My first unRAID server build...

[nAffie]

So,

 

I always wanted a Drobo, but the price, expandability, and lately the horror stories, pushed me in finding an alternative...

 

Searched the web, watched some vodcasts about NAS builds from Systm, Tekzilla, Category5 etc, and unRAID kept popping up…

 

After reading for about a month now on this board and the unRAID wiki, I finally decided to build my own storage rig. An unRAID rig!

 

Having 6 external drives (1 and 1.5TB) via USB connected to my media center is not the way to go anymore.

I'm going to buy the preconfigured USB sticks (pro duo pack, because I got another friend of mine also hyped up to build an unRAID rig )

 

The hardware I selected should be enough to get started. (prices are in Euro, cause I live in the Netherlands)

 

AMD Sempron 140  € 30,11 

Asus M4A78L-M  € 55,95 

Cooler Master Silent Pro M500  € 65,05 

Kingston HyperX KHX6400D2K2/2G  € 29,75 

Zalman MS1000-HS2  € 126,41

 

I chose the Sempron because of it's low power consumption. Some people advised me to get a faster CPU because of the parity calculations but my plan is to use a cache drive and let parity calculate in the off hours after moving data from the cache drive to the array.

 

The M4A78L-M mainboard has passed level 1 (and hopefully I could do some testing so it will pass level 2).

 

The power supply has a single 12V rail, and it's modular design will help with the cable clutter in the case. The memory is fairly standard, just a simple double channel kit.

 

The case was the part where I had the most doubts. I first wanted a 9 bay case so I could fill them with the 4-in-3 or 5-in-3 hotswap modules. Then I found out that those modules were going to be the most expensive parts of my rig...

Started looking for cheaper alternatives, and then someone on a Dutch board (gathering.tweakers.net) came up with this case.

The case already comes with 2 hotswap bays which can house 3 drives, so 6 drives total. That leaves four 5.25" bays, which I can later fill with 2 cheaper 3-in-2 modules. So for a total of 12 drives, all accessible from the front. (I really don’t want to open up my rig for upgrading or changing drives)

Also it has al lot of cooling options, dust filters and a sound absorbing pad on the side panel...

 

I’m going to start off with 6 drives, that’s the amount of SATA connectors on the mainboard, and later I’m going to add the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 card for the additional 8 SATA ports.

 

Last night I ordered this setup, and hopefully I can start building in about a couple of days.

 

Pictures and review of the case and bays:

 

 

 

 

[Rajahal]

Looks like a great setup!  You have obviously done your homework, and I don't see any glaring potential problems with the parts you have ordered.

 

You did the right thing in going with the Sempron processor.  A faster processor WILL NOT give you faster transfer speeds, even though it is capable of calculating parity faster.  The limit in transfer speeds is the disk speed, not the CPU speed.  Over the past year I have used the following CPUs in my server: a single core 1.6 GHz CPU, a dual core 2.0 GHz CPU, and I now currently use the same Sempron 140 (single core 2.7 GHz CPU).  My transfer speeds have been identical with all three CPUs.

 

I personally like to use a cache drive, but many people prefer not to.  The recent speed upgrades in unRAID 4.5.x makes cache drives far from necessary.  On my server, I see ~25 mb/s transfers without a cache drive, and ~65 mb/s transfers with a cache drive.  Some users report seeing speeds of up to 40 mb/s without a cache drive.

 

That case is a nice find, and one I haven't seen before.  Looks nice, and not a bad price considering it comes with two 3-in-2 hot swap bays.  If the regular 5.25" bays have tabs between each drive slot, you may need to either bend/remove these tabs or specifically look for 3-in-2's that have indents to accommodate for them.  I ended up just bending the tabs out of the way on one of my cases.

 

Looking at the Newegg pics of that case, it looks like it doesn't have tabs (which is good), but the lower two 5.25" bays have dividing plates (for mounting more hard drives, I guess?).  Therefore, to fit a 3-in-2 in the lower two bays you'll need to remove at least one of those plates.  It looks like you can just unscrew them, but it is hard to tell from the pictures.

