Need to add more SATA ports to GA-MA74GM-S2 rev.2

[spinbot]

I've been coasting for almost 6 months with my UnRaid setup  (the only change I did was update the software to version: 4.5-beta12)

Now that I am in better health, I want to return to working on my server.

 

The first task at hand is to find a solution for adding extra storage to my server as I have used up the 6 SATA ports included on my Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2 rev.2 motherboard.

 

My Tower has 1 Parity drive, 5 Data Drives and 1 IDE drive that I was going to use as a cache drive ( never made it that far ).

I have enough space for an extra 5 or 6 drives ( depending on if I keep the IDE drive ).  The Motherboard has 1 PCIe X16 and 1 PCIe X1 slots.

 

So, my next "step" in growth would be to get a controller that can support 6 additional SATA drives.

 

I see a few threads talking about a Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 8-Port SAS/SATA Card .  Has this become the recommended card for SATA expansion?    Are these only for Backplanes, as I can't see how you would connect it to internal drives?  If so, would might you guys recommend I look into for my motherboard and drive needs?

 

( I'm Canadian, so it has to be something available from Canadian e-tailers like directcanada.com, ncix.com, newegg.ca )

 

 

Interesting... my return is very close to Tiger Woods return.  The only difference is that I haven't slept with a tonne of hot woman, I don't play golf and I am not rich 

 

 

Thanks in advance!

[DocBlock]

The AOC-SASLP-MV8 is a PCIe x4 card which has two internal SFF-8087 ports. These are essentially a high density 4 port SAS/SATA connector. There are special breakout cables you use with them. An example is this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115064

 

They can be found cheaper if you shop around though. There's two kinds of these cables: A "forward" cable and a "reverse" cable. You would want a forward cable for this application. I have two of these cards and they are working great for me. However, some people have stated that S3 suspend mode doesn't work well with these cards, so if that's a priority, I might avoid them.

 

These cards are designed for internal expansion, not external. There are similar cards with connectors on the back plane, if that's what you're more interested in. But it sounds like you've got internal room for expansion yet.

 

The cards seem to be out of stock most places right now. I found them from a vendor on Ebay and they were brand new, at about $110 apiece if I recall.

[spinbot]

Duh....I feel like an idiot.  When I was looking at a picture of the card, I was looking at the connectors at the end thinking they were on the OUTSIDE of the case.    Now that you've pointed out they are internal, this card does seem like a good value.    If others have been successful at running it on the same motherboard that I have, I will give it shot I think.

 

I found a thread here on the SATA/SAS Card  http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=3382.0  .  I will read through that and see if I can figure out what S3 Suspend Mode is ( if they has something with my drives spinning down after inactivity, then that is important to me as my server may sit for a week and not be used, at times ).

 

I seen the breakout cable at dealextreme.com for around $13  ( although no idea of the build quality ).

 

 

[gvers]

I've got the AOC-SASLP-MV8 running on this board and it works fine. I've also got an SIL3132 running 2 more drives giving a total of 16 with 12 currently in use.

[spinbot]

I've got the AOC-SASLP-MV8 running on this board and it works fine.

 

Have you run into the issue as stated above "S3 suspend mode doesn't work well with these cards" ?

 

Is the S3 Suspend Mode just the hard-drives spinning down from inactivity?  That is fairly important, especially when you are running a tonne of drives and you really only need access to 1 of them when viewing content.

[DocBlock]

S3 is an extra-low power state. This has nothing to do with individual drives spinning down. In S3, fans shut off, the computer goes into a sort of hibernation.

[spinbot]

Thanks for clarification.  I know I am not running that now and not sure how much real savings in energy costs it would come out to.

 

Is the reason it doesn't work because of the Motherboard or is it because of the Card itself ( ie. everyone motherboard running it can't do the "S3" process ) ?

[Joe L.]

Thanks for clarification.   I know I am not running that now and not sure how much real savings in energy costs it would come out to.

 

Is the reason it doesn't work because of the Motherboard or is it because of the Card itself ( ie. everyone motherboard running it can't do the "S3" process ) ?

The motherboard and the BIOS have to support it before anything else.  Basically, only the RAM is left powered up.

The other hardware (video and disk controller cards) must also support it, since they will lose power, and then need to be re-initialized when power is restored.

 

On "laptops" or "desktop" PCs, it would be called "'sleephibernate" mode.  When you power back up, all is as you left it.

 

[vca]

The motherboard and the BIOS have to support it before anything else.  Basically, only the RAM is left powered up.

The other hardware (video and disk controller cards) must also support it, since they will lose power, and then need to be re-initialized when power is restored.

 

On "laptops" or "desktop" PCs, it would be called "'hibernate" mode.  When you power back up, all is as you left it.

