interwebtech Posted July 27, 2015 Share Posted July 27, 2015 part(s) OLD NEW CASE CM Centurion 590 w/3x 5in3 cages no change MOBO MSI 760GMA-P34(FX) (8 sata ports) Supermicro X10SL7-F (14 sata ports) MEMORY 8 GB DDR3 32 GB ECC DDR3 CPU AMD FX-6300 6-Core Intel Xeon Processor E3-1241v3 RAID Areca ARC-1231ML (12 sata ports) Areca ARC-1231ML (12 sata ports) cache 250GB SSD no change HDD 6TB parity, 37TB data 8TB parity, 39TB data parity: single 6TB parity: RAID0 8TB (2x 4TB 7200 RPM HGST) 9x 2TB 2x 4TB 1x 5TB 1x 6TB 7x 2TB 2x 4TB 1x 5TB 2x 6TB 37 TB total (7.5 TB free) 39 TB total (9.5 TB free) Essentially a motherboard/cpu swap and some re-arrangement of drives. Now the announcement of dual parity coming has thrown my short term plans into a tizzy. Other than the mobo/cpu swap, the biggest change is moving to a RAID0 volume for parity. Right now I am consolidating the contents of two aging EARS 2TB unto other disks to free up 2 slots (out of 15 HDD slots, I have 14 occupied right now, SSD is mounted inside case and 1 slot open for preclears). Plan is to move all data/cache drives to motherboard ports and use the Areca solely for the RAID0. I had done all my planning under the assumption that I didn't want to get a bigger case (add hdd slots), but rather consolidate to larger drives and stay with 15 hdd slots. Now comes the prospect of dual parity... which would mean TWO RAID0 volumes (4 disks). I have been eyeing this case for the upgrade but decided to hold off for now. With the addition of another 5in3 cage I will gain 5 slots. Antec Twelve Hundred V3 Black Steel ATX Full Tower Gaming Case I have not bought the drives for RAID0 yet (thank goodness for laziness lol) so I don't have to change anything yet. In a couple days I will have completed the removal of 2x 2TB drives so slots will be ready. Link to comment
HellDiverUK Posted July 27, 2015 Share Posted July 27, 2015 Surely P+Q parity is more like RAID1? Why are you thinking a 8TB RAID0 is appropriate? Or am I missing something? Link to comment
interwebtech Posted July 27, 2015 Author Share Posted July 27, 2015 RAID0 was planned before the announcement of dual parity. The planned raid volume was to increase performance of parity related processes. That and I have a RAID card just sitting there doing nothing. lol Link to comment
tr0910 Posted July 27, 2015 Share Posted July 27, 2015 I have an Areca, and am using it to find a home for the old 2tb drives. Our new and larger data disks are demanding new and larger parity disks. But the Areca can create a Raid-0 parity with a bunch of older disks. In your case imagine using the Areca and having 4x2tb = 8tb parity Then since unRaid 6.2 will allow dual P+Q parity, you can configure another 4x2tb = 8tb Q parity. Now 8 of those old 2tb drives are used and in a way that doesn't slow down your server. Since your Areca is only 12 ports, you could find another 4x2tb drives and create an 8tb data disk. 12 - 2TB disk are used up and according to unRaid you have 8tb parity drives and can really expand your server. I am good with 4tb parity today, but if I migrate to 6 or 8 tb drives, I wonder if this is the best way to use a bunch of those old 2tb drives that are still working fine. Link to comment
CHBMB Posted July 27, 2015 Share Posted July 27, 2015 I have an Areca, and am using it to find a home for the old 2tb drives. Our new and larger data disks are demanding new and larger parity disks. But the Areca can create a Raid-0 parity with a bunch of older disks. In your case imagine using the Areca and having 4x2tb = 8tb parity Then since unRaid 6.2 will allow dual P+Q parity, you can configure another 4x2tb = 8tb Q parity. Now 8 of those old 2tb drives are used and in a way that doesn't slow down your server. Since your Areca is only 12 ports, you could find another 4x2tb drives and create an 8tb data disk. 12 - 2TB disk are used up and according to unRaid you have 8tb parity drives and can really expand your server. I am good with 4tb parity today, but if I migrate to 6 or 8 tb drives, I wonder if this is the best way to use a bunch of those old 2tb drives that are still working fine. I read this and my first thought was "What a great idea" as I have a fair few old 2TB drives lying around, but then I started to get a bit concerned about having 8 old drives as my parity... I suppose they're "tried and tested" but I worry that they're actually "tired and tested" Link to comment
tr0910 Posted July 27, 2015 Share Posted July 27, 2015 Everybody has a different tolerence for risk. Since my servers are all backed up, and this is still a test server, I can do what I like. And if we get P+Q parity, I have less concern with the old 2tb drives. And if it works fine, I'm good with this process. Link to comment
CHBMB Posted July 27, 2015 Share Posted July 27, 2015 Everybody has a different tolerence for risk. Since my servers are all backed up, and this is still a test server, I can do what I like. And if we get P+Q parity, I have less concern with the old 2tb drives. And if it works fine, I'm good with this process. Fair point and it's probably worth pointing out I haven't really got my head around all the new planned parity stuff.. Link to comment
tr0910 Posted July 27, 2015 Share Posted July 27, 2015 Fair point and it's probably worth pointing out I haven't really got my head around all the new planned parity stuff.. And also fair to note that since Tom only let the "dual parity" cat out of the bag yesterday, non of us know how well it's going to work. Link to comment