 

Other than that, it looks like a winner to me!

[nAffie]

Looks like a great setup!  You have obviously done your homework, and I don't see any glaring potential problems with the parts you have ordered.

 

Thanks, I really spent a lot of time reading reviews and all other kind of topics (almost every topic) here to be sure this unRAID is IT for me...

 

You did the right thing in going with the Sempron processor.  A faster processor WILL NOT give you faster transfer speeds, even though it is capable of calculating parity faster.  The limit in transfer speeds is the disk speed, not the CPU speed.  Over the past year I have used the following CPUs in my server: a single core 1.6 GHz CPU, a dual core 2.0 GHz CPU, and I now currently use the same Sempron 140 (single core 2.7 GHz CPU).  My transfer speeds have been identical with all three CPUs.

 

I also read some of your comments on the Sempron 140, which made me decide this CPU would do just fine...

 

I personally like to use a cache drive, but many people prefer not to.  The recent speed upgrades in unRAID 4.5.x makes cache drives far from necessary.  On my server, I see ~25 mb/s transfers without a cache drive, and ~65 mb/s transfers with a cache drive.  Some users report seeing speeds of up to 40 mb/s without a cache drive.

 

I see you have a 320GB cache drive. What if you want to transfer like 1TB in 1 job to the array? Does it fill up the cache drive till it's full and then writes the remaining GB's directly (slower) to the array? And later transfer the files stored on the cache drive to the array?

 

That case is a nice find, and one I haven't seen before.  Looks nice, and not a bad price considering it comes with two 3-in-2 hot swap bays.  If the regular 5.25" bays have tabs between each drive slot, you may need to either bend/remove these tabs or specifically look for 3-in-2's that have indents to accommodate for them.  I ended up just bending the tabs out of the way on one of my cases.

 

The included modules are (just guessing from the pics) 3-in-3. The 3-in-2 bays that I'm planning to buy are these Chieftec SST-2131SAS modules. They go for around 70 euro's here.

 

Looking at the Newegg pics of that case, it looks like it doesn't have tabs (which is good), but the lower two 5.25" bays have dividing plates (for mounting more hard drives, I guess?).  Therefore, to fit a 3-in-2 in the lower two bays you'll need to remove at least one of those plates.  It looks like you can just unscrew them, but it is hard to tell from the pictures.

 

It's actually this case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811235021

 

Other than that, it looks like a winner to me!

 

I hope so!

 

[Rajahal]

Ah, I see.  Looks like your case does have tabs in the 5.25" bays, but you've chosen 3-in-2's that have slots to accommodate them.  Again, you've done your homework.  Well done.

 

If you attempt a transfer that is larger than the cache drive, the transfer will fail.  I only transfer at most 100 GBs at a time, so the 320 GB drive works well for me.  If you need to transfer 1 TB at a time at the higher speed, then you'll need a 1 TB+ cache drive.  

 

However, don't worry about using the cache drive for your initial transfers of data into the server.  In fact, I would disable the cache drive until your server is stocked with all your pre-existing data, then enable it once you are back to doing small daily transfers.  Large 1 TB+ transfers are going to take a long time no matter what, so you will be better off just doing those transfers directly into the parity-protected array (with no cache drive involved).

 

Remember that all transfers that go through the cache drive actually take longer than a transfer directly into the parity protected array, even though they appear to be shorter from the user's point of view.  All the cache drive does is defer the eventual slow write until the middle of the night.  So, say for example it takes 12 hours to transfer 1 TB of data from your desktop to your unRAID server without the use of a cache drive.  Now say you add a 1.5 TB cache drive (large enough to accommodate the entire transfer).  Using my rough numbers from above (25 mb/s without the cache drive and 65 mb/s with the cache drive) adding the cache drive increases your transfers by a factor of 2.6.  So the 12 hour transfer now drops to ~4.6 hours.  Great, right?  Well, the actual time it takes until your data is safely tucked away in your parity protected array is going to be the 4.6 hours + the original 12 hours, or about 16.6 hours total.  I think it is safe to negate the difference between a transfer over Gigabit LAN (1 Gb/s) and an internal transfer (normally 3 Gb/s) because the limiting factor is, as always, the speed of the slowest disk involved.

