Advice of Which HDDs & controllers to go for

[Suse User]

The bits have started arriving for my Updated  UnRaid server.

 

My ASUS P5LD2 SE R2.0 from my understanding will have 4 IDE & 4 Sata connectors when it arrives. 

 

I already have 2 x 750gb IDE HDDs & 3 x 400gb IDE HDDs so I need to be able to control at least 5 IDE HDDs

I have bought a 5 into 3 Cremax (Icydock) Sata caddy so I want at least 5 Sata HDDs.

 

Eventually I wish to fully populate this server to 14 HDDs (a feature which will apparently be available very soon on UnRaid) with all remaining HDDs in individual caddies.

 

If I can locate the Promise IDE controllers, is there any benefit going for SataII or IDE for the remaining 4 drives?

 

I'm having a lot of trouble locating a Promise TX2 133 controller here in the UK, I know I need at least one extra 4ch Sata Contoller, but would  using Cremax IDE to sata caddies and another Promise SataII controller (which are available here) be a workable solution?

 

Also, I've found a very cheap 4ch Sata150 (non-SataII) controller that I know works with UnRaid, would a "non-SataII" controller reduce performance in an UnRaid environment?

 

Lastly, working out where to put which drives.... I want to make sure my parity drive has the best cooling, should I put a Sata or an IDE for Parity?

 

Thanks,

 

Mark.

[Joe L.]

Lastly, working out where to put which drives.... I want to make sure my parity drive has the best cooling, should I put a Sata or an IDE for Parity?

 

Thanks,

 

Mark.

Unless you are initially calculating parity (something done rarely), or doing a lot of writing to the disks in your array, the parity drive will be the least used drive, not the most used.  Heat may not be as big an issue because of this. Most of thee time my parity drive is spun down.  It has been days since I added a file to my server and it had to spin up. Nearly all my activity reads data from my server and the parity drive is not involved at all.

[Suse User]

Unless you are initially calculating parity (something done rarely), or doing a lot of writing to the disks in your array, the parity drive will be the least used drive, not the most used.  Heat may not be as big an issue because of this. Most of thee time my parity drive is spun down.  It has been days since I added a file to my server and it had to spin up. Nearly all my activity reads data from my server and the parity drive is not involved at all.

 

Of course you are correct!

 

This server will have a fair bit more activity than my previous one.  I'm intending to Archive CCTV footage to it on a regular (maybe even scheduled) basis as well as other uses (PC backups, Music server etc.).  In my current UnRaid whenever I do a parity re-build the Parity drive's temperature seems to be the one heading into the mid 40's+ whereas the data drives don't seem to get quite so hot.  This could be case specific, but I have given the Parity drive the best position in the case.

 

We've been suffering quite a few power cuts recently so parity rebuilds have been more regular than I'm comfortable with.  This is partly why I have decided to go with a CM Stacker case this time, I'm hoping the cooling will be more effficient than my current LIanLI Server Cube.

 

Thanks,

 

Mark.

[Suse User]

I've sorted it! 

 

Having hunted High & Low I've located the necessary Promise Controllers, these really aren't very easy to find there in the UK, I found the "TX2 100" the other day, but the "TX2 133" has been very hard to track down.  I found them today and ordered them, I subsequently told a pal who reckons that all Seagate HDDs (what all but 1 of mine are) are only ATA100 anyway!  Apparently only Maxtors support ATA133?  If this is true I could have sorted this 2 days ago.

 

I've ordered

1 x Promise TX4 4Port SataII

1 x Promise TX2 133 IDE (plus I bought a spare as these are hard to find here)

 

My 14 Drives (Once UnRaid allows) will now be situated as follows:-

 

6 X IDE in IcyDock MB123AK-Black

3 x Sata In IcyDock MB123SK-Black

5 x Sata In IcyDock MB455SPF

 

I also discovered that I ordered the wrong Motherboard .  I missed off the "VM" off and ordered a  ASUS P5LD2 SE R2.0 by mistake.  This means I only have 1 Onboard IDE Master & Slave, but with the controller cards I'll have capacity for 6 IDE & 8 SataII HDDs all in caddies.

 

One thing that would be a big help is to know the precise number of bytes a 750gb Seagate Sata HDD formats to.  If it's more than my current 750gb Seagate IDE HDDs I'll have to use that as a Parity HDD and that means I'll lay out the case configuration slightly differently.

 

Thanks,

 

Mark.

 

Mark.

[Joe L.]

One thing that would be a big help is to know the precise number of bytes a 750gb Seagate Sata HDD formats to.  If it's more than my current 750gb Seagate IDE HDDs I'll have to use that as a Parity HDD and that means I'll lay out the case configuration slightly differently.

 

Thanks,

 

Mark.

 

Mark.

You want to know the raw size of the 750Gig drive, as the parity drive does not get formatted at all.  It is the raw size that has to be as big or bigger than the raw size of the PATA IDE drives.  Formatting does not have any impact, as parity just thinks of the disks as a series of bytes... it could care less how they are used/formatted.