Hi,

 

I have 2 Highpoint RocketRaid cards (RR2220). Before I stumbled upon unRAID I was using them for a hardware RAID5, but just was not satisfied with the inflexibility when you want the maximum amount of space. 2 arrays of 6.3TB is not something you easily back up in case of a drive failure. That said I really want to get going and setup my 2 unRAID server of 15TB each (almost running out of space in my current setup).

 

The last 2 days I am fiddling around with all kinds of options and identified that the RR2220 cards are the evil ones in setting up a unRAID server. Already got some good advice in my initial thread http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=3867.0 but it seems that I need a custom kernel to get my cards going.

 

Only problem is that I have no clue how to do this. I read the WIKI on custom kernels, but this is like a foreign language to me.

 

Can someone help me out here, please??? Any other advice is also appreciated.

 

From previous above linked thread:

 

Hardware I am using:

 

MB: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R

RAM: 2GB Corsair

HDD: 16 x HD 103UJ Samsung

Highpoint Rocket RR2220 (I am planning to use this only for the SATA ports, so no RAID installed)

 

My network:

 

HTPC living room

SERVER1 downstairs (work PC's for all ripping and occasional downloads, etc.)

SERVER2 downstairs (this was build on conventional RAID, but I hope I will be able to turn this in the unRAID Server 1)

SERVER3 to come (currently already at 14TB data so server 1 will be filled in no time)

 

More info needed let me know.

 

Thanks!!

 

Rob

 

Unfortunately, I don't have a card similar to yours so I can't help you in setting it up, but hopefully can provide you with some guidance in regards to your system.

 

1.) How many drives are you planning to put in this system? (your old thread said 16 do you plan to go beyond that?)

2.) Will you be running any other SATA controllers aside from this and the onboard ICH9R and JMicron controllers?

 

In your situation I would be concerned about using an 8port PCI-X card on 32bit PCI.  The maximum bandwidth is 133 MBps for all peripherals on the PCI Bus.  Having 8 drives sharing the PCI bus is going to be very painful when it comes to running parity checks or having to rebuild a failed disk.  Before you look at any protocol overhead or other devices using the PCI bus, each drive would only have about ~16MBps of bandwidth available to them when all 8 drives are active.  To put that into context, your drive performance in the worst case scenario would be similar to or worse than that of a circa 1993-94 486 or early Pentium system hard drive using PIO Mode 4 (IDE).

 

Based upon your previous thread and the fact that 50% of your stated array would be on a PCI controller, I would wholeheartedly recommend that you consider upgrading to some PCI-E cards that would provide you with better bandwidth for your storage needs and would alleviate the crushing bottleneck you have with the 32bit 33MHz PCI bus.

 

If upgrading is an option, might i suggest looking at this card:

 

Rosewill RC-218 (4 port PCI-E x4)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132018

 

Using the Rosewill along with two cheap PCI-E X1 2port cards will give you the same amount of ports but much better bandwidth and would be tested to work with UnRAID.  I would say the main thing you have to consider would be whether the ~$100 to upgrade your storage controllers is worth saving you time, stress, and improvement in performance of your UnRAID array.

Thank you for replying PhatalOne.

 

Actually you make a good point performance wise. Never looked at in that way.

 

Yes, inital plans are to build 2 towers with 16 drives each. I have 2 Coolermaster Stackers and plan to use the 4-3 Modules already in place. I could at an considerable extra expense go for backplanes and up the capacity to 20 drives per tower. But 8 times appr. 130 EURO is not realy selling it for me. So for now I will stick with 16 drives per tower.

 

If I would sell my 2 Highpoint cards I would be better of buying the card you recommended or the Adaptec 1430 (see that this is supported by UnRaid)? The Adaptec 1430 is readily availlable where I live at a price between 80 to 100 EURO. I cannot use Newegg since the do not deliver to the Netherlands.

 

Just so I understand. Sell the Highpoint card install 2 Adaptec cards per tower and I am good to go. There will be no problems?   Need to be sure, because the Highpoint cards are only 1 month old and I don't want to burn more cash. 

 

allineedisbass,

 

I assume you already have purchased all parts for servers 1 and 2.  Have you purchased anything for server 3? 

 

Also, can you please confirm that the Highpoint cards are PCI-X?  I would hate to recommend you sell something based on a misunderstanding.

 

I am currently at work, so I will take a look at the Adaptec card and do a bit more research once I get home.