SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SL7-F-O

[rajsri]

Hello,

 

I am planning to use Intel G3220 processor with SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SL7-F-O

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182821

My question is can I use the 8 SAS2 (6Gbps) ports via LSI 2308 to attached HDDs for unRaid? so, can this board be used for 14 HDDs in total?

Thanks!

[garycase]

That chip's used on several LSI controllers ... and they work fine with UnRAID, so I'd certainly expect the implementation on this board will work as well.

 

Nice board by the way 

[Ford Prefect]

I *think* the LSI on board needs to be reflashed to IT as it comes with IR as stock....easy, see: http://www.napp-it.org/doc/manuals/flash_x9srh-7tf_it.pdf

[garycase]

I suspect that's likely, since the LSI chips are the same on both boards.

 

[rajsri]

Thanks everyone. I just ordered the motherboard. Where can I download the IT firmware for this motherboard? Can I use the same link from the PDF, which points to ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/driver/SAS/LSI/2308/Firmware/IT/

[garycase]

I'd think that's the correct download.

 

Post back when you get this installed and setup up.  Definitely interested in the performance you get with that board -- and confirmation that the LSI controller works fine with the IT flash.

 

[spylex]

Hello! I have this motherboard also. I also added a SM AOC-SASLP-MV8 and i am afraid to say it is much faster than the onboard LSI.

 

I am not sure if i have to flash this IT mode firmware, can you let me know if you've done it ok?

 

Other than that, i didn't use the onboard SATA (non LSI) ports in unRAID because ESXi doesn't let me forward them properly and i didn't want to go with XEN just yet.

 

Other than that it's fast!

 

Also, my thread is just here... http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=27800.0

[spylex]

Well, i've done IT mode, i ran the included file and didn't know what to do when it asked me for the 9 digits after flashing but it works.

 

Just bout 50% slower than the AOC card

[Ford Prefect]

Thanks everyone. I just ordered the motherboard. Where can I download the IT firmware for this motherboard? Can I use the same link from the PDF, which points to ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/driver/SAS/LSI/2308/Firmware/IT/

 

...for completeness...the FW-location and procedure is addressed in the SM FAQ: http://www.supermicro.com/support/faqs/faq.cfm?faq=16810

[garycase]

Just bout 50% slower than the AOC card

 

That is, of course, disappointing.  Just for completeness in this analysis, however, did you measure this using the SAME drives?    If not, what drives (make/model/size) were connected to the LSI ports and which ones to the MV8 card?

 

[spylex]

cache + drives 1-3 are on the AOC, the rest on SLI. Notice the reads.

 

[garycase]

cache + drives 1-3 are on the AOC, the rest on SLI. Notice the reads.

 

The read count has nothing to do with the speed of the interface !!    And it's not at all uncommon for widely varying read counts during a parity check -- this has to do with the buffering in the drives.  Those counts are completely useless for measuring interface speeds.

 

[spylex]

But even when i switch drives around it still shows a lot higher read count for any drives on the AOC, which made me assume it was reading at a higher speed on that interface alone?

[garycase]

If you mean it's showing more writes on the AOC, that's NOT an indication of speed => it's an indication of the way parity checks are working with the two controllers ... the LSI is buffering better, so there are fewer write requests needed to get the SAME amount of data.

 

Do this:

 

Clear all stats (so all read/write counts are zero).

 

Now start a parity check.    ALL drives at now reading EXACTLY the same amount of data -- but you'll see that the number of write requests can vary significantly.    This has NOTHING to do with the speed of the controllers.

 

[garycase]

Read this thread -- note in particular Tom's (Limetech) comments:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=d335a3793d8a2c2b549dacf35ff22208&topic=27893.msg246820#msg246820

 

 

This data is from one of my comments in that thread:

 

When I ran a complete parity check -- with six IDENTICAL drives all on the SAME controller, my final numbers for Reads were 21,127,908 for the parity drive; with the data drives varying from 20,635,159 and 41,340,143.

 

[garycase]

Bottom line:  If your comments about the onboard LSI controller being slower than the AOC-SASLP-MV8 are based on the read counts during parity checks, you're absolutely WRONG.

 

In fact, I'd expect exactly the opposite.

 

[spylex]

Bottom line:  If your comments about the onboard LSI controller being slower than the AOC-SASLP-MV8 are based on the read counts during parity checks, you're absolutely WRONG.

 

In fact, I'd expect exactly the opposite.

 

Then i am wrong My lack of knowledge to blame then. And you were right, after parity check, disks on the SASLP had 8879473 reads vs 5241134 on the LSI. Not sure why.

 

I woke up and the server is offline. Had to manually take out and plug back in the network port for IPMI and then:

 

[spylex]

Also i did not do the AOC hack as everything was detected fine. I have now applied the hack and running stable so far...

[rajsri]

Hello,

I received MBD-X10SL7-F-O board and just finished replacing it in my unRaid server. Everything went smooth. I followed the instructions mentioned by Ford Perfect to change the LSI's firmware to IT mode.

I am up and running now, doing parity check. Once parity check is complete, I shall replace the parity drive with a 4TB one. Will post my results back here. Thanks!

[sparklyballs]

i'm in the "considering options" phase of a new unraid build as i've outgrown my current build.

This particular board looks very promising as it would mean me needing only one ibm m1015 card (or would the aoc card be a better option, if it's sourceable here in the uk) to give me 20 drives in a norco 4220 case.

I'm a bit confused about the various cabling required though. this board says sas2.0 x8 ports. what cables would be needed to hook up to the backplanes of the norco ?

[rajsri]

i'm in the "considering options" phase of a new unraid build as i've outgrown my current build.

This particular board looks very promising as it would mean me needing only one ibm m1015 card (or would the aoc card be a better option, if it's sourceable here in the uk) to give me 20 drives in a norco 4220 case.

I'm a bit confused about the various cabling required though. this board says sas2.0 x8 ports. what cables would be needed to hook up to the backplanes of the norco ?

 

You would need normal SATA cables. No need of any special SAS cables. I just installed this board.

[rajsri]

I don't want to divert this thread, but quick question. I replaced my Parity drive with a 4TB one and did parity sync and sometime after the sync process crossed 95%, the webpage stopped responding as if the server is offline. I waited more than 5 hours (when it said 1hr remaining) I used console command "reboot" to restart the server and then once the server came back on-line, it said the array is valid but "parity check never done" (something like that). Do you think the parity sync completed successfully? Is there any log file that I can look for? if this question is more complicated, I shall post it in appropriate thread. Thanks.

[garycase]

If it shows there was no parity check done, then it didn't complete.    Run it again.

 

[rajsri]

Everything is good with the setup now. The parity drive is now a 4TB one. Planning to add another 4TB drive to the setup. unRAID is running fine with this board. I did not notice any issues.