I am currently getting 100% CPU utilization during parity checks and sometimes it won't handle a write to the array.

Motherboard url: http://www.jetway.com.tw/jw/motherboard_view.asp?productid=817&proname=HZ03-GT-V2

 

I don't know what's fastest there as I avoid the headaches of the slower AMD cpus like the plague, but they have Phenom 2 X6, X4, X3, and X2s listed. I think those are all faster than the Semperon and Athlon 2 X2, X3 and X4. Also says it supports AM3 series. I think thats the socket layout.

 

Should work with any Socket AM3 Phenom II, Athlon II, or Sempron.

 

I'm not familiar with all of the AMD CPU's, but I'd think the X6 Phenoms are probably the fastest of this group.

 

 

Thanks, I think I found a Phenom II-6 at $89 that might help.  Next problem is sorting out the RAM, it was upgraded to 8GB 4 years ago and I just assumed it was ok, however unRAID's dashboard says it only has 64MB so I suspect I have some tinkering to do in the BIOS.  That would explain why cachedirs never seemed to work in this box

It would, of course, cost more ... but have you considered just trashing the motherboard in favor of a new Haswell board and an i5?    That would notably outperform the Phenom, work fine with your DDR3 memory, and use a lot less power 

As a side note, any time you are looking at buying/replacing a CPU it's worth checking out http://www.cpubenchmark.net/

 

This site rates every CPU on the planet and allows you to compare relative performance between CPUs to understand how much faster a given CPU is, and whether it's worth the cost increase. It takes all the guess work out of buying a new CPU as you will know exactly how much faster it is than your current one (or others you are comparing against).

 

Any time I am buying a CPU I set a rough budget and then use this site to determine which CPU to purchase. the only thing it doesn't show you is CPU feature sets, so I use ark.intel.com for that (since I only buy Intel). AMD likely has a similar site to detail CPU features.

 

This may also help with garycase's suggestion. If you can find a Haswell cpu/board that gives good bang for the buck it may be a worthwhile investment.

With Skylake out now, the Haswell motherboards are priced very attractively.  You can get a nice Haswell board with 6 SATA ports and a couple of PCIe x16 slots for $80 ... e.g.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157512

 

You already have DDR3 RAM, so it's just a matter of how much you're willing to spend on the CPU ...

 

An i7-4790K would give you a PassMark of 11239 -- more than double an AMD Phenom X6 -- but would cost a bit over $300

 

An i5-4690K has a PassMark of 7736 -- about 50% higher than most AMD Phenom X6's (they range from 4752 to 5867) -- and cost ~ $230

 

An i5-4430 scores 6263 on PassMark -- still above any Phenom X6 -- and costs ~ $175

 

And note that all of the Haswell CPU's have 84-88w TDP's (the i7 is 88, the others are 84), while the X6 Phenoms are 125w processors.

 

 

 

I did think about changing the motherboard, but need to get my head around all the work involved

Actually very little is involved.    Since you're running UnRAID, there's no OS reinstall involved.    Essentially, you simply swap the motherboard and you're done 

I ordered an Athlon II processor that clocks about 6 times faster for $45 delivered.

 

I'm not German, but they do have a saying... "Better is the enemy of good" and I really can't be bothered to do much more than swap the CPU and check the BIOS to see why it's only using 64MB of the 8GB in there.  Even that is a pain in the a?se as I run them headless.

OK, I didn't check the BIOS for RAM, but I did pull out a stick of RAM (it has 2 of 4GB sticks installed) and I got a result showing 32MB installed.

 

Attached are 3 screen shots, Tower2 with a single 4GB stick, Tower2 with 2 of 4GB sticks in (8GB RAM) and Tower1 with 8GB RAM.

 

Can anyone tell me why Tower2 is only showing 32MB/64MB whilst Tower1 shows 8200MB when in the 8GB case, both servers have 8GB RAM installed?

 

Is unRAID only seeing 64MB? this might explain why cachedirs doesn't seem to work on Tower2?

I think that is just a bug with your MB, and you'd probably want to talk to limetech and provide logs/sensor info/etc to help narrow it down.

 

See if anyone else using that board is seeing a similar issue?

 

I'm pretty sure that if you only were truly using 64MB of ram, you'd really notice.

 

Is tower2 on 6.1 yet?

I think that is just a bug with your MB, and you'd probably want to talk to limetech and provide logs/sensor info/etc to help narrow it down.

 

See if anyone else using that board is seeing a similar issue?

 

I'm pretty sure that if you only were truly using 64MB of ram, you'd really notice.

 

Is tower2 on 6.1 yet?

 

Probably just a display bug as right above it "Allocated: 7955MB" indicates 8GB of RAM.

Both systems are on 6.1.1

 

Is there any way I can prove it is seeing/using all 8GB?

Both systems are on 6.1.1

 

Is there any way I can prove it is seeing/using all 8GB?

 

Remote in with putty/etc.

 

log in, and type top, it'll show you how much you have, how much is allocated/etc.

Top shows the full 8GB, so I guess it's just a bug in unRAID