My TinyTen mini-server

[queeg]

BLKMGK, this particular motherboard could be a fit with the Supermicro 8 port card.  Almost scary cheap.  Stick an E3300 cpu on it and have plenty of power to run unRAID and addons.  In fact, with this MB you could have room for the Supermicro 5-in-3.  

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186178

$35

2 sata, PCIe16, PCIe1, 1 ram slot,  really small/cheap, would require sata add on card(s).

7.6 x 6.8

 

 

Edit:  Ohh hot dang.  This MB turns out to be a microDTX.  That's why it has just two expansion slots.  It's NEW!

 

Edit2: The Supermicro 5-in-3 probably still won't work because of the Supermicro 8-port sata card length.

 

[WeeboTech]

I'm starting to consider that using the Supermicro Flex ATX ATOM or ITX ATOM may be a good choice.

 

The Flex ATX and ITX are smaller.

Each has a PCIe slot, so the 4 port x4 Rosewill PCIe card could be used without any concern for cable placement.

 

With the ITX board, you'll have plenty of clearance, 6 ports on the motherboard, 4 on PCIe.

This provides an excellent low powered 10 port system.

Could you post links to these?

 

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/ATOM/

[queeg]

I like the ability to build it in steps.  I can start out with 1 5-in-3 and add on.  I bought the 3.5" device that has a laptop drive hot swap bay.  Add my two eSata ports for my hard drive dock and the 10 drives in the bays, thats 13 drives.  I can get that with a MB with 6 sata ports and one 8 port add on card.  But I can also buy the cards over time.  No need to build it all the way out to start with.  

 

And it still fits on a stereo rack.

[ilovejedd]

Edit:  Ohh hot dang.  This MB turns out to be a microDTX.  That's why it has just two expansion slots.  It's NEW!

 

Mini-DTX and the form factor isn't really particularly new.

[queeg]

Edit:  Ohh hot dang.  This MB turns out to be a microDTX.  That's why it has just two expansion slots.  It's NEW!

 

Mini-DTX and the form factor isn't really particularly new.

 

Foxconn is currently using that board in a barebone case it sells.   I just meant the board was new..not some old thing selling at low cost.  Since it would only be useful for the TinyTen case if it was combined with the Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8, I thought it would be more reliable being a new board.

[Rajahal]

The SAT2 will NOT work with the Biostar A760G M2+.  The SAT2 is PCI-X - that Biostar board does not have any PCI-X slots.

 

Albeit a bit more expensive (since you need special cables), the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 will work with the Biostar A760G M2+ since it uses PCIe.  At least one unRAID user has actually tried it and confirmed that it works, though I can't remember who at the moment.

[queeg]

The SAT2 will NOT work with the Biostar A760G M2+.  The SAT2 is PCI-X - that Biostar board does not have any PCI-X slots.

 

Albeit a bit more expensive (since you need special cables), the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 will work with the Biostar A760G M2+ since it uses PCIe.  At least one unRAID user has actually tried it and confirmed that it works, though I can't remember who at the moment.

 

Thanks for pointing that out to me.  Seems like I'm getting my PCI-X and PCI-eX mixed up. 

Primer:  http://elnexus.com/articles/64-bit-pci.aspx

 

I think I read that post about the AOC-SASLP-MV8 and they were having problems finding where to buy it.  Well, I'm curious about the SAS part of that card.  Does it take a special cable that breaks out into 4 sata ports?

[WeeboTech]

The SAT2 will NOT work with the Biostar A760G M2+.  The SAT2 is PCI-X - that Biostar board does not have any PCI-X slots.

 

It will work. That particular card is backward compatible with PCI (albeit at a performance penalty).

 

[Rajahal]

It's true, the SASLP-MV8 is currently quite hard to find.  However, that should only last a few weeks (hopefully).  You will need two SAS-to-SATA Forward breakout cables, such as these.  When shopping around for them, just search for 'SFF8087OCF' (note the F on the end, which stands for Forward.  If you see an R on the end, that stands for Reverse and they will not work with the SASLP-MV8).

 

Ah, thanks Weebo, I didn't know that.  Still, 8 drives on the PCI port doesn't sound like a good idea...

[WeeboTech]

Thanks for pointing that out to me.  Seems like I'm getting my PCI-X and PCI-eX mixed up. 

Primer:  http://elnexus.com/articles/64-bit-pci.aspx

 

PCI-X  = PCI extended

PCIe    = PCI express  (I've never seen it defined as PCI-eX).

[WeeboTech]

Ah, thanks Weebo, I didn't know that.  Still, 8 drives on the PCI port doesn't sound like a good idea...

 

Tom's original servers did this with two Promise controllers. It will work.

If speed is the issue, then avoid PCI completely.

Still don't believe the hype.  With PCI you can still get from 80-120MB/s transfer reading from a drive.

The only issue is when you start accessing multiple drives.

