JimPhreak Posted October 25, 2015 Share Posted October 25, 2015 Is there any way to add disks to my unRAID array that are attached to my motherboard (SuperMicro X10SDV-TLN4F) SATA ports in addition to the disks I have attached to my PCI passed through HBA (M1015)? I'm just wondering if I can get more than 8 disks to show up in my unRAID VM or without buying a SAS expander. Quote Link to comment
sureguy Posted October 25, 2015 Share Posted October 25, 2015 That should work fine Quote Link to comment
JimPhreak Posted October 25, 2015 Author Share Posted October 25, 2015 That should work fine Well the reason I'm asking is that the two drives I have attached to my on board SATA ports don't show up in my unRAID VM though I did confirm the are detected in the BIOS. Quote Link to comment
Squid Posted October 25, 2015 Share Posted October 25, 2015 That should work fine Well the reason I'm asking is that the two drives I have attached to my on board SATA ports don't show up in my unRAID VM though I did confirm the are detected in the BIOS. Not that I run ESXi, but presumably you'd also have to pass the mobo ports through also. Quote Link to comment
JimPhreak Posted October 25, 2015 Author Share Posted October 25, 2015 That should work fine Well the reason I'm asking is that the two drives I have attached to my on board SATA ports don't show up in my unRAID VM though I did confirm the are detected in the BIOS. Not that I run ESXi, but presumably you'd also have to pass the mobo ports through also. Yea I figured that but can't do that since my ESXi boot drive is attached to the onboard controller. Quote Link to comment
Squid Posted October 25, 2015 Share Posted October 25, 2015 That should work fine Well the reason I'm asking is that the two drives I have attached to my on board SATA ports don't show up in my unRAID VM though I did confirm the are detected in the BIOS. Not that I run ESXi, but presumably you'd also have to pass the mobo ports through also. Yea I figured that but can't do that since my ESXi boot drive is attached to the onboard controller. Other options I can think of off the top of my head (once again knowing zero about ESXi). - Pass through the onboard ports, but boot ESXI from a USB hard drive - Add a cheapie SATA controller, boot from it and pass through the onboard ports. Quote Link to comment
BobPhoenix Posted October 25, 2015 Share Posted October 25, 2015 With ESXi you will likely only be able to use a Drive connected to a MB port if you RDM the drive to the VM. Most MB controllers on newer MBs are only visible to ESXi as a single controller and you cannot pass it through to a VM because then ESXi would loose its data store drive. Quote Link to comment
BobPhoenix Posted October 25, 2015 Share Posted October 25, 2015 Other options I can think of off the top of my head (once again knowing zero about ESXi). - Pass through the onboard ports, but boot ESXI from a USB hard drive - Add a cheapie SATA controller, boot from it and pass through the onboard ports. Far as I know you cannot use USB hard drive as an ESXi data store drive. You might be able to add a cheapie SATA controller but I suspect it would only be useable if you can boot from the add in card. If you cannot boot from the add in card I suspect ESXi will not be able to use it for a Data Store drive. Quote Link to comment
JimPhreak Posted October 25, 2015 Author Share Posted October 25, 2015 With ESXi you will likely only be able to use a Drive connected to a MB port if you RDM the drive to the VM. Most MB controllers on newer MBs are only visible to ESXi as a single controller and you cannot pass it through to a VM because then ESXi would loose its data store drive. RDM the drive? Quote Link to comment
JimPhreak Posted October 25, 2015 Author Share Posted October 25, 2015 Other options I can think of off the top of my head (once again knowing zero about ESXi). - Pass through the onboard ports, but boot ESXI from a USB hard drive - Add a cheapie SATA controller, boot from it and pass through the onboard ports. Far as I know you cannot use USB hard drive as an ESXi data store drive. You might be able to add a cheapie SATA controller but I suspect it would only be useable if you can boot from the add in card. If you cannot boot from the add in card I suspect ESXi will not be able to use it for a Data Store drive. I think he meant use a USB flash drive as the ESXi boot drive. I just really don't want to have to reinstall ESXi as I had to do a decent amount of customizations to get some of my hardware (M.2 drive, NICs) to play nice with it. But in regards to adding an expansion card, I don't have any more PCI slot. My board is a Mini-ITX board and the only PCI expansion slot is taken by my M1015 HBA. Quote Link to comment
