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Questions installing controller card


skank

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Witch sata expander to buy for my unraid?

 

This https://azerty.nl/0-3388-565145/supermicro-add-on-card-aoc-sas2lp-mv8-controller-voor-opslag-8-kanaal-sata-600-sas-600-mbps-pci-express-x8.html?channel_code=40

 

or this http://www.benl.ebay.be/itm/Supermicro-AOC-SASLP-MV8-8-Port-SAS-SATA-300MB-s-PCI-e-Controller-Card-/151663878200?hash=item234fdf2038  which is noticealy cheaper, but these say 300 MB/S while the other one says 600 mbps

 

OR

 

 

http://www.benl.ebay.be/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=IBM+M1015&_sacat=0    and flash to IT

 

Persons says that ibm iss better, but why? in my opinion if flash is needed, its not better

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No offense meant but when you said SATA expander I thought of this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA24G28M7361

 

What you are linking to are what I would call controller cards.  I have several of the SASLP-MV8 cards but they are used sparingly now.  In unRAID I'm using an IBM1015s/Dell H310s (off eBay) connected to the SAS Expanders I linked to with my unRAID servers now.

 

The SAS2LP-MV8 should allow faster access to your data than the SASLP-MV8 card but since I don't have any of the '2's I cannot tell you how much or how they work with unRAID.  Also the last time I used my SASLP-MV8 cards with unRAID was with 5.0beta something.  Never used it with unRAID 6.0.

 

Sorry I can't be of much help.

 

As to why the IBM1015s are better.  They are faster and allow connection to a SAS Expander like I linked.  The SASLP-MV8s don't allow that and the SAS2LP-MV8s may not either but should be on par to the IBM1015 speed wise for just drives connected to it.  I would think anyway.

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Can’t speak about the IBM because never used it, as for both Supermicro:

 

SASLP – works great with Unraid but a fully loaded card will be bus limited to around 75Mb/s during parity check, parity sync and disk rebuilds, although sata 300 during normal write / read operations to the array works at full speed, limited by your network / disk speeds.

 

SAS2LP – there’s an issue with this card and Unraid V6, parity check will be slower than it should, depending on your configuration, on a fully loaded card, anything from 30/40Mb/s to 90/100Mb/s, parity sync and disk rebuilds should be faster than SASLP, read / write from array same as SASLP.

 

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No offense meant but when you said SATA expander I thought of this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA24G28M7361

 

What you are linking to are what I would call controller cards.  I have several of the SASLP-MV8 cards but they are used sparingly now.  In unRAID I'm using an IBM1015s/Dell H310s (off eBay) connected to the SAS Expanders I linked to with my unRAID servers now.

 

The SAS2LP-MV8 should allow faster access to your data than the SASLP-MV8 card but since I don't have any of the '2's I cannot tell you how much or how they work with unRAID.  Also the last time I used my SASLP-MV8 cards with unRAID was with 5.0beta something.  Never used it with unRAID 6.0.

 

Sorry I can't be of much help.

 

As to why the IBM1015s are better.  They are faster and allow connection to a SAS Expander like I linked.  The SASLP-MV8s don't allow that and the SAS2LP-MV8s may not either but should be on par to the IBM1015 speed wise for just drives connected to it.  I would think anyway.

 

whats the difference between this controller and the one you link to (sas expander)

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Can’t speak about the IBM because never used it, as for both Supermicro:

 

SASLP – works great with Unraid but a fully loaded card will be bus limited to around 75Mb/s during parity check, parity sync and disk rebuilds, although sata 300 during normal write / read operations to the array works at full speed, limited by your network / disk speeds.

 

SAS2LP – there’s an issue with this card and Unraid V6, parity check will be slower than it should, depending on your configuration, on a fully loaded card, anything from 30/40Mb/s to 90/100Mb/s, parity sync and disk rebuilds should be faster than SASLP, read / write from array same as SASLP.

 

So SASLP is good, but SAS2LP has issues with unraid 6? so a no go?

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It depends how important is to you the parity check speed, that’s the only issue with the SAS2LP, and one that hopefully will be fixed soon, but if you get a really slow speed and have big disks it can be annoying, in one of my servers I get 40mb/s, it takes more than 24 hours to complete a parity check, during that time I can’t really copy anything to the server or it will be very slow.

 

Although it works well can’t really say I recommend the SASLP, especially if you’re going to load it with 6 to 8 disks, because it’s only PCI-e 4x it will be limited during parity checks / syncs and disk rebuilds.

 

To get around the SAS2LP issue I’m using the SASLP with only 4 disks and some old Adaptecs 1430SA with another 4, this way my parity checks start at around 140Mb/s and it finishes during the night.

 

Maybe someone else can recommend another controller.

 

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still doubting

 

other stuff in server is :

 

-ASUS M4A78LT-M - Moederbord - micro ATX - AMD 760G -

Socket AM3 - UDMA133, SATA-300 (RAID) - Gigabit

Ethernet - video - High Def

 

-Processor - 1 x AMD Athlon II X2 240e / 2.8 GHz Energy

Efficient - Socket AM3 - L2 2 MB ( 2 x 1 MB ) - Box

 

-Corsair CX430 - power supply

 

-Kingston ValueRAM - Memory - 4 GB : 2 x 2 GB - DIMM

240-pins - DDR3 - 1333 MHz / PC3-10600 - CL9 - 1.5 V -

niet-gebufferd - ni

 

SO if i would decide to go supermicro

 

do i slow things down with saslp? Cause to me, my other stuff is max 300 anyway? Or am i wrong?

 

Or if i would take the ibm m1015, would my other specs not slow it down?

