I recently scored an old 15 bay server case filled with everything, mobo, proc, memory, PSU, everything.  I was looking forward to a complete redesign of sorts.  The plan, take 3 systems, ESXi, unRAID and WHS and make them one.  New virtual host with everything.  Seems like the smart choice.  However, looking in the system, I realized the age and lack of PCI-e.  Only PCI and PCI-64.  This obviously leave me with an issue relating to my PCI-e LSI cards...so the question is, what is the smart choice in this situation, stick with 2 AOC-SAT2-MV8 or replace the mobo to gain PCI-e support, which would also mean replacing a lot of the other hardware at the same time as well.

 

I guess it comes down to spending money vs saving it, but at the same time, where does overall performance fall with one choice vs the other?

As I am currently doing some what the same thing let me have a go at it...

 

#1. it's all depends on how old the guts are, please give the run down on what the guts are in terms of Make/Model  for MB/CPU  type of CPU/socket  # of Sockets supported (optional as it just shoe the expansion capability)

 

speed of CPU/RAM

how powerful the PSU is

amount of RAM and RAM type

 

 

you might be able to install ESXi and WHS on it just fine.

but  for proper operation and functionality UnRaid need to have a direct and full access to the HDD controller and Drives. thus  you need to do a  PCI passthough for the controller and maybe a USB stick . for that you need that  MB/CPU MUST support either  VT-d (for Intel systems )or AMD-v(IOMMU) which the good chance your hardware does not support if it is very old. hence the request for more info above.

if I understand correctly your system have PCI and PCI-X slots?

is it a server type MB?

is it a server type CPU?

 

as a side note I am currently atempting to build a VM server with unRaid on a server class chassis

where MB/CPU do not fully support PCI- Pas-thought

you might want need to look for an alternative hypervisor (see the link in my sig as it might have more info for you.)

 

 

 

 

The AOC-SAT2-MV8 is slower than a PCIe card but you can maximize their speed.

 

I had 2 AOC-SAT2-MV8's on a X7SBE MB and 21 drives under 4.6 bare metal unRAID that got 70-90MB/s parity checks with WD 2TB Green drives.  But I made sure the MB had PCI-X slots for the SAT2-MV8's (the X7SBE has 4 PCI-X slots) one in one of the 133MHz slots and the other in one of the 100MHz slots with NO other PCI cards plugged in.

The motherboard that is in there is,  http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/motherboard/Opteron/8131/H8DAE.cfm

 

It is populated with memory,  2 CPU and and Mr 300-8xlp card but I don't think it is compatible with unraid from the lack of info I see.  Psu is a redundant 740watts total, 3x I think 380

The motherboard that is in there is,  http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/motherboard/Opteron/8131/H8DAE.cfm

 

It is populated with memory,  2 CPU and and Mr 300-8xlp card but I don't think it is compatible with unraid from the lack of info I see.  Psu is a redundant 740watts total, 3x I think 380

 

It might be fine with unraid. But I do mot think you can virtualize unraid on it. Try updating bios to the latest but I dont think it wilk work.so iether just use it for unraid or vm only.

 

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Ah,  so the key I guess is PCI pass-through.  So in reality it comes to 3 things, PCI pass-through,  yess/no,  3 servers cut to 2 Instead of 1, or just invest in a new motherboard and if needed CPU and memory.

Ah,  so the key I guess is PCI pass-through.  So in reality it comes to 3 things, PCI pass-through,  yess/no,  3 servers cut to 2 Instead of 1, or just invest in a new motherboard and if needed CPU and memory.

 

Well pci pasthrough is the key for virtualizatiin of unraid. You can run unraid vm as is and rdm all the drives in but you loose the key benefit of unraid such as drive spin down/up for power saving and hdd life prolonging.  Other than that it still posible to go fully virtual.

If power saving is not important to you or the fact that you will be running 1 server instead of 3 or 2 overides the downside, you are good.

Unfortunatly esxi  is not as forgiving of hardware change as unraid, so need to make a proper decisions now as to what you want to do but you can build it. Try it out and see if things work as you expected and go from ther.

 

I have been trting to build a vn server for the last month. Specifically trying to get pci pass through to work on hardware I have. And only just last week had it working.if it would not I had a decisions like yours to make 1 server or 2. .

 

Also I am not sure if noise is an issue as you might need to do the psu mode to make it quite.

 

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just fired these bad boys up and oh lord is it loud.  Definitely going to need to replace the fans that are in there.