January 29, 201016 yr I'm not sure if my question in more appropriate for the Hardware section, but since it involves hardware and data, I decided to post it here. I currently have used up all the SATA ports on my MB with 1 parity and 4 data drives. I intend to add a 5th data drive and possibly a cache drive to unRAID Server 4.5 Plus. I have a Promise SATA 300 TX4 installed (but not used). I would prefer to purchase and use the new Supermicro PCIe 8 port card for future expansion of the server. Based on the hardware threads I have read, the Supermicro card is not supported in unRAID Server 4.5 at this time and there is no clear indication from Limetech how long it will be before it is supported. Hence, I am left using the Promise card for now. Therefore: 1. If I installed and formatted my 5th data drive and a Cache drive using the Promise card now, would I be able, at a future date, to remove the Promise card, replace it with the Supermicro card and simply connect the two drives (data 5 & Parity) to the Supermicro without the need to reformat the drives on the new controller and without worrying about data corruption or loss? My past experience with SCSI controllers tells me the answer is "no", but I'm not sure about SATA controllers. 2. Is spin down/up supported by the Promise controller card on unRAID 4.5? Thanks, in advance, for your help.
January 29, 201016 yr I'm not sure if my question in more appropriate for the Hardware section, but since it involves hardware and data, I decided to post it here. I currently have used up all the SATA ports on my MB with 1 parity and 4 data drives. I intend to add a 5th data drive and possibly a cache drive to unRAID Server 4.5 Plus. I have a Promise SATA 300 TX4 installed (but not used). I would prefer to purchase and use the new Supermicro PCIe 8 port card for future expansion of the server. Based on the hardware threads I have read, the Supermicro card is not supported in unRAID Server 4.5 at this time and there is no clear indication from Limetech how long it will be before it is supported. Hence, I am left using the Promise card for now. Therefore: 1. If I installed and formatted my 5th data drive and a Cache drive using the Promise card now, would I be able, at a future date, to remove the Promise card, replace it with the Supermicro card and simply connect the two drives (data 5 & Parity) to the Supermicro without the need to reformat the drives on the new controller and without worrying about data corruption or loss? My past experience with SCSI controllers tells me the answer is "no", but I'm not sure about SATA controllers. As long as the new controller presents the disks as individual disks, and not as part of a proprietary RAID array, yes, you can move the disks as you please across any SATA controllers. (Or even onto an IDE controller with an interface adapter) The only thing you will need to do is, before you remove the old controller, make a screen print of the "devices" assignment page on the management interface. When you replace the controller, or wire the disks to the new controller's ports, you will probably need to go to the "devices" page and assign the physical disks back onto their logical slots in the array. Since they're on new hardware ports, unRAID will not be able to re-assign them for you since it does not know your intentions. Once the new assignments are made, simply press the "Start" button on the management interface to start the array with the newly connected disks on their new controller. (You may need to check the "I'm Sure" box under "Start" before it will enable the "Start" button.) 2. Is spin down/up supported by the Promise controller card on unRAID 4.5? I don't have one, but I'll guess yes. (someone with one in their server will need to confirm) Joe L.
January 29, 201016 yr I can confirm spin down. This is just an FYI on your theme and not relevant to your kit specifically but a common gotcha is peoples and manufacturers interpretation of JBOD. For instance many Adaptec JBOD drives will not work if pulled and plugged into a normal SATA port. Madness i know. Again this was an FYI only you will NOT have these issues with this card.
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