 

That was a bit long winded, but hopefully it explains why I use my smallest drive as my cache drive.  If I need to do a large transfer I'm usually going to let it run overnight anyway, so as long as it takes about 12 hours or less I'm happy with that.  My cache drive only comes into play when I'm doing multiple small nightly transfers (generally just a few GBs at a time).

 

Simply put, the cache drive is only really useful speed-wise when you are sitting at your computer waiting for a transfer to finish.  Anytime you are going to let the transfer run overnight anyway, then it really doesn't matter.

 

If you care to read more about the pros and cons of using a cache drive, see this thread:

 

To Cache drive or not to Cache drive?

 

See especially the 'Warm Spare' and the 'Tepid Spare' concepts for guidelines on how large of a cache drive you may want to use.

[nAffie]

 

However, don't worry about using the cache drive for your initial transfers of data into the server.  In fact, I would disable the cache drive until your server is stocked with all your pre-existing data, then enable it once you are back to doing small daily transfers.  Large 1 TB+ transfers are going to take a long time no matter what, so you will be better off just doing those transfers directly into the parity-protected array (with no cache drive involved).

 

Simply put, the cache drive is only really useful speed-wise when you are sitting at your computer waiting for a transfer to finish.  Anytime you are going to let the transfer run overnight anyway, then it really doesn't matter.

 

If you care to read more about the pros and cons of using a cache drive, see this thread:

 

To Cache drive or not to Cache drive?

 

See especially the 'Warm Spare' and the 'Tepid Spare' concepts for guidelines on how large of a cache drive you may want to use.

 

Very helpfull post!

The real time consuming part will be transferring my existing data to my array....

 

Here's the situation:

DATA:

4x 1 TB external, filled to the rim with SD movies/HD movies and series (full seasons etc)

1x 1.5 TB external, 70% filled up with the same, recent downloads.

 

DIRECT USABLE FOR THE ARRAY:

1x 1.5 TB external, virgin, has no data on it yet (already was planning to build my unRAID rig so kept it aside)

1x 1.5 TB spare drive, still sitting in my workstation, has no data on it.

2x 300 GB old drives, data on it has been copied to another 1.5 TB data disk in my workstation, which will stay there...

1x 250 GB old drive, same as the 300's...

 

My plan was to start off with:

1x 1.5 TB parity

1x 1.5 TB data

 

Then copy the contents of the 1x 1.5 TB external drive to the array. (maybe I could speed this up with mounting the NTFS disk and do a copy with Midnight Commander instead of copying via ethernet?)

 

After parity rebuild etc I could add the drive to the array (after preclearing, formatting etc)

And then do the same all over with the remaining 4x 1 TB drives

 

After doing that, all my 6 bays and SATA ports will be filled, and I should have a protected array, but with little free space left...

 

I guess then would be the time to get the extra 3-in-2 modules and the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 card so I can start adding extra drives (still have the spare smaller 250/300 GB drives, one of them I also could use as a cache drive)

 

Please correct me if I'm wrong somewhere in my plan!

 

About the cache drive: I was thinking of installing a real fast HDD in the future (first things first, a stable unRAID rig!), something like a secondhand Raptor or a Velociraptor. Also thought about a budget SSD for that, if the write speeds would be faster than the fastest regular HDD.

I know the transfer speeds would be limited by the gigabit network and maybe some other factors (cables, router, switch etc), but I thought it would be cool to have write speeds around that limit... But that's for later...

 

Next on my list are SATA cables... The regular shops here in Holland charge a lot for single SATA cables, so I'm gonna try my luck in the Far East... (China!)