 

 

Actually S3 is called "sleep" mode and S4 is called "hibernate" mode.  In S3 (as described above) the computer's state is maintained in RAM so it can be woken up and continue from where it left off very quickly.  In S4 the contents of memory are saved to disk and then everything is powered down (which the exception of any devices, like NICs, that are capable of waking the machine), so its actually safe to unplug and move a machine that is hibernating.

 

See http://www.intel.com/support/network/sb/cs-008459.htm for a pretty good write up.

 

Regards,

 

Stephen

[spinbot]

Is "S3" or "S4" something new or has it been around for a while?

 

Can some Bios' / Motherboards be flashed ?

 

My motherboard model name ends with -S2 ( coincidence or does it relate to the Sleep/Hybernate ) ?

 

Maybe I am drifting a bit here from the purpose of the post.    I guess the simple answer is that the recommended card will work with my motherboard in the PCIe X16 port , however I just won't be able to let my server Sleep ( which it doesn't do now as I didn't know I could do that ).

 

Does it save much power?  I've never looked into the power usage of a PC with no monitor who's hard-drives are inactive 95% of the time.

[gvers]

I've got the AOC-SASLP-MV8 running on this board and it works fine.

 

Have you run into the issue as stated above "S3 suspend mode doesn't work well with these cards" ?

 

Is the S3 Suspend Mode just the hard-drives spinning down from inactivity?  That is fairly important, especially when you are running a tonne of drives and you really only need access to 1 of them when viewing content.

 

S3 sleep is probably the next thing on my list. It did work when I tested it before I put this card in but I have not tested it since.

[vca]

Is "S3" or "S4" something new or has it been around for a while?

Its been available since the days of Windows 98 and 2000, BIOS support probably started earlier than 1998 but may have taken a few years to really get stable.

 

Can some Bios' / Motherboards be flashed ?

 

Most can, I don't think I've owned one that couldn't be (going back to about 1993 and the days of 90MHz Pentiums)

 

My motherboard model name ends with -S2 ( coincidence or does it relate to the Sleep/Hybernate ) ?

 

Probably unrelated, might mean something like "Stepping 2" (rev. 2) or "Screwup 2" :-)

 

Maybe I am drifting a bit here from the purpose of the post.    I guess the simple answer is that the recommended card will work with my motherboard in the PCIe X16 port , however I just won't be able to let my server Sleep ( which it doesn't do now as I didn't know I could do that ).

Yup that sounds about right.

 

 

Does it save much power?  I've never looked into the power usage of a PC with no monitor who's hard-drives are inactive 95% of the time.

If you can put your machine into S2 it only saves the power the CPU was taking, if you can put it into S3 (sleep) you should be able to achieve something like 10W or less (it needs to supply power to the RAM and a few devices (NIC, USB) to allow events to wake up the machine).  Putting it into S4 (hibernate) reduces this further, perhaps below about 5W - but it takes longer to wake the machine.

 

I use the S3 all the time on my home theatre / video recording PC, the SageTV software schedules events into the motherboards real time clock to wake up the PC a few minutes before any shows I want to record are due to air - but I haven't tried it on an Linux based boxes like my unRAID system.

 

Regards,

 

Stephen

[papnikol]

I think it is relevant to the post and i mention it in case it might help anyone when deciding about his hardware:

as i explain in a thread i started (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=6396), S3 does not work for me in combination with the AOC-SASLP-MV8 card but it works fine if i remove the card (my mobo is a 5-6 year old msi rd480 neo2).

 

i guess the card allows for S3 mode in other mobos, but, obviously it has to be supported in some way by the mobo. It's only a guess but i think the problem is due to the fact that the card has its own 'bios' which takes some time to initialize. if the mobo doesnt know to wait for it after coming back from S3, the system hangs....

[spinbot]

Would the issues with S3 be specific to each person's motherboard/bios ?  I read your post and it doesn't conclusively say that this SATA controller doesn't work with S3.  You don't have the same motherboard as I so could I still have some hope of settingup S3 in the future.

[papnikol]

I know that s3 does not work with AOC-SASLP-MV8 in my mobo (unless there is a setting i missed) while it works fine without the card.

Maybe if someone has tried S3 + AOC-SASLP-MV8 in his mobo can comment. since many people on this forum seem to be using  the MV8 card, i would guess that (since i have not seen many other complaints) it works in other mobos

[prostuff1]

[quote author=papnikol link=topic=6403.msg63024#msg63024 date=1274717090 since many people on this forum seem to be using  the MV8 card, i would guess that (since i have not seen many other complaints) it works in other mobos

 

OR

 

Most people don't bother with S3.  S3 is pointless for me as i use my server to download torrents and therefore the machine is always on.  I think a lot of the people using unRAID have not bothered to set up S3 and getting it working correctly with there hardware.