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No offense meant but when you said SATA expander I thought of this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA24G28M7361

 

What you are linking to are what I would call controller cards.  I have several of the SASLP-MV8 cards but they are used sparingly now.  In unRAID I'm using an IBM1015s/Dell H310s (off eBay) connected to the SAS Expanders I linked to with my unRAID servers now.

 

The SAS2LP-MV8 should allow faster access to your data than the SASLP-MV8 card but since I don't have any of the '2's I cannot tell you how much or how they work with unRAID.  Also the last time I used my SASLP-MV8 cards with unRAID was with 5.0beta something.  Never used it with unRAID 6.0.

 

Sorry I can't be of much help.

 

As to why the IBM1015s are better.  They are faster and allow connection to a SAS Expander like I linked.  The SASLP-MV8s don't allow that and the SAS2LP-MV8s may not either but should be on par to the IBM1015 speed wise for just drives connected to it.  I would think anyway.

 

whats the difference between this controller and the one you link to (sas expander)

The SAS expander allows you to connect more drives to a single controller.  I have my SAS expander connected to my IBM1015 controller.  With a single line connection between the two cards leaves enough other connectors free to give me a 24 drive server off of a single IBM1015 and SAS expander.

 

Here is how it is all connected:

IBM1015 has 2 SFF-8087 connectors that will control 4 devices each.  The SAS expander has 6 SFF-8087 connectors that connect either to drives or the controller card(s) used to control it.  One of the connectors on the IBM1015 is connected with a SFF-8087 to SFF-8087 cable to the SAS expander.  The remaining SFF-8087 connector on the IBM1015 goes to 4 drives.  The remaining 5 SFF-8087 connectors on the SAS expander go to 20 drives.  So I can have 4 drives connect directly to the controller and 20 drives connected to the SAS expander.  The thing to remember here is that a SAS expander will not work by itself you need a controller card connected to it.  It just expands the number of drives the controller is able to support at one time.  I use them because with ESXi and and unRAID VM I wanted to use a single PCIe slot to control an upto 24 drive unRAID array and leave all the other PCIe slots for other VMs.

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Looking purely at theoretical speed/bandwidth:

 

- Your motherboard is a PCIe 2.0 motherboard with an x16 slot.

- PCIe 2.0 gives 500MB/s per lane.

- The AOC-SASLP is an x4 card, so you'll have a maximum of 2 GB/s throughput using it on a PCIe 2.0 motherboard.

- Current HD technology tends to max out around 125 MB/s sustained throughput, so you should have sufficient bandwidth on a PCIe 2.0 motherboard for all 8 drives on an AOC-SASLP.

 

The AOC-SAS2LP and IBM M1015 are x8 cards with twice the theoretical bandwidth of the AOC-SASLP.  Still, the SASLP should be sufficient for up to 8 spinners and if there is a significant cost difference would be worth trying.

 

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Other important thing

 

Do i need SFF8087 to 4x SATA cables?

Or can i connect the drives straight away to sata?

With any of the cards you listed SASLP-MV8, SAS2LP-MV8 or LSI based card all use SFF-8087 connector's so you will need a SFF-8087 to 4x SATA cables.  If you are pluging into the drives themselves or to SATA plugs at least then you need the Forward Breakout cables.  If you have a case that has SFF-8087 connectors (like a norco-4224) then a SFF-8087 to SFF-8087 would be needed.  The only time you want Reverse Breakout cables is if you are going from MB SATA ports to a SFF-8087 connector on a drive cage.
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The SASLP is 4x PCI-e 1.0, max bandwidth is 1Gb/s, in my experience with 8 disks parity check is at around 75Mb/s, so real world max is about 600/650 Mb/s.

 

Note that like I said before this will only limit parity check, sync and disk rebuilds, read and write operations to the array will be limited by disk or network speed.

 

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Looking purely at theoretical speed/bandwidth:

 

- Your motherboard is a PCIe 2.0 motherboard with an x16 slot.

- PCIe 2.0 gives 500MB/s per lane.

- The AOC-SASLP is an x4 card, so you'll have a maximum of 2 GB/s throughput using it on a PCIe 2.0 motherboard.

- Current HD technology tends to max out around 125 MB/s sustained throughput, so you should have sufficient bandwidth on a PCIe 2.0 motherboard for all 8 drives on an AOC-SASLP.

 

The AOC-SAS2LP and IBM M1015 are x8 cards with twice the theoretical bandwidth of the AOC-SASLP.  Still, the SASLP should be sufficient for up to 8 spinners and if there is a significant cost difference would be worth trying.

 

I already have 5 data +1 parity

So with the controller i can add another 8 max

i wont do that

max will be 12 disks i think in total

 

So what do you suggest?

 

Buy the saslp with max 300      (50 euro with cables)

or get the ibm m1015 max 600 (or the sas2lp which has problems in unraid 6) (both +- 140 euro without cables)

 

with my setup?

 

 

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If it were me, given the price difference and your hardware I'd try the SASLP.  I assume you can get rid of it on eBay if it doesn't work out...

 

BTW, I don't want to imply that everyone is having broad problems with the SAS2LP under unRAID 6.  It's working just fine for lots of hardware configs.  Given my experience, I just think the LSI based cards are a better choice for unRAID if you need an x8 card.  It appears to me that an x4 card will work for you, though, and would be a lot cheaper - so why not try?

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Ordered the saslp

Very curious.

Is there some sort of install procedure?

Cause i want do upgrade from unraid 5 to 6. Also.

+ i want to install my cache disk again.

I removed my cache disk cause all my sata ports were full.

I have 5 data +1 parity now.

 

Is it ok like this?

 

Turn off server

Plug in controller

Immediately plug in cache on first sata of controller

Leave data and parity disk on sata ports of mobo

Turn on

See if everything is ok.

Then update to unraid 6?

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