 

I have ordered loads of other stuff (micro/mini USB cables, iPod/Phone charging cables etc) on dealextreme.com, they charge zero for shipping, and they never let me down....)

So I think I'm gonna order 10x 45 cm and 10x 65 cm SATA cables... (reviews seem OK)

 

Can't go wrong with $1.36 a cable eh?

 

 

[Rajahal]

My plan was to start off with:

1x 1.5 TB parity

1x 1.5 TB data

 

Then copy the contents of the 1x 1.5 TB external drive to the array. (maybe I could speed this up with mounting the NTFS disk and do a copy with Midnight Commander instead of copying via ethernet?)

 

After parity rebuild etc I could add the drive to the array (after preclearing, formatting etc)

And then do the same all over with the remaining 4x 1 TB drives

 

After doing that, all my 6 bays and SATA ports will be filled, and I should have a protected array, but with little free space left...

 

I guess then would be the time to get the extra 3-in-2 modules and the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 card so I can start adding extra drives (still have the spare smaller 250/300 GB drives, one of them I also could use as a cache drive)

 

Please correct me if I'm wrong somewhere in my plan!

 

That looks fine to me, that's how I migrated all my data to my first unRAID server as well.  It is time consuming, but it will work just fine.  You can use unMenu to mount NTFS externals and Midnight Commander to copy the data over, but someone else will have to help you with that, it is out of my expertise.

 

Also, parity doesn't need to rebuild when you are adding new drives.  unRAID automatically updates parity as it clears a new drive, so parity protection stays in place the whole time.  There is a considerable amount of downtime as a drive is cleared, however, so that's one reason that many people prefer to preclear their drives with Joe L's script.

 

 

About the cache drive: I was thinking of installing a real fast HDD in the future (first things first, a stable unRAID rig!), something like a secondhand Raptor or a Velociraptor. Also thought about a budget SSD for that, if the write speeds would be faster than the fastest regular HDD.

I know the transfer speeds would be limited by the gigabit network and maybe some other factors (cables, router, switch etc), but I thought it would be cool to have write speeds around that limit... But that's for later...

I agree, save your speed optimizations for later.  You certainly can use a fast HDD or an SSD as a cache drive, but you will probably be disappointed with the results.  In the cache drive thread I linked above you'll find my benchmarks using an SSD as a cache drive...it was only about 10 mb/s faster than a standard 7200 rpm HDD.  Therefore, I would recommend using your current 250 GB disk as your cache drive and then upgrading it later if you still aren't satisfied with the speeds.

 

Next on my list are SATA cables... The regular shops here in Holland charge a lot for single SATA cables, so I'm gonna try my luck in the Far East... (China!)

 

I have ordered loads of other stuff (micro/mini USB cables, iPod/Phone charging cables etc) on dealextreme.com, they charge zero for shipping, and they never let me down....)

So I think I'm gonna order 10x 45 cm and 10x 65 cm SATA cables... (reviews seem OK)

 

Can't go wrong with $1.36 a cable eh?

 

Those look fine to me, and that is a good price (they generally go for $2-3 each around here).  Your motherboard may also come with some SATA cables, most do.  Some people swear by the locking SATA cables since they tend to be better quality and they are less prone to connection issues due to drive vibration or being accidentally knocked askew.  Personally, I haven't had any problems with the standard red cables you linked.

[lionelhutz]

Do the first drive without a parity drive assigned. Then, once the first drive is full assign the parity drive and build parity. Then, check parity - very important. Once it checks and you know the data is safely on the server, then install the original data disk as disk2 in the server.

 

It would be quicker to pull the disk out of the external case and connect it directly.

 

Peter

 

[aiden]

The included modules are (just guessing from the pics) 3-in-3. The 3-in-2 bays that I'm planning to buy are these Chieftec SST-2131SAS modules. They go for around 70 euro's here.

