Hello all,

 

I am just starting with unRAID (6.4rc8 Pro license). My current test mule is unRAID running on VMware Fusion on a MacBook Pro and using an external USB 3.0 attached StarTech case. So far everything works fine, but I think the speed is somewhat limited by that setup. I get 120MB/s when parity checking with 4 Toshiba N300 8TB NAS drives (dual parity), before the speed goes down towards the end of the disks.

 

However once a release version of 6.4 is available I will move to a real server, because I want ECC RAM. Currently I have an old server available, based on a Supermicro X7DB8 motherboard (dual Xeon, 32 GB RAM). The motherboard SATA boards do not support large disks, but that's ok. If I will use them at all, then for smaller SSDs.

 

For the 24 disk slots it contains a 3ware Inc 9650SE SATA-II RAID PCIe (rev 01) RAID bus controller. That one also does not support large disks. Maybe this is just a firmware limitation, it should support 3 TB disks and as far as I know, there are no new HW boundaries between 2 TB and the largest available disks. However the controller is not sold anymore since years and I couldn't find firmware that would support my disks (probably inexistent).

 

Additionally I want to integrate a LTO-7 drive for archival storage, which means, I need at least one SAS port. Moving a few tapes to the house of another family member is unbeatable in terms of bandwidth and tapes have a long lifetime.

 

This unRAID server consumes to much energy for 7x24h operation and will only run, when I need it for backup and archival use (I have a small ARM based server with SSDs that is permanently up using ~5W).

 

If my experiences with unRAID are as expected, I plan to either replace the old Supermicro motherboard with something much more power efficient or build an additional smaller low power server (e.g.based on Fujitsu D3417-B2) than can be always on. Therefore investment into a PCIe v3 card would not necessarily be wasted.

 

So my questions are:

1. Did anyone come across a firmware version for the 9650SE 8TB disks?
2. Which controller would you recommend for driving the 24 SATA disks slots?
3. Does anyone have experience with LTO-7 drives or at least any LTO?
   Better use a dedicated controller or use a SAS controller for drives
   plus tape?

4. Does anyone know, whether the X7DB8 ports work fine with SSDs?

 

For 2. I have seen Areca ARC-1280ML, Highpoint Rocket 750 and some LSI controllers in the forums. Do you have an idea about power consumption of supported controller models?

 

Thanks for recommendations and hints!

I have an.LSI SAS9201-16i, which is a 16 drive PCIe 2.0 card. Available for about $200. That is about all a 2.0 x8 slot can handle. A 3.0 card is going to be a lot more money, and I have not heard of unRaid users mentioning their use. You might consider 2 9201s, a 16i and an 8i to get to your 24 drive goal.

3 hours ago, bjp999 said:

A 3.0 card is going to be a lot more money, and I have not heard of unRaid users mentioning their use.

 

... which means I would not only pay more, but also be the guinea pig and unable to benefit from experiences of others. Not something to take lightly. Thanks for this valuable information.

 

In other posts I have seen you mentioning the Areca ARC-1280ML and you even started a thread regarding Areca Controller Configuration for unRAID. I have also seen, that you own / owned at least one Areca controller. Would you recommend against those and prefer the LSIs?

 

 

The Areca card is good if you want to run a RAID0 parity, and a few extra drives. It is only a PCIe 1.1 card (half bandwidth of 2.0, 1/4 bandwidth of 3.0), and you could not run 16 drives on it and get good performance with all drives running (e.g., parity checks).

 

The LSI 9201-16i would be my recommendation.

Drives were slower when the Areca came out :-)

So I think, I'll start with one LSI 9201-16i, this should satisfy the short-term needs. It also allows me to test, whether it can support the tape. If yes, I can later add a second one (in total six SFF-8087 ports for 24 disks, one for the tape, one for experiments).

One final question (at least until the controller arrives): Avago's interoperability sheet stops at 8TB drives for this family. Do you know how far it goes or what the biggest drives are, that have been successfully used with it?

Not sure about biggest drives. My understanding is there are no technical limitations until we get to drive sizes much larger. Could be the reason for listing 8T is that those were the largest drives at the time it was published. I'd be very surprised if 10T+ drives didn't work.

I agree, the LSI 9201-16i is no longer listed as a "current product" and 8TB was probably the largest size they tested before removing the controller from the catalog. I have no experience with Avago, but my hope that they continue to validate newer drives for this product, is small.

 

I also agree regarding technical limitations, but then to my knowledge there are also no technical limitations between 3TB and 8TB and still my old controller does not support the larger ones. One can never know what kind of bit stealing goes on inside of such products ...

 

Anyway, thanks for all the info and if in a worst case 8TB should be the end of the line, an array capable of growing to 112TB on one controller is not a bad start.

Using a LSI 9207-8i (PCI-E 3.0); got the card for < $100 on ebay

 

Highly recommended!

2 hours ago, CrimsonTyphoon said:

Using a LSI 9207-8i (PCI-E 3.0); got the card for < $100 on ebay

 

Highly recommended!

 

If you're going for a bunch of SSDs, the extra bandwidth of the PCIe 3.0 card is nice. But it does not come in a -16i or -24i or -32i configuration. 8 very fast ports is the limit unless you use some sort of port expander. TBH, I'd rather have the 9201-8i for less than half the cost. But I may be eating those cost savings when all drives are SSDs and spinners are dinosaurs.  

20 hours ago, bjp999 said:

 

If you're going for a bunch of SSDs, the extra bandwidth of the PCIe 3.0 card is nice. But it does not come in a -16i or -24i or -32i configuration. 8 very fast ports is the limit unless you use some sort of port expander. TBH, I'd rather have the 9201-8i for less than half the cost. But I may be eating those cost savings when all drives are SSDs and spinners are dinosaurs.  

 

Sorry, I should have clarified, I do indeed use a SAS2-846EL1 expander, so if I max the expander out at 24 drives, i still have no problems. My SSD cache is run directly off the motherboard (6 Gpbs link)

The LSI cards should support 128 PiB drives or greater.  That is what 48 Bit LBA supports and I thought the LSI drives had 48 bit or greater support.