If your motherboard supports PCI 2.3 with a 66Mhz bus, then you can handle multiple sustained transfers at high speed. I've tested this out with great success.

 

PCI-X is roughly equal to PCIe x4

PCI 2.3 66MHZ would roughly be equal to PCIe x1

So PCI @33Mhz is about half of x1.

[queeg]

I think most of the motherboards I posted http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=6375.msg62425#msg62425 have PCIe slots so the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 card would be the 8 port of choice.  It's much shorter than it's PCI-x brother.  So short I would say when combined with the Foxconn microDTX board that Supermicro 5-in-3's would fit.

 

The Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 being about $100 and two break out cables at $15 apiece + the motherboard $35 the total would be roughly $165.  Not bad really for 10 ports and supporting any 5-in-3 bays you want to choose.

 

Probably better than spending more on a different mobo with more ports + a addon with fewer ports because with the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 you get to take the card forward onto your next build.

[WeeboTech]

I think the he Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 card is a wise choice.

i only mentioned the details provided so people can make an informed choice if they have spare parts.

 

[queeg]

I think the he Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 card is a wise choice.

i only mentioned the details provided so people can make an informed choice if they have spare parts.

 

 

I appreciate your post as well.  The more parts that can be resused the cheaper the build.

 

I think I'm looking for an excuse to buy the Foxconn board.  Something about it's cheapness (or is it my cheapness) that is calling to me.  If I buy the AOC-SASLP-MV8 that would make 10 ports.  It still would have one PCIe x1 slot and I could put in my 2 port eSata card.  That's 12 of the 13 I would like.  The 13th being for the hotswap 2.5" laptop/SSD drive bay I'm buying to go with it.  But I could always just steal one of the eSata ports (noooooooo).  

[queeg]

Does the AOC-SASLP-MV8 support hot swap?  It doesn't seem to but hope springs eternal.

[WeeboTech]

From what I was told once, SATA inherently supports hotswap.

 

It's the controller, drivers and higher OS level that need support.

 

Linux with the right controller and drivers will support the hotswap.

The unRAID md driver does not.

 

Therefore it's safe to say, unRAID does not support hot swap.

I don't know if the AOC-SASLP-MV8 will support the hot swap with SATA drives outside of the array.

If anything (lets say for a removable), I would use the end of the controller for bays which I may want to hot swap on a frequency.

[queeg]

From what I was told once, SATA inherently supports hotswap.

 

It's the controller, drivers and higher OS level that need support.

 

Linux with the right controller and drivers will support the hotswap.

The unRAID md driver does not.

 

Therefore it's safe to say, unRAID does not support hot swap.

I don't know if the AOC-SASLP-MV8 will support the hot swap with SATA drives outside of the array.

If anything (lets say for a removable), I would use the end of the controller for bays which I may want to hot swap on a frequency.

 

Hmm.  I love that solid squishy feeling that goes along with the word maybe.  

I'm guessing your saying to use the end of the controller ports so that drives won't shift around in linux ala /dev/sd[abcdef...] when a hot swap drive appears.  I'm doing hotswap both internally and with eSata on my current unRAID server (no drives used in the unRAID array are ever hot swapped).  It's working and doesn't seem to pose any problems to unRAID.  I believe unRAID uses the drive serial number and the actual sata port number it's connected onto to find it's drives.  

 

So I might steal the last sata port from the AOC-SASLP-MV8 (port- to use on my hotswap 2.5" device instead of one of my eSata ports.  That is of course depending on whether the AOC-SASLP-MV8 ports do hotswap.  With regards to that the ports on my motherboard don't hotswap but the ports on both add on cards do.

 

 

Edit:  I may have found an answer.  I  read a post from someone who was hotswapping in two drives on this card.  He was having a problem because it was locking up WHS and the thread never fully distinguished what was at fault but WHS looked the culprit.  Based on that I'm thinking that the AOC-SASLP-MV8 does support hot swap.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1397855&page=7

[WeeboTech]

I believe unRAID uses the drive serial number and the actual sata port number it's connected onto to find it's drives.

 

Not the serial number, The Controller number and I believe LUN or position in it.

yet I remember someone on the forum once pulled a drive and/or inserted a new one and the drives shifted and caused grief. That was many revs back so it may not occur again.

 

So I might steal the last sata port from the AOC-SASLP-MV8 (port- to use on my hotswap 2.5" device instead of one of my eSata ports.  That is of course depending on whether the AOC-SASLP-MV8 ports do hotswap.  With regards to that the ports on my motherboard don't hotswap but the ports on both add on cards do.

 

If you have a card that has builtin eSATA, then it probably supports hot swapping.

 

I would suggest arranging the controllers so the one you use for hot swapping is at the end of drive chain. I still dislike it when I accidentally boot with an external drive, only to find it shifted the drives.

 

There have been times when I reboot with an external drive and find a screen of MISSING or blue drive slots.