I've been looking at 3-2 modules for a few weeks, trying to find something that isn't flimsy and doesn't have a ridiculous airflow design.  This Chieftec model looks perfect, but all the US retailers say discontinued.    Have you discovered a replacement for this model in the works?  Chieftec's website is... well... sparse. 

[Rajahal]

Icydock makes a decent 3-in-2, and it even has the grooves to accommodate the majority cases, no modding needed.

[nAffie]

Just one more day, and then my order is being delivered... Took some time because of the CPU (Sempron 140) and the case (Zalman MS1000-HS2 Black) weren't in stock...

Also received a mail that my 2 unRAID PRO pre-configured USB sticks are being shipped, and my SATA cables are on their way from China...

 

Again, can't wait to start building my server.... and I'm damn curious how it all will look in that case...

 

Will keep u posted, and I'll also try to upload some pics here....

[aiden]

Icydock makes a decent 3-in-2, and it even has the grooves to accommodate the majority cases, no modding needed.

 

Thanks Raj.  That definitely has the cooling covered.  Chenbro and Norco have a few, but the fans aren't well placed or well sized.  I just don't dig those thin little handles.  I want the full size server type, like the Chieftec.  If I can't find something like that soon, I suppose I will go with the Icy dock because cooling is more important than aesthetics.  Sorry to hijack, please keep us posted nAffie.  I'm excited to hear your results. 

[nAffie]

Whieeeee!!!

 

My parts finally arrived...

 

 

 

Now it's time 2 build...!

[nAffie]

Update:

 

The last couple of weeks I was busy building my server, doing some burn-in testing and was waiting on some parts (SATA cables, unRAID pro flash-drive).

 

Finally it all came together, finished building and it was time to configure unRAID and start transferring all my data.

 

The Zalman case is a beauty, very solid and really quiet... And with the included 6 hot-swap bays it's really not that expensive compared to other cases and hot swap drivebays.

The SATA cables I ordered from my DealExtreme friends in China were also from a good solid quality.

 

I started with 2 empty 1.5TB disks and used the preclear script to get them ready for the array. Read somewhere that I could just open a new telnet session so I could preclear more disks in one go, and that worked just fine for me.

After preclearing (took a while, this is already the next day) it was time for getting the shares I wanted in order and start copying my data.

 

Before I started copying my real data, I did some testing with CRC checking, MD5 and PAR2 comparing, and found no errors or missing parts/bits.

 

Copying took a long time.... a reeeeaaaally long time, because the data was on my external  USB2 drives hooked on my Mediacenter PC so the read speeds of those were around 25MB/s. I know I could just install the disks in the server and mount them, but I wanted to do the copying with Total Commander (MC with a GUI ) on Windows with CRC checking (that felt a bit more secure than the standard windows copy)

 

After copying one disk I compared the data and removed it from the enclosure to add it to the server. During preclearing I could copy the contents of another external drive and start the same routine again.

 

Now my 6 bays are filled with 3x1.5TB and 3x1TB disks, and the array has around 2TB of free space. My initial plan was to start with a 1.5TB parity disk but during the process of copying and clearing I decided to order a Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000, 2TB disk and use that one as a parity drive, so I can start adding 2TB drives in the near future. Also I guess the 7200RPM will increase the parity (re)building speed.

 

So, I'm not having any parity protection at this time, but eh, my data was unprotected for years, so I'm taking the chance of adding a couple of weeks to it...

 

Did some benchmarks and the write-speed to the array is about 70MB/s, but that's of course without a parity disk

 

The next step is ordering the 2TB parity drive, the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 card, the mini SAS to 4xSATA cables and the Chieftec SST-2131SAS hot swap bays so I can add 6 more disks to my array...

 

After the data migration I started tweaking and and adding stuff to my server like unMenu and sabnzbd+.

 

I noticed that sabnzbd+ performs a whole lot better running on my unRAID rig (Sempron 140 singlecore @ 2,7GHz)) than previously on my Mediacenter (Athlon X2 @ 2,6GHz).