sureguy Posted October 25, 2015 Share Posted October 25, 2015 That should work fine Well the reason I'm asking is that the two drives I have attached to my on board SATA ports don't show up in my unRAID VM though I did confirm the are detected in the BIOS. Sorry, missed the fact that you're running under esxi Quote Link to comment
JimPhreak Posted October 25, 2015 Author Share Posted October 25, 2015 That should work fine Well the reason I'm asking is that the two drives I have attached to my on board SATA ports don't show up in my unRAID VM though I did confirm the are detected in the BIOS. Sorry, missed the fact that you're running under esxi You missed it in the Virtualizing unRAID forum? It's ok I'll give you a pass . Quote Link to comment
sureguy Posted October 25, 2015 Share Posted October 25, 2015 That should work fine Well the reason I'm asking is that the two drives I have attached to my on board SATA ports don't show up in my unRAID VM though I did confirm the are detected in the BIOS. Sorry, missed the fact that you're running under esxi You missed it in the Virtualizing unRAID forum? It's ok I'll give you a pass . Tapatalk on mobile, doesn't show the forum name, at least not the version I am running Quote Link to comment
JimPhreak Posted October 25, 2015 Author Share Posted October 25, 2015 Looks like this is my only option. Sucks but at least I'll be able to expand up to 24 drives in the future. Intel RES2CV240 24 port 6Gb/s SATA SAS RAID Expander Card Quote Link to comment
uldise Posted October 25, 2015 Share Posted October 25, 2015 Is there any way to add disks to my unRAID array that are attached to my motherboard (SuperMicro X10SDV-TLN4F) SATA ports in addition to the disks I have attached to my PCI passed through HBA (M1015)? I'm just wondering if I can get more than 8 disks to show up in my unRAID VM or without buying a SAS expander. i think RDM is your way to go. see here for additional modifications needed: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=26790.0 i use RDM for my RAID0 array for parity and for RAID1 array for cache. Quote Link to comment
JimPhreak Posted October 25, 2015 Author Share Posted October 25, 2015 Is there any way to add disks to my unRAID array that are attached to my motherboard (SuperMicro X10SDV-TLN4F) SATA ports in addition to the disks I have attached to my PCI passed through HBA (M1015)? I'm just wondering if I can get more than 8 disks to show up in my unRAID VM or without buying a SAS expander. i think RDM is your way to go. see here for additional modifications needed: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=26790.0 i use RDM for my RAID0 array for parity and for RAID1 array for cache. Just read that thread, very interesting never knew that was possible with unRAID. So you have your cache drives configured in a RAID1 I n your board and then present that as a vmdk to unRAID to use as your cache device? That sounds ideal for me as I'm currently using two SSDs in my cache array and that way I can keep all 8 of my array disks passed through my M1015 card. Quote Link to comment
uldise Posted October 25, 2015 Share Posted October 25, 2015 Just read that thread, very interesting never knew that was possible with unRAID. So you have your cache drives configured in a RAID1 I n your board and then present that as a vmdk to unRAID to use as your cache device? That sounds ideal for me as I'm currently using two SSDs in my cache array and that way I can keep all 8 of my array disks passed through my M1015 card. Yes, i have two HDDs configured as RAID1 but with separate RAID controller that is NOT passed through to unRAID - but this does not change things at all. you can RDM drive attached to MB ports too - i have such configuration on my test server. on the minus side on RDM: spindown wont work, SMART probably wont work - depends on controller.. Quote Link to comment
JimPhreak Posted October 25, 2015 Author Share Posted October 25, 2015 Just read that thread, very interesting never knew that was possible with unRAID. So you have your cache drives configured in a RAID1 I n your board and then present that as a vmdk to unRAID to use as your cache device? That sounds ideal for me as I'm currently using two SSDs in my cache array and that way I can keep all 8 of my array disks passed through my M1015 card. Yes, i have two HDDs configured as RAID1 but with separate RAID controller that is NOT passed through to unRAID - but this does not change things at all. you can RDM drive attached to MB ports too - i have such configuration on my test server. on the minus side on RDM: spindown wont work, SMART probably wont work - depends on controller.. Well in my case I'd be using RDM for my two cache drives which I don't spin down anyway so that shouldn't be an issue for me. I will have to give this a serious look tomorrow. Quote Link to comment
