put out, or it may be released as a subsequent release rapidly after.  Just wait and don't count on the feature at the current moment.  Prices on SSD's are always fluctuating.  It's a wait and see thing. It's just like I say not to buy too many hard drives at one time, from one vendor.

 

Definitely agree with the "don't stockpile" philosophy.  I've taken advantage of "too good to resist" sales far too often, only to have the spare whatever (hard drive, memory, etc.) still sitting on a shelf when I finally needed it, and deciding not to use it because it was then too small (hard drive),  the wrong interface (SATA vs IDE or DDR vs DDR2), etc.    There's certainly no reason to buy a bunch of drives in anticipation of the btrfs pool until we actually know how it's implemented  :)

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Okay so with the MBD-X9SCM-iiF motherboard and (2) AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 cards, which ports are best suited for the cache drive and parity drive? I wanted to have 15 total large TB drives plus the cache & parity drives but the motherboard only has 4x SATA2 3Gbps and 2x SATA3 6Gbps plus combined with the 16 ports on the cards.

 

Will putting the cache & parity drives on the SATA2 ports limit speeds - or do they need to go on the SATA3 ports for best results?

 

My issue is that if I want 15 data drives, 1 parity drive and quite possibly 4 cache SSD drives using the new brtfs cache pool - what should end up getting plugged into the SATA II ports on the MB and SATA III ports on the MB? Or would I require a 3rd AOC card perhaps plugged into one of the x4 lanes?

 

Thanks in advance :)

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Will putting the cache & parity drives on the SATA2 ports limit speeds - or do they need to go on the SATA3 ports for best results?

 

With the current state of technology, no, Mechanical drives do not see much advantage on the SATA III ports.  That could change when higher density drives come out.

 

what should end up getting plugged into the SATA II ports on the MB and SATA III ports on the MB?

 

SSD drives WILL take advantage of the SATA III ports. So I would probably put them there.  4 SSD's I'm not sure I would go that far.  You could have the fastest SSD cache pool, but the network hardware will limit the speed and you may not realize the benefit of a 4 drive SSD cache pool.

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Will putting the cache & parity drives on the SATA2 ports limit speeds - or do they need to go on the SATA3 ports for best results?

 

With the current state of technology, no, Mechanical drives do not see much advantage on the SATA III ports.  That could change when higher density drives come out.

 

True EXCEPT for SSDs (as you note below).    The parity drive clearly won't be an SSD, but the cache very well may be, so it should definitely be on a SATA3 port.

 

 

what should end up getting plugged into the SATA II ports on the MB and SATA III ports on the MB?

 

SSD drives WILL take advantage of the SATA III ports. So I would probably put them there.  4 SSD's I'm not sure I would go that far.  You could have the fastest SSD cache pool, but the network hardware will limit the speed and you may not realize the benefit of a 4 drive SSD cache pool.

 

I certainly agree that if you're using the cache pool, TWO SSDs should be plenty - assuming the pool doesn't require more for fault-tolerance.    My understanding is that it's simply a RAID-1 array, but I'm not certain that's the case.    Assuming that's correct, two SSDs on the SATA-3 ports would provide a cache read/write speed FAR better than your network could support, so it would effectively eliminate ANY delays in writes, and would provide fault-tolerance to boot !!  Using more disks would have zero added benefit in the case (except, of course, for higher capacity).

 

If so some reason you really want 4 SSDs, I wouldn't add another AOC card just to get additional SATA3 ports ... I'd just use SATA2 ports for two of the SSDs.  The "bottleneck" for those SSDs would then be 300MB/s ... hardly a performance issue that you'd notice !!  8)

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