I currently have an unRaid Plus license and am utilizing my parity + 5 data drives. However, I am not using a cache drive. The 6 hard drives occupy all available SATA slots on my supermicro ITX motherboard and all available 3.5" hard drive bays in my Fractal Node 304 case.

 

I do have a free PCIe slot and some empty space in my case so I was thinking I have two options:

 

1) Find a PCIe mSATA controller and get a ~64GB mSATA SSD for cache. This would take up the least space and give the most secure installation

2) Find a PCIe 1-2 port SATA controller and get a ~64GB 2.5" SSD for cache. Also find a expansion slot bracket that could possibly hold the 2.5" drive (The Fractal Node 304 case has two expansion slots even though the ITX motherboard only has one PCIe slot)

3) Same as 2) except just lay the SSD somehwere in the case.

 

I'm having troubles finding a PCIe mSATA controller and I'm also having troubles finding a expansion slot bracket that can hold a 2.5" drive.

 

Anyone have any advice?

I'm having troubles finding a PCIe mSATA controller and I'm also having troubles finding a expansion slot bracket that can hold a 2.5" drive.

 

Anyone have any advice?

 

Maybe something like this to hold 2.5" drives?

http://www.atechfabrication.com/products/drive_mounting_kits.htm

 

Alternatively I found this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812161006

 

Would this product with a standard 2.5" SSD work with unRaid 5?

 

Alternatively I found this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812161006

 

Would this product with a standard 2.5" SSD work with unRaid 5?

 

While the case has two external expansion slots, your card only has one ... and you'll need it for the additional SATA card, so NO, that card won't work.  It has to be plugged in to a PCIe x1 slot, as that's where it gets the power for the 2.5" drive it holds.    Even if that wasn't the case, the connectors would almost certainly interfere with components on the motherboard, since there's no slot at that location.

 

Depending on exactly how you've got the components and cabling arranged in your case, you may have a location that you could Velcro an SSD to ... they're quite light and can easily be help in place with Velcro.    Then just install a card with the extra SATA port you need, and you're ready to go.

 

I've used a couple of these.

 

http://www.startech.com/HDD/Mobile-Racks/25in-SATA-Removable-Hard-Drive-Bay-for-PC-Expansion-Slot~S25SLOTR

 

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5606151&SRCCODE=WEBGOOPA&cm_mmc_o=mH4CjC7BBTkwCjCV1-CjCE&gclid=CI_f2cX0nrgCFcGe4Aodaz8ARQ

 

What's good about the startech units is you can use an empty PCI area for them.

 

The other one is neat in that it saves you a power connector at the expense of a PCIe slot.

 

If I were going that route, I might get one of those PCIe mSATA cards that have the SATA controller built into the card also.

mSATA cards to check out

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816104024

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124057

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124053

 

If you can go with one of these cards and the 2.5"SLOTR, you can have 2 SSD's

i.e. mSATA and 2.5"SSD or seagate Hybrid drive(love those drives!).

For the longest time I wanted to try out one of these.

 

 

http://www.sybausa.com/productInfo.php?iid=1134

The StarTech slot holder suggested above is perfect -- it doesn't require an actual slot, so it will hold a drive slightly over any components on the motherboard, and you use standard data and power connectors for it.

 

... and the nifty little 2-drive sybausa card with two SATA ports and a dual drive holder is even "more perfect" 

 

=>  You could implement a dual-drive btrfs RAID-1 cache and have fault-tolerance for your cache drive (once Tom gets that feature implemented)

 

[Nice find WeeboTech  ]

 

... HOWEVER ... while the card is very reasonably priced, the reviews (always taken with an appropriate grain of salt) do not look promising.    I suspect it works fine with a compatible chipset;  and doesn't work at all with those that aren't ... so it may be a bit of a crap-shoot for any specific system.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124048

 

If you don't want to use two SSDs, the StarTech holder and a dedicated SATA card is probably a "safer" choice.

 

mSATA cards to check out

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816104024

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124057

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124053

 

If you can go with one of these cards and the 2.5"SLOTR, you can have 2 SSD's

i.e. mSATA and 2.5"SSD or seagate Hybrid drive(love those drives!).

 

I'm pretty sure these are exactly what I want. It gets me my 60GB cache drive for the cheapest price and smallest footprint. mSATA 60GB drives are within a few dollars of the 2.5" SSD prices. Also, these add in cards look reasonably priced!

 

Thanks!

mSATA cards to check out

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816104024

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124057

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124053

 

If you can go with one of these cards and the 2.5"SLOTR, you can have 2 SSD's

i.e. mSATA and 2.5"SSD or seagate Hybrid drive(love those drives!).

 

I'm pretty sure these are exactly what I want. It gets me my 60GB cache drive for the cheapest price and smallest footprint. mSATA 60GB drives are within a few dollars of the 2.5" SSD prices. Also, these add in cards look reasonably priced!

 

Thanks!

 

Yes, they will provide both a "home" for an mSATA card AND an extra SATA port that you can use as needed.  You could even combine this card with one of the StarTech slot holders noted earlier (the one that doesn't require a PCIe slot) to install BOTH an mSATA and a 2.5" SSD [e.g. for a fault-tolerant btrfs cache]

 

FWIW I've had far better results with Koutech add-in cards than SYBA.