uldise Posted October 25, 2015 Share Posted October 25, 2015 I will suggest another option for you - Steven had great success with dual SATA 2.5 to 3.5 RAID converter. i have another very similar device, tested with some success. see this thread and my comment for my device too: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=42740.msg413714#msg413714 if you wanna go RAID1 route, this will be very well option for you. i tried to setup this device in NOR(no RAID) mode, but then you see one disk only - tried both my Supermicro board, and M1015 too. Quote Link to comment
JimPhreak Posted October 25, 2015 Author Share Posted October 25, 2015 I will suggest another option for you - Steven had great success with dual SATA 2.5 to 3.5 RAID converter. i have another very similar device, tested with some success. see this thread and my comment for my device too: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=42740.msg413714#msg413714 if you wanna go RAID1 route, this will be very well option for you. i tried to setup this device in NOR(no RAID) mode, but then you see one disk only - tried both my Supermicro board, and M1015 too. That's an interesting option. However I'd like to avoid having to use another one of my 3.5" hot swap bays for my SSD's since right now I just have them velcro'd inside my chassis. Quote Link to comment
uldise Posted October 25, 2015 Share Posted October 25, 2015 That's an interesting option. However I'd like to avoid having to use another one of my 3.5" hot swap bays for my SSD's since right now I just have them velcro'd inside my chassis. Just looked at your case - very limited space inside, so there will be no space for such 3.5" combo.. Quote Link to comment
JimPhreak Posted October 25, 2015 Author Share Posted October 25, 2015 That's an interesting option. However I'd like to avoid having to use another one of my 3.5" hot swap bays for my SSD's since right now I just have them velcro'd inside my chassis. Just looked at your case - very limited space inside, so there will be no space for such 3.5" combo.. Actually I just moved to this case yesterday and I just remembered there is one internal spot for a 3.5" HDD under the PSU. http://www.istarusa.com/istarusa/products.php?model=D-3100HB#.Viz76p_D9nE How exactly does that RAID ensure work in terms of configuring it for RAID1 to show up in my UnRAID VM? Quote Link to comment
uldise Posted October 25, 2015 Share Posted October 25, 2015 Actually I just moved to this case yesterday and I just remembered there is one internal spot for a 3.5" HDD under the PSU. http://www.istarusa.com/istarusa/products.php?model=D-3100HB#.Viz76p_D9nE How exactly does that RAID ensure work in terms of configuring it for RAID1 to show up in my UnRAID VM? My Enermax 3203 have a small mode switch on the back side. you just switch it before power up, and then it will initialize when power up. and there is a Windows tool also for configuration.. i have not tried this utility cos i have no baremetal windows machine for testing.. when this raid drive shows up in esxi, then you make RDM, and add it to unRAID VM. Quote Link to comment
JimPhreak Posted October 25, 2015 Author Share Posted October 25, 2015 Actually I just moved to this case yesterday and I just remembered there is one internal spot for a 3.5" HDD under the PSU. http://www.istarusa.com/istarusa/products.php?model=D-3100HB#.Viz76p_D9nE How exactly does that RAID ensure work in terms of configuring it for RAID1 to show up in my UnRAID VM? My Enermax 3203 have a small mode switch on the back side. you just switch it before power up, and then it will initialize when power up. and there is a Windows tool also for configuration.. i have not tried this utility cos i have no baremetal windows machine for testing.. when this raid drive shows up in esxi, then you make RDM, and add it to unRAID VM. Is there any specific advantage to using it over doing onboard RAID1 other than ease of setup? Quote Link to comment
uldise Posted October 25, 2015 Share Posted October 25, 2015 Is there any specific advantage to using it over doing onboard RAID1 other than ease of setup? i think it depends on your board and sata port/controller count. if your board have only one sata controller, and you have esxi vmfs drives on it too.. i haven't tested that cos my board have only 6 sata ports on one controller.. if you have one controller, can you use some ports for raid, and some ports for ACHI? i think no, but may be i'm wrong? Quote Link to comment
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