Eco Posted April 1, 2009 Share Posted April 1, 2009 I recently upgraded all my home infrastructure to Gigabit I also got tired from my old unraid build which it takes 12 mb/sec parity check It says that 2000min is needed for a complete check (but of course it takes less) My current configuration is: (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=3076.0) Asus TUV4X (Revision 1006 Beta 002 Official Bios) Tualatin 1200Mhz Celeron CPU 512MB RAM 1xPCI vga card 2xSilicon (4xSATA) 1xVia (3xSATA+1PATA) 1xGBit Nic (USR) 5x1,5TB Seagate (one of them as parity) 2x500GB WD 1x120GB WD (cache) I have already bought an Abit AB-9 Pro and i am going to have 9x1,5TB Seagate drives I am going the same tower and PSU (650W) My questions are: a) What cpu i am going to buy ? I want a cpu that will not be a bottleneck but also not a known power hungry/hot cpu Of course price is always a matter Got to mention that i primarily/mostly use my box as a pure unraid box (not extra services running) My first thought is for a INTEL DUAL CORE CELERON E1400 2.0GHZ LGA775 - 800 FSB - BOX in around 45 euro. But this cpu isn't in the cpu compatibility list of my Abit mobo. Anyone with success ? I also present a cpu list with prices that are available to me: INTEL DUAL CORE CELERON E1400 2.0GHZ LGA775 - 800 FSB - BOX 45E INTEL DUAL CORE CELERON E1500 2.2GHZ LGA775 - 800 FSB - BOX 55 INTEL PENTIUM DUAL CORE E2200 2.20GHZ LGA775 - 800 FSB - BOX 60 INTEL PENTIUM DUAL CORE E5200 2.50GHZ LGA775 - 800 FSB - BOX 68 INTEL PENTIUM DUAL CORE E5300 2.60GHZ LGA775 - 800 FSB - BOX 75 INTEL CORE 2 DUO E7300 2.66 GHZ LGA775 - 1066 FSB - TRAY 110 INTEL CORE 2 DUO E7400 2.80 GHZ LGA775 - 1066 FSB - BOX 120 INTEL CORE 2 DUO E7500 2.93 GHZ LGA775 - 1066 FSB - BOX 140 INTEL CORE 2 DUO E8400 3.00 GHZ LGA775 - 1333 FSB - BOX 155 Of course you are welcome to suggest any other cpu compatible with my motherboard b) How much memory? 2GB DDR2 800 is about 20 euro Thinking for 8GB. Will this help in getting the directory/files structure in my drives without spinning up all the time ? Do i have to make some extra scripting for this or its managed by unraid itself ? I also think that unraid uses extra memory for caching files and write/read them at once which is faster and better for the disks. Maybe some special kind of memory (OCZ with heat spreaders) ? c) I am thinking of having a raid 1 for parity disk using the onboard JMicron® JMB363 controller So i am going to have 2 parity disks in case of failure. Is this possible ? Will this be a bottleneck ? Is JMicron® JMB363 the right way ? d) I am thinking of using my cache disk in the 3112 onboard controller. Is this the best choice for speed ? e) Found in ebay (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2-eSATA-2-SATA-II-2-0-PCI-E-PCIE-RAID-Express-Card-K35_W0QQitemZ260293771454QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Computing_Networking_SM?hash=item260293771454&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1690|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318) Would get any benefit buying a couple of them and use them for parity (maybe in raid 1 mode) or cache disk ? (Not thinking for now to expand to more than 9 drives) I know .... a lot of questions I would be happy even i get an answer in a few of them Any ideas for building a better unraid server around this configuration are welcome. Thank you, Dimitrios P.S. Anyone with similar build can post transfer speeds ? Reading large files, writing large files, parity check speed, cache disk speed..... Quote Link to comment
SSD Posted April 1, 2009 Share Posted April 1, 2009 I recently upgraded all my home infrastructure to Gigabit I also got tired from my old unraid build which it takes 12 mb/sec parity check It says that 2000min is needed for a complete check (but of course it takes less) My current configuration is: (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=3076.0) Asus TUV4X (Revision 1006 Beta 002 Official Bios) Tualatin 1200Mhz Celeron CPU 512MB RAM 1xPCI vga card 2xSilicon (4xSATA) 1xVia (3xSATA+1PATA) 1xGBit Nic (USR) 5x1,5TB Seagate (one of them as parity) 2x500GB WD 1x120GB WD (cache) I have already bought an Abit AB-9 Pro and i am going to have 9x1,5TB Seagate drives I am going the same tower and PSU (650W) My questions are: a) What cpu i am going to buy ? I want a cpu that will not be a bottleneck but also not a known power hungry/hot cpu Of course price is always a matter Got to mention that i primarily/mostly use my box as a pure unraid box (not extra services running) My first thought is for a INTEL DUAL CORE CELERON E1400 2.0GHZ LGA775 - 800 FSB - BOX in around 45 euro. But this cpu isn't in the cpu compatibility list of my Abit mobo. Anyone with success ? I also present a cpu list with prices that are available to me: INTEL DUAL CORE CELERON E1400 2.0GHZ LGA775 - 800 FSB - BOX 45E INTEL DUAL CORE CELERON E1500 2.2GHZ LGA775 - 800 FSB - BOX 55 INTEL PENTIUM DUAL CORE E2200 2.20GHZ LGA775 - 800 FSB - BOX 60 INTEL PENTIUM DUAL CORE E5200 2.50GHZ LGA775 - 800 FSB - BOX 68 INTEL PENTIUM DUAL CORE E5300 2.60GHZ LGA775 - 800 FSB - BOX 75 INTEL CORE 2 DUO E7300 2.66 GHZ LGA775 - 1066 FSB - TRAY 110 INTEL CORE 2 DUO E7400 2.80 GHZ LGA775 - 1066 FSB - BOX 120 INTEL CORE 2 DUO E7500 2.93 GHZ LGA775 - 1066 FSB - BOX 140 INTEL CORE 2 DUO E8400 3.00 GHZ LGA775 - 1333 FSB - BOX 155 Of course you are welcome to suggest any other cpu compatible with my motherboard Unless you are running addons, for normal fileserver use, most any CPU is going to work fine and yield similar performance. b) How much memory? 