June 30, 201016 yr Ok, After a little experimenting, I need to change my motherboard and disk controllers to enhance my performance. I have a brand new motherboard (Asus P5Q Pro Turbo), which has 7 SATA onboard connectors (plus 1 eSATA) and I bought two PCIe SATA 2 port cards. I currently have 10 drives (including parity) in my tower. I want to make the switch from old motherboard and controllers to the new one. I am sure that the drives will not be in the same position as the old ones (port# and such). Will unRAID see that the order of the drives is wrong and let me change it, or will it try to reformat everything thinking it's a new array? Will I have a chance to modify the Device settings before it starts? Just want to make sure I don't screw up all my data before I make the switch... Thanks!
June 30, 201016 yr You need to make a printout or note exactly what is shown on The Devices page. What's important is the drive identifier and what slot number it is in unRAID (eg: parity = WDC_WD20EADS-00R_WD-WCAVY0211284, disk1 = WDC_WD20EADS-00R_WD-WCAVY0247937, disk2 = WDC_WD20EADS-00R_WD-WCAVY0252670). The port and device number do not matter and is mostly meaningless (eg: pci-0000:00:1f.2-scsi-1:0:0:0 host1 is meaningless).
June 30, 201016 yr Ok, After a little experimenting, I need to change my motherboard and disk controllers to enhance my performance. I have a brand new motherboard (Asus P5Q Pro Turbo), which has 7 SATA onboard connectors (plus 1 eSATA) and I bought two PCIe SATA 2 port cards. I currently have 10 drives (including parity) in my tower. I want to make the switch from old motherboard and controllers to the new one. I am sure that the drives will not be in the same position as the old ones (port# and such). Make a screen print of your current "Devices" assignment page. You can use it to put the correct disks back in their respective slots in the array based on their model/serial numbers. Will unRAID see that the order of the drives is wrong and let me change it, Yes, it will notice they are incorrect and not start the array, letting you go to the "Devices" page to assign them correctly.or will it try to reformat everything thinking it's a new array?It will not think it is a new array. Will I have a chance to modify the Device settings before it starts?As I said, unless all the drives are in the correct slots in the array, it will not start. So yes, you can assign them using the devices page. Just want to make sure I don't screw up all my data before I make the switch... Thanks! A goal we all share. Be sure to stop the array cleanly before powering down. Unplug the server from the wall while replacing the MB, and when you re-start the array be sure to use the "Start" button. Do not add any new disks, or remove any disks in the transition, otherwise you'll be forced to initialize a new configuration and it will only make things more complicated. Once running on the new MB you can then modify the array configuration, etc.
June 30, 201016 yr Once running on the new MB you can then modify the array configuration, etc. It's always a good idea to run a parity check with NOCORRECT switch, and in the end look the syslog for any SMART or ATA errors. If no errors are detected, you can consider your upgrade a success.
June 30, 201016 yr Author Well - the upgrade was great success... lol. almost. Motherboard changes were great, new mobo has 6 SATA ports built-in. I bought two "el cheapo" SATA PCIe cards (they did not have anything else...) which have two ports but are RAID. It looks like I can't use them in NON-RAID mode. I read somewhere that there are some bios for the Sil3132 to transform them into non-raid. Would this work on any card based on that chipset? Since I have 10 disks - 4 are still connected to a regular PCI Promise card. I get 35 mb/sec with the onboard ports and still (obviously) 5-6 mb/sec for the Promise PCI card. Hence the reason wanting to get PCIe cards. Any additional suggestions? Thanks
July 1, 201016 yr Any additional suggestions? Rosewill RC-218 PCI Express x4 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132018 Considering that price, I might bite the bullet and go for the Supermicro SASLP-MV8 card. You'll have 4 ports for now, 4 more for later and at a good speed.
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