Now... I just want to build Lots of Unraid server...

 

 

I just wish my wife could talk like that

 

EDIT: And actually put together a PC like that. Hubba hubba. 

hahaha

 

I've just complete the changes for tonight.  Have now 6 SATA connected (still need my HBA cards and flash them to IT mode (or LT Mode? can't remember))...

 

I plugged the server to my UPS, and i'm ready to start Screen-Pre-clear... will do a 3 pass.  (all running at same time).

 

May 5th 2014 Update

 

Hi! Just think i'll do an update to my building thread! Here it is :

 

Pre-Clearing

 

76 hours ago, I started to pre-clear 6 WD red drives (with 3 passes).  I used SCREEN to launch it and monitored with UnMenu MyMain.  It took between 75 to 79hours (depends on the drives) to do the 3 full pass of pre-clear on all of them.  no errors and everything looks fine.  It finished just this morning!

 

LSI card

 

For my Build, I choosed 2 x LSI 9240-8i PCI-e 8x Card to achieved a 20 Disks Unraid server.  I ordered them thru Ebay.  There were brand new and only 97$ each (from the same seller).  Today, both cards arrives (in 1 package).  The first think i needed to do with them was to flash them to LSI 9211-IT mode; This way, they will be faster at bootup and the disks are passthrough directly, no RAID or anything (HBA adapters).

 

I followed the instructions from that site : http://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-m1015-part-4/

 

Here is a summary :

 

Create a bootdisk USB (using Rufus on a PC, choose MS-DOS bootable).

Boot to that USB bootdisk

Type in the following exactly:

megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin

megarec -cleanflash 0

<reboot, back to USB stick >

sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin (<-- DIDN'T WORK IN MY CASE, see EFI workaround)

sas2flsh -o -sasadd 500605bxxxxxxxxx (x= numbers for SAS address) <-- DIDN'T WORK IN MY CASE, see EFI workaround

<reboot>

Done!

 

The error I obtained on the command sas2flsh was : ERROR: Failed to initialise PAL. Exiting Program.

 

EFI workaround :

 

1. Boot to BIOS, choose boot sequence to Edit Boot Order.

2. Boot to UEFI Shell

3. Mount the USB (mount fs0:)

 

Use the commands :

 

sas2flsh.efi -o -f 2118it.bin

sas2flsh.efi -o -sasadd 500605bxxxxxxxxx (x= numbers for SAS address)

Reboot, Success!

 

After flashing the LSI cards, I connected my Monoprice SAS-to-SATA cables to all drive cages.  They work great!

 

I still need the "Y" power cable to connect the 4th Drive cage, but anyway, they are empty until I finish moving my data (currently in my QNAP).  After that, I'll need to remove the 5 WD Red from the QNAP and move them to the Unraid, then pre-clear them (75hrs for 3 pass).

 

Currently, I started copying my QNAP data to the Unraid array... just when I thought it was all good, I just check and the copy failed with a error... i'll try with FTP maybe.