2GB DDR2 800 is about 20 euro Thinking for 8GB. Will this help in getting the directory/files structure in my drives without spinning up all the time ? Do i have to make some extra scripting for this or its managed by unraid itself ? I also think that unraid uses extra memory for caching files and write/read them at once which is faster and better for the disks. Maybe some special kind of memory (OCZ with heat spreaders) ? More memory is not going to speed up drive accesses, and for most, more file buffering makes no meaningful difference in performance in movie watching, parity checks, etc. Now if you are hosting torrents or using the array as a database server or something, the caching may make a bigger difference, but not for typical media use. With 2G of memory, you should have good caching and plenty to do the directory cacheing trick. It is not OOTB, but there are several posts explaining how to set this up. Faster memory can be problematic. It normally requires a voltage boost - and many motherboards don't have that feature. It is easy to screw up, and users that don't know how can wind up with dramtically SLOWER memory than had they just bought the regular / value RAM. You would do MUCH better with a faster CPU to enhance processing performance, but as previously said, processing performance will not make much of any difference. c) I am thinking of having a raid 1 for parity disk using the onboard JMicron® JMB363 controller So i am going to have 2 parity disks in case of failure. Is this possible ? Will this be a bottleneck ? Is JMicron® JMB363 the right way ? There has been some limited research on RAID-0 / RAID-1 parity drives. The negative is it won't spin down (but this is a hardware issue and you may find a solution that does sping down). The performance boost has, by and large, been disappointing, but I encourage you to search for WeeboTech's posts on this topic. A fast parity disk (like the 1.5T drives you are using) is his recommendation for increasing performance. d) I am thinking of using my cache disk in the 3112 onboard controller. Is this the best choice for speed ? Not sure what you mean by "speed". Read performance? Write performance? Parity check performance? Afer doing the basics (staying off the PCI bus, gigabit lan, cache disk, fast parity disk) your ability to influence speed is pretty limited. Keeping your disks off of the PCI bus will speed up parity checks - potentially A LOT. A cache disk improves perceived write performance. It copies the data to cache about 3x faster than to the array - but you still pay the piper overnight as it copies the data to the array. Keeping directory entries cached can mean quicker directory performance because disks won't have to spin up. Picking one PCI-e controller over another will not make any meaningful difference. SSD disks offer the potentail for much faster performance, but price and size limitations (not the mention they are not currently supported) make them a poor choice right now. e) Found in ebay (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2-eSATA-2-SATA-II-2-0-PCI-E-PCIE-RAID-Express-Card-K35_W0QQitemZ260293771454QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Computing_Networking_SM?hash=item260293771454&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1690|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318) As long as it is compatible, should be fine. Would get any benefit buying a couple of them and use them for parity (maybe in raid 1 mode) or cache disk ? (Not thinking for now to expand to more than 9 drives) Already answered. I know .... a lot of questions I would be happy even i get an answer in a few of them Any ideas for building a better unraid server around this configuration are welcome. Make sure you have sufficient cooling to keep the drives cool. Thank you, Dimitrios P.S. Anyone with similar build can post transfer speeds ? Reading large files, writing large files, parity check speed, cache disk speed..... There is a wiki benchmarks page, but do not beleive it has been maintained very well. Note that each version of unRAID seems to come with a subtle or not so subtle performance boost. The most recent (4.5b3) provides a nice boost. Comparing performance across versions will be misleading. It is part of the "normal" unRAID adoption process to try to optimize unRAID for speed. Everyone in the forums understands the desire to have unRAID be quicker particularly on write performance. As you use it more and more, you'll find that read speed is excellent and that write speed is adequate. I have been advocating a standard feature to allow you to define a true RAID-1 mirrored pair to be used as a high speed, redundant storage location. That would allow you to keep media on the array, and use the RAID-1 area for applications that need higher write performance. That is achievable today with a hardware-based RAID solution. Quote Link to comment
prostuff1 Posted April 1, 2009 Share Posted April 1, 2009 The User_Benchmarks Page has a rundown of some different systems. There are a couple Abit AB9 Pro systems listed there (one being mine). I am going to start trying to add to this database and see if I can bring it up to speed. The hard part is getting all of the information in there. If we get the Motherboard Rating System up and running we can probably use the syslogs to pull the parity speeds and stuff from. Quote Link to comment
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