Unraid with 2 x Sata card then migrate to SAS


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Hi all,

 

I am currently in the process of consolidating 2 of my hp microservers to just 1 big NAS box. I will be reusing the motherboard from my HTPC and that mobo sadly only has 4 x SATA ports.

 

I want to connect up to 12 x hard drives into the box. So this is the interim plan I have:

 

I will make do with 8 x drives at this stage and to achieve this, I will use 2 x SATA cards left over from my HP servers. Each of the sata cards support 2 x drives. So with the sata card and the mobo SATA ports, I can connect a total of 8 x devices which is good enough for me at this stage.

 

I have a Supermicro SAS SATA card capable of 8 x drives and what I really want to do is to use this card instead but I am still waiting for the SAS cables to arrive from the vendor.

 

So the question is...can I run unraid with these 2 x SATA cards right now and when my SAS cables arrived, then remove the 2 x SATA cards and replace with the supermicro SAS, all without affecting the data drives? What do I need to watch out for?

 

I am using unraid server plus v6.3.5.

 

Thanks

 

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1 hour ago, johnnie.black said:

Yes, but note that controller is no longer recommended for v6 since it can drop disks for some users, still works for others without issues though.

 

Wow. I wasnt aware of that issue. Fortunately i bought this used $30. When you say it "works for others", do you mean this works well for other people on v6.xx unraid?

 

Another question is: what other sata card similar to this supermicro one can I consider? Assuming I dont need a raid card like the Dell Perc series.

Edited by fliptoback
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1 minute ago, fliptoback said:

When you say it "works for others", do you mean this works well for other people on v6.xx unraid?

Yes.

 

1 minute ago, fliptoback said:

Another question is: what other sata card similar to this supermicro one can I consider? Assuming I dont need a raid card like the Dell Perc series.

Any LSI with a SAS2008/2308/3008 chipset in IT mode, e.g., 9201-8i, 9211-8i, 9207-8i, 9300-8i, etc and clones, like the Dell H200/H310 and IBM M1015, these latter ones need to be crossflashed.

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Just now, johnnie.black said:

Any LSI with a SAS2008/2308/3008 chipset in IT mode, e.g., 9201-8i, 9211-8i, 9207-8i, 9300-8i, etc and clones, like the Dell H200/H310 and IBM M1015, these latter ones need to be crossflashed.

 

Thanks Johnnie. You are fast!

 

I also read that these LSI cards run extremely hot, which ones run less warm than the others?

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13 minutes ago, fliptoback said:

You are fast!

Copy/paste :), I have that reply saved as I use it every week.

 

14 minutes ago, fliptoback said:

I also read that these LSI cards run extremely hot, which ones run less warm than the others?

SAS2008 are similar to SASLP/SAS2LP, they use the same power, SAS2308 runs a little hotter than SAS2008 due to higher clock speed, never had a SAS3008.

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11 minutes ago, johnnie.black said:

Copy/paste :), I have that reply saved as I use it every week.

 

SAS2008 are similar to SASLP/SAS2LP, they use the same power, SAS2308 runs a little hotter than SAS2008 due to higher clock speed, never had a SAS3008.

 

Thanks Johnnie. I will investigate further based on your recommendations. Cheers mate.

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50 minutes ago, fliptoback said:

SAS2008 are similar to SASLP/SAS2LP, they use the same power, SAS2308 runs a little hotter than SAS2008 due to higher clock speed, never had a SAS3008.

 

Hi Johhnie, I am now hunting for the sata card and came across the Dell H200E. Is this any different to the Dell H200? Should I go for the H200 or the H310? thanks again

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4 minutes ago, johnnie.black said:

The H200E has 2 external ports, there is the H200, same as H310, both have 2 internal miniSAS ports, only difference is the orientation.

 

Ahh yes. How could I miss that. The "E" must have stood for "External". 

 

So between the H200 and H310, which one should I go for? 

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3 minutes ago, johnnie.black said:

They are basically the same, one has vertical ports, the other horizontal, depending on your case one might be better, if not go with the cheapest.

 

Thanks again. In that case I will go for the H310 since you have noted that they are essentially the same. Cheers again buddy.

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  • 3 months later...

I'm using three Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 controllers with the .21 firmware on an Asus A88X-PRO motherboard.  The server is a Supermicro 24-bay 4U rack with a SAS846TQ rev 1.02 backplane.  I was thinking of upgrading to a version 3.0 backplane and replacing the controllers with the Dell H310's listed here:

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-H310-6Gbps-SAS-HBA-w-LSI-9211-8i-P20-IT-Mode-for-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID/162834659601?epid=19006955695&hash=item25e9b3b911:g:3TgAAOSwTf9ZWHPf:sc:USPSPriorityMailSmallFlatRateBox!21043!US!-1

 

The reason I'm looking to upgrade is to increase the transfer rates to the drives since all of the drives are SATA III versions.  The rev 3.0 backplane is configured for SATA III drives and the controllers are already loaded with the IT firmware so it looks like it could be a simple plug and play upgrade.  Does this seem like a reasonable approach to increase my transfer rates or am I just throwing money at a problem that may not be the solution?  Is there a different 8-port controller that's recommended?

Edited by captain_video
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42 minutes ago, captain_video said:

The rev 3.0 backplane is configured for SATA III drives and the controllers are already loaded with the IT firmware so it looks like it could be a simple plug and play upgrade. 

It should be.

 

42 minutes ago, captain_video said:

Does this seem like a reasonable approach to increase my transfer rates or am I just throwing money at a problem that may not be the solution?

You should see a nice bump in parity check speed, though if you have 24 disks, and depending on the CPU and if you have single or dual parity, it can also be a bottleneck.

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45 minutes ago, johnnie.black said:

It should be.

 

You should see a nice bump in parity check speed, though if you have 24 disks, and depending on the CPU and if you have single or dual parity, it can also be a bottleneck.

I actually have 29 disks with a single parity drive, although I plan to add a 2nd parity drive soon.  Current storage capacity is at 112TB.  The CPU is an AMD A10-7700K.  The extra five drives are in 5-bay Supermicro CSE-M35T-1B enclosure located externally to the server case connected with shielded eSATA cables and power extension cables.  They are all connected directly to the motherboard SATA ports.  I also have a 250GB SSD as a cache drive connected to the 6th motherboard SATA port.  I plan to use that port for the 2nd parity drive and connect the cache drive to a dual-port SATA controller mounted in a spare PCI-e X1 slot.

 

I'm just trying to determine if it's worth the expense to replace the backplane and the controller cards.  I've been replacing my 1080p Blu-Ray rips with 4K rips as they become available and the files are taking a very long time to transfer.  I've got them all converted to mkv format.

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2 minutes ago, captain_video said:

I'm just trying to determine if it's worth the expense to replace the backplane and the controller cards.  I've been replacing my 1080p Blu-Ray rips with 4K rips as they become available and the files are taking a very long time to transfer.  I've got them all converted to mkv format.

Unless you're using turbo write it won't make any difference for file transfers, it should for parity checks/disks rebuild but for normal transfer only with turbo write enable.

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