[queeg]

I'm using two Sil3132 based add on cards.  One has two eSata ports.  The other two internal Sata ports.  Both hot swap.  I have a single hotswap bay connected to the internal one and have also used an eSata convertal cable to hook up eSata to it.  Then I bought the eSata card and added it.

 

The only thing I've seen get screwed up by hotswapping in a drive is that the bios forgets it's supposed to boot from the flash drive.  That is annoying.  I have to reassign it.  The same thing also happens when I plug in additional flash drives and reboot.  

[queeg]

Possible issue with ASUS motherboards for this case:

 

After looking closer at the motherboard list I posted earlier in this thread I'm finding that the ASUS boards have their pins for the Front Panel positioned about as far away from the front of the board as can be placed.  ASUS - what is your problem, this is so wrong!

 

The power/reset buttons are physically attached to the front cover (as they are on almost all cases).  But ASUS has positioned the pins for those way over on the bottom left corner of the motherboard.  The wires for the buttons are just barely long enough to get to that corner.  While there really isn't any compelling need to remove the front cover because there is nothing behind it that requires it be removed, still it seems like those pins should much closer to the front of the motherboard.  

 

I'm going to check out the other boards and will update this post as I do.

 

Edit:

Well placed front panel connectors:

BIOSTAR A760G M2+

Foxconn G41S-K LGA

MSI G41M4-F

BIOSTAR G41D3G

JetWay JPA78VM5-H-LF

ECS A785GM-M7

ECS A780GM-M3

ECS A785GM-M5 1.0

ASRock A790GMH/128M

ASRock M3A785GMH/128M

 

 

Poorly placed front panel connectors:

ASUS boards

[queeg]

UPS delivered my Icy Dock today.  Here are some pics showing how it fits into the TinyTen case.  I haven't drilled the mounting holes in the bottom brackets yet.  Notice the fabricated right side bracket.  It rivets on the front, bottom and back.  The yellow thing is a level.

[queeg]

Here is the Icy Dock in the top bay with the Biostar mockup.  Lots of space between the Icy Dock fan and the motherboard.

[BLKMGK]

Very tempted to try and build something like this! You seem to be choosing AMD CPU over something like say an Atom, is there a reason for this? Cost? It does look like the AMD boards are more full featured. I wish that some of the ATOM stuff was a bit more like that. I do see some that look good with 4x SATA ports http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157194 and a PCI-E 2x16 slot. But it's $135 which doesn't compare too well to the cheap AMD with cheap AMD CPUs.

 

Please keep us updated on how yours does, I'm going to be pretty interested in hearing how well it cools. Small compact CHEAP systems with today's heyuge drives rock! I have two full sized systems now but want to build for friends. These guys, all of them, do not want to invest as I have in hardware and their wives won't stand for intrusive hulking cases. Your build is pretty neat, if a case coudl be fond that required no mods to handle 2x 5in3 it would be awesome.

 

P.S. Not got any of the Supermicro docks where I can easily picture it - I just tried. I can tell you that the fan sticks out WAY further than the connectors do. I have an "open box" dock on the way thanks to the deals forum, maybe I can snap a shot of that one for you. This pic might help though -> It's turned on it's side - mounted the power connectors on the side where you see SATA here.

[queeg]

Very tempted to try and build something like this! You seem to be choosing AMD CPU over something like say an Atom, is there a reason for this? Cost?

Yes, cost.  AMD systems seem to need cheaper cpu's and ram.

 

Here is some shots of the case with Supermicro 5-in-3's and a mini-ITX motherboard.  My friend wanted to know if his parts would fit.  I didn't align the 5-in-3's exactly where they should be before taking the pictures but the bottom one is pretty closely lined up.  The top one is pushed in about 1 inch too far.  The fans are removed but the bottom unit probably could have the fan installed.  I personally would use a tiny bit of hotglue to attach a 120mm fan directly on the back of the top unit.  There are 120mm x 10mm fans that mostly likely would work, but even a 25mm wide fan would fit.  

 

There is an adaptec 16port sata controller plugged into the mini-ITX mobo but I don't have the exact card model at the moment.

 

The psu is a normal ATX psu I stuck in there just to check for fit.  The antec brand psu's have the intake fan on their back side (instead of the bottom) so that would certainly help with airflow.

 

It took me about 40 hours to mod the first case.  I've got it down to about 6 hours.  I'm willing to trade case's for hardware so if you have stuff you don't want anymore I might trade for it.  Hard drives, mobo's, ram, drive bays, controller cards... you name it.

[WeeboTech]

I do see some that look good with 4x SATA ports http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157194 and a PCI-E 2x16 slot. But it's $135 which doesn't compare too well to the cheap AMD with cheap AMD CPUs.

 

That board as 4 internal sata ports and 2 external eSATA ports. So in effect you do have 6 ports to work with. Also the ASRock board supports overclocking to 2ghz. I have a small HTPC/nettop ASRock with a similiar board. Works great for XBMC.