On my Mediacenter (running Win7) I hardly ever had download speeds above 100mbit (I have a 120mbit down & 10mbit up cable connection) and PAR2 checking and unrarring took a while, and really slowed down the system.

Now running sabnzbd+ on my unRAID server download speeds are maxed out and the PAR2 checking and unpacking the files go at blazing speeds. The CPU load on the server is about 70% ­when running PAR2 checks, but it only does the checks if parts are missing (and that doesn't happen a lot)

 

I really didn't expect to get everything up and running because I haven't had any linux/commandline/script experience except running Ubuntu on 2 of my netbooks. Reading the forum/wiki here and just some common sense was enough to get me started...

 

The unRAID community is what makes this good product great!

 

P.S. Didn't have the time to post pics, but they will follow soon!

[Rusty]

hi Naffie.

 

I saw that you are building an unraid server on the DIY NAS thread on GoT and followed you here.

I was already interested in having an unraid server, but my knowledge of server specific hardware made me hesitate.

Now that I see your build has gone well I will use your research and probably will end up the same server (or very identical) as you have build.

So your hard work is very much appreciated as it will safe me a lot of work on research and knowledge building.

 

My need for a storage server comes from the same issue that you where facing, a HTPC with 5 USB drives hooked up is not an ideal situation.

I think I will start the actual build in a few weeks. I hope you dont mind me asking a few questions every now and then while I gather my own info.

 

 

[nAffie]

Just placed the order for the final parts of my already running server...

 

1x Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

2x Chieftec SST-2131SAS 3-in-2 hotswap bays

1x Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 2TB - this is going to be my parity drive

2x 3ware Multilane Mini SAS to 4xSATA cables

 

So in a couple of days I can finally add some parity protection to my data...

[Rajahal]

Congrats, nAffie, I'm glad this is all going so well for you!

 

Sorry I didn't have a chance to come visit you while I was in Europe this past month.

[nAffie]

Congrats, nAffie, I'm glad this is all going so well for you!

 

Sorry I didn't have a chance to come visit you while I was in Europe this past month.

 

Well, actually it's not going that well unfortunately...

 

A couple of weeks ago I got my stuff that I ordered, and enthusiastically I started implementing the gear in my server...

The divebays fit real nice, the Supermicro card was installed in a flash and the mini SAS to 4xSATA cables also fitted real snug...

After that I installed the 2TB Hitachi drive (which I want to use as parity disk) and another 1TB drive I still had laying around.

 

Restarted my machine and when I stopped the array, I couldn't see or select the new drives on the Devices page.

So I grabbed a VGA cable and connected my rig to my LCD TV and plugged in a keyboard and a mouse. (after the first config days I ran the server headless, with only a powercable and a networkcable plugged in)

 

After the initial post and BIOS run, I saw the BIOS from the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 card and it stated it couldn't detect any devices/drives...

After some cablechecking and hooking some drives directly up on the mini SAS to 4xSATA cables (instead of the drivebays) it still didn't detect the drives. Also swapped the cables on the card, didn help either.

Also when I enter the AOC-SASLP-MV8 BIOS with CTRL-C it doesn't see any drives on any port/connector.

 

I guess the card is not defected because I can access it's BIOS and even in unMENU the system info sees the following device:

02:00.0 SCSI storage controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. MV64460/64461/64462 System Controller, Revision B (rev 01)

Subsystem: Super Micro Computer Inc Unknown device 0500

Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18

I/O ports at dc00

Memory at feaf0000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable)

Expansion ROM at fea80000 [disabled]

Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2

Capabilities: [50] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-

Capabilities: [e0] Express Legacy Endpoint, MSI 00

Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting

Kernel driver in use: mvsas

Kernel modules: mvsas

(I guess this is OK?)

 

First I thought it was the drivebays, but I also hooked up the drives directly on the mini SAS tot 4xSATA cables, tried every cable, connector and port on the card.