[spinbot]

That's probably not a bad idea.  I currently have torrents coming into my primary machine and then I shift them over the server when completed ( often leaving the downloaded file on the main machine so i can seed for a while ).    I do spend a lot of time on my machine machine though, so I probably wouldn't want to shut it down too often and I am not sure if it supports S3 either.

 

I don't I've actually seen anyone talk about the actual savings one gets ( with real dollar costs ) when using S3 , aside from the non-quantifiable "less ware and tear on components".    I guess a good starting point is how much energy would a server, running 6 drives, that spindown with no activity on them, consume per day/month/year.  If we are only talking $50, then savings each year can't be any more than that, so... is it worth worrying about?  In my opinion, "No".    If it can save me a few hundred dollars a year, then I might give it more of a consideration.

[papnikol]

i usually have my main computer on, so i dont have to use unraid for torrents

plus, i dont feel very safe with unraid so visible to the net, i think it was not made with security in mind

 

other than that, i would also like to know how many kwh i would save if it would go to s3. even when the hdds are spun down, the cpu, mobo, psu and 4-5 fans are working. unfortunatelly it is not very easy to calculate their consumption especially bearing in mind that the efficieny of the psu is much less than 100%

[jdmlight]

unfortunatelly it is not very easy to calculate their consumption especially bearing in mind that the efficieny of the psu is much less than 100%

Sure it is. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882715001  

 

My APC UPS also provides a Windows utility for measuring wattage.  I should go measure how much power my unraid box is using.  I remember it using around 80 watts before this box got repurposed to unraid.  80 watts * 24 hours * 365 days = 700.8 kWH.  The average price per kilowatt-hour in the United States is $.12/kwh.  Therefore, it costs me $84.10 per year to run my PC 24/7/365.

 

That was when this box was equipped with an ATI Radeon 4670 and the Core 2 Duo was overclocked to 3.33ghz, running only one 650gb IDE hard drive, running Folding@Home on the GPU and CPU.  Now, I don't have the Core 2 Duo overclocked, the Radeon 4670 isn't installed anymore, unraid uses much less CPU power than F@H, but I have a WD Green 1.5TB and a 160GB Seagate added.  It'd be interesting to see how it compares.

[papnikol]

unfortunatelly it is not very easy to calculate their consumption especially bearing in mind that the efficieny of the psu is much less than 100%

Sure it is. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882715001 

 

thanx

i have read about these meters but looking through the reviews it seems that they are very unreliable. many people were mentioning than when they had more appliances connected, the meter showed less consumption

[spinbot]

So, if we take jdmlights as a really rough approximation, I might be able to save $60/year or $5/month.  So, if the issue with S3 not being able to work is related to my motherboard, not the SATA card I want, then if I can get a new motherboard for $120, then I will break even after a couple of years.  Hmmmmmm

[bombz]

personally, I have been using the Promise TX400 cards on the PCI bus. Perhaps a slower card then the ones recommended, but they have been working solid for me.... hope that helps you on your way to expanding the server

[spinbot]

personally, I have been using the Promise TX400 cards on the PCI bus. Perhaps a slower card then the ones recommended, but they have been working solid for me.... hope that helps you on your way to expanding the server

 

Although they have a longer track record of success, the fact that I can get the AOC-SASLP-MV8 for less money and it gives me double the SATA ports is too much to give up.   I only have one PCIe x16 slot, so if I added more than 4 more drives, I would have to move to X1 slot and there would a decrease in speeds from it.

 

I see the etailer that did have stock of the AOC-SASLP-MV8 in Canada, now doesn't  (edit: found another etailer with stock at $99).   Hopefully one of the etailers will re-stock soon.   In the mean time, i am still trying to figure out which 2TB drives I want to get for storage expansion.    My largest drives now are mainly Seagate 1.5TBs and 1 WD Green 1.5TB drives, so I will need to replace my Seagate parity drive with one of the 2TB models on the market.

From the other thread's I have read, it doesn't look like we have a clear winner for the task of parity yet (if ever)

[BLKMGK]

How about the AOC-SAT2-MV8? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815121009&Tpk=aoc-sat2 SAS requires a special cable yes? the SAT2 has 8 ports and no issues with expensive cables - mine came WITH cables actually. I know that others have used this car but so far I've yet to need to put mine in. I'm down to my last port though so this puppy goes in pretty soon. I have no idea about sleeping as mine don't but speed ought to be just fine. Is there some advantage to the SAS model?

[BRiT]

SAT2-MV8 is PCI-X.

SASLP-MV8 is PCI-Express.

PCI-X is not compatible with PCI-Express.