garycase Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 Reed-Solomon is a VERY tried and tested error correction mechanism. I wrote Reed-Solomon routines for exactly that over two decades ago (nearly 3 in fact). I have no doubt the UnRAID implementation will work just fine. Note that it's not actually a "2nd parity" mechanism ... but the semantics don't really matter. What's important is simply that UnRAID will now be able to sustain two drive failures with no data loss. Whether those "drives" are real or RAID arrays doesn't matter. As for the upgrade noted here ... since none of the data drives are > 6TB, one possibility for the near term is to simply use a pair of 6TB drives as the two "parity" drives, instead of the 2-drive array. That won't increase the drive count at all -- although your parity drive performance will be somewhat lower than it would with RAID-0 arrays. Link to comment
tr0910 Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 Reed-Solomon is a VERY tried and tested error correction mechanism...... Yes it is. But we have to integrate it into unRaid. Given Tom's confidence that it is an easy fit into 6.2, I am hopeful that we have this by Christmas. But things can always go wrong..... Link to comment
garycase Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 Reed-Solomon is a VERY tried and tested error correction mechanism...... Yes it is. But we have to integrate it into unRaid. Given Tom's confidence that it is an easy fit into 6.2, I am hopeful that we have this by Christmas. But things can always go wrong..... Not a problem ==> Tom has assured us that ... ... I always write bug-free code :) Link to comment
interwebtech Posted July 28, 2015 Author Share Posted July 28, 2015 Hardware showed up early so I jumped right in to make the motherboard switch. Ran into a bunch of issues and need some help. First off the Areca ARC-1231ML covers the onboard sata connectors (great placement Supermicro). Not a problem, can use just the board connectors. Loaded it all up but can't seem to get it to POST. Sitting at "System initializing..." with a "15" in bottom right corner. Google turns up that its memory related so I tried all possible combinations 1, 2, 4 DIMMS installed, same error. The RAM is supposed to be compatible. Tried unhooking everything except CPU & RAM (no hdds, usb stick, nothing). Same error. Logged into IPMI and the hardware listed there is wrong for the RAM. Only shows one bank and claims its Kingston. Max Capable Speed: 1067 MHz Operating Speed: 1067 MHz Size: 2048 MB Serial No.: 37640512 Part No.: 9JSF25672AZ-1G4D1 Manufacturer: Kingston This is what I have, its Crucial: http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B008EMA5VU?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00 Link to comment
Leifgg Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 Sitting at "System initializing..." with a "15" in bottom right corner. Google turns up that its memory related so I tried all possible combinations 1, 2, 4 DIMMS installed, same error. The RAM is supposed to be compatible. Tried unhooking everything except CPU & RAM (no hdds, usb stick, nothing). Same error. Logged into IPMI and the hardware listed there is wrong for the RAM. Only shows one bank and claims its Kingston. Hade a similar problem with my MB (error 15), worked ok with 2 x 8 GB but couldn’t get it to work with 4 x 8 GB. Two banks didn’t work at all. Found out that a few pins in the CPU socket had been bent when I inserted the CPU, was able to readjust them and everything came alive again. Link to comment
garycase Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 Ouch! Hope it's not a bent pin issue -- perhaps just a not-exactly-aligned CPU. I'd try removing and re-inserting the CPU ... have a VERY close look at the socket when you do that to see if anything looks awry. The memory SHOULD work, so hopefully that will resolve the issue. As for the Areca card covering some of the SATA ports (looking at the board, I presume it's covering one bank of the LSI ports ... from the pictures on Newegg, it looks like if you used right-angle SATA connectors for those ports they'd be "under" the long card => have you tried that? Link to comment
interwebtech Posted July 28, 2015 Author Share Posted July 28, 2015 Several pins looked slightly awry, put them back in line as best I could (do NOT like this socket type... give me old fashioned pins on the CPU side lol). No change. Tried pulling board and starting outside the case to eliminate potential short in a standoff, vendor told me in email to try pulling the battery. All for naught. Reached my frustration threshold late this morning and began the RMA process (thank goodness for Amazon no questions asked). Put the old guts back in and started her right up. Maybe another day but this upgrade was a FAIL. Link to comment
garycase Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 Unfortunate experience ... that's a very nice motherboard, but QC these days on electronics parts often seems to be lacking. Are you getting a replacement? ... or has this experience soured you on upgrading for a while? Link to comment
interwebtech Posted July 28, 2015 Author Share Posted July 28, 2015 Kind of soured me on it to be truthful. What I have is adequate for my needs so maybe this was an omen to be grateful for what I have. LOL Link to comment
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