 

I bought this combo:

 

Koutech IO-PESA238

Plextor M5M PX-64M5M

 

This gives me 64GB of fast cache (I can't think of a time when I'd have a file larger than 64GB!) in a small form factor that will connect to my PC by the only means possible (PCIe). I'll now have a 'maxed out' unRaid PLUS license, maxed out motherboard, and maxed out 3.5" HDD bays in my case. Plenty of potential to upgrade my 1TB and 2TB storage drives to 4TB now that I have a 4TB parity too!

 

Thanks for the input everyone!

I bought this combo:

 

Koutech IO-PESA238

Plextor M5M PX-64M5M

 

This gives me 64GB of fast cache (I can't think of a time when I'd have a file larger than 64GB!) in a small form factor that will connect to my PC by the only means possible (PCIe). I'll now have a 'maxed out' unRaid PLUS license, maxed out motherboard, and maxed out 3.5" HDD bays in my case. Plenty of potential to upgrade my 1TB and 2TB storage drives to 4TB now that I have a 4TB parity too!

 

Thanks for the input everyone!

 

Sounds like a very nice system ... and with a 4TB parity drive you can easily upgrade your storage as required so that system should last for a nice long time.

 

I bought this combo:

 

Koutech IO-PESA238

Plextor M5M PX-64M5M

 

Please let us know how this combo works out. I'm interested in purchasing one also.

I bought this combo:

 

Koutech IO-PESA238

Plextor M5M PX-64M5M

 

Please let us know how this combo works out. I'm interested in purchasing one also.

 

Ditto => that would be a cool little cache drive for my PC-Q25B system !!

 

Ok so here is what happened:

1) installed in pciex16 slot and bios hangs.

2) remove ssd and just try to boot, bios hangs

3) put in a windows PC in pciex16 slot, bios hangs

4) same windows machine pciex1 slot' successful boot, format sad and copy data

5) same windows machine, put back in pciex16 successful boot

6) back in unfair box pciex16 (only slot) bios hangs!

 

I was able to enter the cards bios on my windows machine but there were only settings for creating a hardware raid. My super micro bios on the unraid server seems to have no pertinent settings either.

 

Anyways ordered the cheaper SYBA model from new egg. Hopefully this will have better compatibility.

 

Also if you guys have any ideas why it wouldn't work so well in a x16 slot is love to hear!

So the SYBA card is causing a hang at boot too. After 3-4 minutes of a blank screen, unraid boots but does not recognize the installed ssd (like the other card) it also has issues accessing the normal 3.5" disks and sets them to 1.5gb connections during unraid initialization. This is the same Marvell controller from the other card so maybe that's the issue. However, I though that Marvell chip set was commonly supported. Same behavior with or without the ssd installed in the card. HELP!!!

 

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

 

... Also if you guys have any ideas why it wouldn't work so well in a x16 slot is love to hear!

 

The fact it's an x16 slot should have absolutely NO bearing on this.    When you're only using 1 lane, it's electrically exactly the same as if it was installed in an x1 slot.

 

But it's disturbing that neither this card nor the SYBA card are working.    I've had excellent luck in the past with Koutech cards ... they've always been very reliable and have few compatibility issues.

 

I suspect the answer is the specific Marvell chip used in these cards isn't compatible with your chipset and/or UnRAID.  I'll look around a bit and see if I can find a more definitive reason.

 

... Also if you . ys have any ideas why it wouldn't work so well in a x16 slot is love to hear!

 

The fact it's an x16 slot should have absolutely NO bearing on this.    When you're only using 1 lane, it's electrically exactly the same as if it was installed in an x1 slot.

 

But it's disturbing that neither this card nor the SYBA card are working.    I've had excellent luck in the past with Koutech cards ... they've always been very reliable and have few compatibility issues.

 

I suspect the answer is the specific Marvell chip used in these cards isn't compatible with your chipset and/or UnRAID.  I'll look around a bit and see if I can find a more definitive reason.

Because there is a hang at boot of the system I think it doesn't have to do with unraid. however since it does limit sata badwidth during unraid boot something is going on  the kobutec card would sometjmes boot in my phenom ii system havent tried the syba yet in that system

The saga continues! I've bought this card:

 

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/PCIEACCELM/?utm_source=amazon&utm_medium=shoppingengine&utm_campaign=productads

 

Because it is not based on the Marvell controller. Hopefully I'll have better luck...

 

Stay tuned.

Sure hope this one works => you've got my interest "tweaked" (and I suspect quite a few others) ... as this would be a VERY simple way to add a fast cache drive to units that are already maxed out with regards to SATA ports !!

 

Gary (and anyone else following this),

 

New PCIe mSATA card arrived, and it works! My SuperMicro board POSTed as it should and unRaid booted without issue.

 

The web interface properly recognized the unassigned SSD and I was able to assign it and format it immediately. I tried copying a BluRay rip to see what kind of speeds I got and found out I was still getting ~17MB/sec transfer speeds. Digging a little deeper I found I had to allow all user shares to use the cache disk and then also set the Min. Free Space to something reasonable (in my case, 60GB).

 

As you can see from the attachment, it is transferring along at around 50MB/sec now. Hooray! The only downside with the new mSATA adapter card is that it does NOT have a second SATA or eSATA connector on it. I don't have room in my case for any other full size drives and my unRaid PLUS license does not have any openings left either, so I'm not sure what I would do with one anyways.

 

Now that my build is complete, I plan on starting a thread in the UCD section of the forums with photos and details.

 

EDIT: Just did a test, copied the same BluRay from my internal Windows desktop drive to another internal desktop drive, both of these are WD "green" drives but it still transferred around 72MB/sec. Not sure why transferring to the unRaid cache drive would be so much slower... will investigate.

Thanks for the update.