 

The only thing I suspect now are the mini SAS to 4xSATA cables. I postponed asking for help on this forum because I first wanted to test the card on another system, and try to get some other mini SAS to 4xSATA cables, but if someone here has some different ideas for me: I'm all ears!

 

PS: how was the trip Rajahal?

[Rajahal]

Are your SAS breakout cables forward or reverse?  To go from the Supermicro Controller card to the drive cages you need to use Forward breakout cables.  See this post for details.

[nAffie]

I really don't know...

 

The only information I have on the cables are:

 

    * 3ware Multilane Serial ATA / SAS cable - 60 cm

 

    * Type

    * Serial ATA / SAS cable

 

    * SAS lanes

    * 4-lanes

 

    * Length

    * 60 cm

 

    * Connector(s)

    * 1 x 36 pin 4i Mini MultiLane SAS (SFF-8087)

    * 4 x 7-pens seriële ATA

 

In the topic you mentioned I read SFF-8470 for the SAS connection. Guess my cables aren't correct...?

[Rajahal]

No, 8087 is correct, at least that's what I use.  Can you post a link to the site where you bought the cables?  Or possibly the serial number of the cable?  It should have either an F or an R at the end, indicating forward or reverse.

[nAffie]

I can't detect a F of a R anywhere.

The only serial I can find is: 79576-3006

 

Which I googled and found this PDF describing the cable...

 

I ordered the 3ware Multilane Serial ATA / SAS cable but the cables I got are from Molex.

[Rajahal]

Huh, very weird, even from that PDF I can't tell if your cables are forward or reverse.  Considering they don't work on your set up I think we can assume they are reverse.  The PDF also shows the SATA connections on the left and the SAS on the right, which makes me think that they are reverse, though of course that is far from definite.

 

Anyway, here is the cable that you need:

 

http://www.buy.com/prod/3ware-serial-attached-scsi-sas-internal-cable-1-x-sff-8087-4-x-sata-1/q/loc/101/202521823.html

 

Note the 'F' in the serial number - CBL-SFF8087OCF-05M

 

Also, you may want to contact this guy and work out a deal...

[bcbgboy13]

I can't detect a F of a R anywhere.

The only serial I can find is: 79576-3006

Which I googled and found this PDF describing the cable...

I ordered the 3ware Multilane Serial ATA / SAS cable but the cables I got are from Molex.

 

Well there is a table in the datasheet and for 79576-3006 it states the application is for "IPASS ON BP"

I am guessing this is the reverse cable as the SAS connector (MOLEX trademarked as IPASS) is located on the BP (backplane) and is going to four SATA ports on the controller/motherboard.

You will need 79576-3004 which is the opposite application and the same length.

You may try to contact the vendor to see if it will be possible to do one exchange especially if you have not been provided with the right cable and if they did not have the right description on their web site.

 

It also looks that the four SATA connectors do not have a locking clip but I am not 100% sure from the specs of the assembly as the Molex connector 67489 used on the SATA side is available with and without latch.

 

[nAffie]

I guess the webshop delivered the wrong cables to me, Because I specifically ordered the 3Ware cables and got the Molex cables

 

Now I found another webshop here in the Netherlands which sells the forward CBL-SFF8087OCF-05M cable for even less (15 euro's instead of the 21 euro I paid) so I just cut my losses and order those.

 

The reverse cables I could sell again or just keep for future use...

 

 

[nAffie]

Tomorrow my forward SAS breakout cables will be delivered... Hope that will do the trick....

 

Also ordered some Nexus 80mm Real Silent case fans, to replace the stock fans on the Chieftec SST-2131SAS modules.

You wouldn't believe how much noise the stock fans make... It's like living in a serverpark. So i read somewere the fan is easy to replace them with the quiet Nexus fans and because my server is placed in the livingroom, it's necessary.

 

Here are some pictures of someone replacing the stock fan on some Chieftec SST-2131SAS modules...

 

And here are the pics of his NAS build (not running unRAID though) with four Chieftec SST-2131SAS modules... Looks pretty cool!