I just discovered this unRAID option recently and it seems to be exactly what I want.  I currently have a Dell PowerEdge (SC420) that I'm using as a file server with Windows Server 2003 with RAID 1.  So I'm wondering if I can use the Dell case, motherboard, CPU, power supply, etc for an unRAID box.

 

I found the following which has the specs on my Dell server:

 

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/pe420sc/en/ug/c4180aa0.htm

 

I would like to be able to put at least 6 hard drives in there, but 8-10 would be nice.  So besides them even physically fitting, I'm wondering if I could even use the SUPERMICRO AOC-SAT2-MV8.  I'm guessing not since it's 64bit?  If not, then what are my controller options (if there even are any)?

 

My case is also somewhat small - here is another page that has an image of the case - it only has two 5 1/4 bays (more like two and a half), so that 4 in 3 adapter cage thingy might not work for me.  This page has more info on the server - http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/pe420sc/en/ug/c4180c10.htm#wp1053336

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Sound like you can get 5 HDD (3 into 2) converter on the two 5.25 bays plus two internal HDDs. PSU is only 305W so I would stick to max. 5HDDs and not try to add anymore. MB has two sata ports, so you will need upto three more. SIL3132 will fit in PCI-E x1 slot and is a cheap option. Some Marvell controllers have three sata ports on a x1 PCI-e card. You could also add a PCI SATA SIL based card and put a single HDD on it. It should be OK performance wise if everything else is disabled or another SIL3132 for the X8 PCI-E slot. 

 

CPU is more than good enough. Has Gb NIC.  No mention of memory but since it is running server 2003 I assume it has at least 512MB so should be fine.

 

For more than 5 HDDs you need a new case and PSU. The M/B might not fit in a generic case...

 

SUPERMICRO AOC-SAT2-MV8 is a PCI-X card, your system is PCI and only 33Mhz. So max of 133MB/s or approx 1 or 2 hdd on the PCI bus max. A SUPERMICRO AOC-SAT2-MV8 would be wasted in that system.

For starters you could download the free unRAID version, and boot of a USB key to see if it would work...

There are plenty of us with fairly large arrays (11 data drives) on a PCI bus, so don't worry if you find a disk controller that fits and will handle 8 disks.  No, it will not be as fast computing parity as a PCI-e bus,  as you will be limited by the PCI bus throughput, but for almost anything else it will be perfectly fine.  Fortunately, the initial lengthy parity calc occurs only once initially and subsequently on demand, so you don't really have as big an issue as Kaygee might forsee.

 

Joe L.

I would like to be able to put at least 6 hard drives in there, but 8-10 would be nice.  So besides them even physically fitting, I'm wondering if I could even use the SUPERMICRO AOC-SAT2-MV8.  I'm guessing not since it's 64bit?  If not, then what are my controller options (if there even are any)?

 

My case is also somewhat small - here is another page that has an image of the case - it only has two 5 1/4 bays (more like two and a half), so that 4 in 3 adapter cage thingy might not work for me.  This page has more info on the server - http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/pe420sc/en/ug/c4180c10.htm#wp1053336

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

I don't see 6 drives inside that case, but 5 is a possibility.

You can go with the Rosewil RC-218 x4 controller which will give you 4 more SATA ports.

 

If inclined, you can go with an external SATA case and fit more drives with a port multipler.

However if you are going that route, I would check and see if the motherboard is standard enough to fit in a new case.

Thanks for all the great advice everyone.

 

So is there any real reason for me to get the Rosewill RC-218 over say a MASSCOOL XWT-PCIE10 like Kaygee suggested, which is $50 less.

 

Also, does anyone know if performance will be an issue if I plan on streaming high-def 1080p content off of it?

Before you buy anything - please try the free 3 drive version.  Not all boards work with it and if you've dropped $75 on parts you'll just get caught in a "one more part" loop instead of just buying right once.

 

Do try it, it's a little different than what people normally think of with consumer RAID.

 

(Be sure to check out performance information around here too - it's part of why unraid is different)

 

Rob

I will do that wholly.  Can I just leave my already RAIDed drives in there (safely) and boot from the USB or do I need to at least set up some type of temporary array for the test?

I will do that wholly.  Can I just leave my already RAIDed drives in there (safely) and boot from the USB or do I need to at least set up some type of temporary array for the test?

 

For peace of mind I'd at least disconnect your existing drives from the motherboard SATA headers.

 

You're main test is to check unraid boots and has networking - you should also be able to see if its picked up your disk controllers too. You don't need to have disks in to do this and it will absolutely ensure your existing array won't be interfered with.

 

Unraid wouldn't interfere with them anyway unless you explicitly told it to - but better to be safe!

The advice below is good advice. It is what I did, I initially setup a 3 disk unRaid box using an existing mb from the "parts bin" a couple of old sata PCI controllers and a Gb NIC. Your Dell would make a good testbed, if you havethree SATA drives to use to generate parity and test data even better.

 

Liked what I saw and put together a cheap unRaid box, bought a license and became a fully paid up unRaider.

 

 

 

         

I will do that wholly.  Can I just leave my already RAIDed drives in there (safely) and boot from the USB or do I need to at least set up some type of temporary array for the test?

As long as you do not assign any drives on the "Devices" page unRAID will not touch them.  As already said, you can always unplug your existing drives.

 

If you do set up a single drive or two outside of your existing array you can play with the unRAID device assignment page.  You can assign as little as a single data drive (no parity drive is needed) or assign as much as 2 data drives and a parity drive.  when adding a new disk to the array unRAID will completely format/overwrite any existing partitioning and data on the disks you assign unless they contain only a single reiser file-system partition starting at sector 63 and using the entire drive exactly as unRAID itself formats them.

 

Joe L.

Before committing, I would certainly test with two drives, using one for parity to ensure that everything can make it through.  If you can get through a parity check and read and write some decent sized files to it, then it's probably worth going forward.  My older setup seemed just fine (although used 100% cpu most of the time) but when I put the gigabit networking in it, it would crash after 20-30G of transfers.

 

Another board, about three times faster with onboard sata looked great - until it tried to start the array and begin parity and it would lock up tight with no messages in the syslog.  (I still haven't worked this issue out yet... it's nagging me all the time...)

 

I fear you might be thinking that you can convert the existing disks with data in place to work with unraid.  I don't think that's an option.  You'll have to copy the data off those drives and then copy it back on once you get the array sorted.  You'll also lose the capacity of one of the drives for parity so keep that in mind!

 

Good luck!

 

Rob

Thanks Rob, I was anticipating having to copy all of the data off my drives and starting fresh so to speak.

Just wanted to report that I successfully converted my Windows Server 2003 box to unRAID.  Didn't really have any issues (other than my lack of Unix knowledge).  I currently have two 2TB drives (with one of them being the parity drive) and planning on adding another 1TB once I'm sure everything is stable.  And then probably upgrade to be able to use a spare 250GB drive I have as the cache drive.

 

Thank you everyone for your help.

Glad to hear that it seems to be working for you.  It's way cool when you start upgrading disks and it "just works".  It gives you a lot of confidence for handling drive failures.