2 minutes ago, itimpi said:

It is not the amount of data in the array that matters but the size of the largest drive in the array as far as estimating the elapsed time.

That makes sense, I see he has 12TB drives in there.

i dunno what disk tunables are

 

but my Parity Disk is a WD 12TB 7200RPM 256MB hard drive

so it takes roughly betwwen 23-26 hours depending if i watching a movie or its doing something else..  and i know 2 disks are on Sata2 and my Parity and my other couple drives are on a Sata3    connections but thats because the gaming computer mobo was transitioning to all Sata3  as this board is 5  yrs old.. so no worries there im sure my next gaming board i gonna use for the unraid will be all Sata3  and speeds improve a bit more

but its much better then my old mobo  on a Sata1 speeds  it took a while only using 2 and 2.5 TB hard drives

 

If your motherboard can fit an additional x8 card I would recommend an LSI 2008 based card like a Dell PERC H310 flashed to IT firmware.

Edited December 14, 20187 yr by Taddeusz

ya i have a few slots i could use a card..  i googled the LSI 2008 card  amazon said raid card..

 

now my question is its a Raid card... and when i did Raid before with the onboard motherboard..  my motherboard blew... i exchanged the motherboard but the raid was unrecoverable since it wasnt the same board or what not..  i have no experience with Raid controller boards you plug in.   would that still happen

but then again im also doing unraid and they dont do raid...   but still no experience in an extra card for sata ports.. are these good cards.. im used to only the onboard... but if these cards are good then ya defently can go this way then i wouldnt have to upgrade the gaming board to another gaming board.. just add a card.. as CPUS are fast enough these days to run plex  and backup...

 

whats your review on these cards... for someone thats never had one...  and you mentioned Flashed to a IT firmware  whats special about a IT firmware  maybe you can explain that better...  explain it for a newbie for a card like that.. and thank you for other ideas for my options 🙂

 

and i found this one

https://www.amazon.ca/Sas9200-8E-8Port-SataPlusSas-PCie-LSI00188/dp/B002QJZLCA/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1544757220&sr=8-3&keywords=lsi+2008

 

they kinda expensive..  i see if the usa one in usa money with conversion  is still cheaper to buy in usa lol  go figure

You can find them on eBay, sometimes already flashed to the IT firmware, for well under $100. The last one I picked up for $30.

The IT firmware removes the RAID functionality and turns them into a regular hard drive controller.

and what is this IT firmware is it a unraid format or something..  on ebay do i look for IT firmware... and if they dont have this IT firmware can it be flashed easily

oh ok  thats good  so it doesnt bugger stuff up then

is this a good one?  it doesnt say its flashed and it says SAS  but the descripition says Sata as well

can you tell ?  i have no experience with these cards

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Dell-H200E-6Gb-s-SAS-PCIe-HBA-2-Port-Ext-SFF-8088-12DNW-LSISAS2008-LSI-9200-8E/182917333497?hash=item2a96b901f9:g:tKUAAOSwXEdaUEx~:rk:3:pf:0

No, that one is an 8e card, meaning it has external ports. It should be an 8i card. They are SAS cards. SAS is also compatible with SATA. You also need mini SAS to SATA cables.

 

They are fairly easy to flash. You can find several guides online. This site is a good resource: https://www.servethehome.com

 

The nice thing about these cards is they have 8 6Gb ports on them. Getting them going isn’t always for everyone.

ah ok.. and if you didnt flash these cards..  what happens?  doesnt unraid still see them?

ok i think i found the right one 

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/LSI-SAS-9210-8i-8-port-6Gb-s-PCIe-HBA-RAID-SATA-Controller-card-M1015-9211-8I/171972993154?hash=item280a63a082:g:QdwAAOSwRUhY~dZA:rk:3:pf:0

Yes, that card is perfect. It needs a firmware upgrade anyway and would be easier to flash to the IT firmware since it's not a Dell or IBM card that needs cross-flashed.

 

If you don't flash it with the IT firmware it works as a RAID card and I don't believe the drives aren't directly visible by Unraid.

whats cross flashing.. is that flashing a firmware that wasnt ment for the card...  and brand is LSI  would they even have a IT firmware from there own site.... or is it hurdels to change the Firmware..

 

learn something new everyday...

i looked up cards firmware and downloads 

it has Drivers for FreeBSD is that what unraid is.. or is that Freenas

but not sure what firmware it need.. but ill order a card tommorow that way i dont need to upgrade my computer yet

https://www.broadcom.com/products/storage/host-bus-adapters/sas-9210-8i#downloads

 

Just now, comet424 said:

whats cross flashing.. is that flashing a firmware that wasnt ment for the card...  and brand is LSI  would they even have a IT firmware from there own site.... or is it hurdels to change the Firmware..

 

learn something new everyday...

Yes, cross flashing turns another branded card like a Dell H310 or an IBM M1015 into an LSI 9211. There are a few more steps to get the LSI firmware on there. I think Dell has an HBA (IT) firmware but I'm not sure. I decided to flash mine to a 9211.

 

No hurdles to get the IT firmware. Both IR (RAID) and IT firmwares are available in the same download from Broadcom. Broadcom now owns LSI tech. That card you linked would be easier to flash.

Just now, comet424 said:

i looked up cards firmware and downloads 

it has Drivers for FreeBSD is that what unraid is.. or is that Freenas

but not sure what firmware it need.. but ill order a card tommorow that way i dont need to upgrade my computer yet

https://www.broadcom.com/products/storage/host-bus-adapters/sas-9210-8i#downloads

 

Don't use the 20.00.00.00 firmware, it's buggy. The 20.00.07.00 is the one you want.

ah ok  i ment the hurdles i ment is for the cross upgrading..  how come you can flash the Dell or IBM with a different companies firmware.. is it that the chip on the dell or ibm  uses the LSI brand chip  that way you can do that..

 

and ok thats why i couldnt find the brand LSI website  just broadcom  i thought i was missing something...

 

and the 7.00 version that one is only for windows.. while the others are for linux freebsd etc.. or it doesnt matter  just the 7.00 will work

well now to order a card and wait a month to get to me.. least then ill have fast sata connections instead of mixed speeds 

There are a few extra steps to fully erase the Dell or IBM firmware so that the LSI firmware can be flashed. They have protections against that which are easy to sidestep. They all use an LSI chip and have branded firmwares.

ok i found 2 same cards but different.. can you tell me which one is legit.. and which one be a chinese knock off??

since it shows same model  yet the Sata connection is in 2 different places.. and since there is always knockoffs fakes  i dont wanna buy the fake 

link 1

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/LSI-SAS-9210-8i-8-port-6Gb-s-PCIe-HBA-RAID-SATA-Controller-card-M1015-9211-8I/171972993154?hash=item280a63a082:g:QdwAAOSwRUhY~dZA:rk:3:pf:0

 

link 2

https://www.amazon.com/SAS9211-8I-8PORT-Int-Sata-Pcie/dp/B002RL8I7M/ref=pd_bxgy_147_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B002RL8I7M&pd_rd_r=4590dafd-ffb3-11e8-bb5a-dff16524fffe&pd_rd_w=Cz92T&pd_rd_wg=a2q2L&pf_rd_p=6725dbd6-9917-451d-beba-16af7874e407&pf_rd_r=GXXKW53DR7BRT8WS2TDN&psc=1&refRID=GXXKW53DR7BRT8WS2TDN

my mistake damn dislexia i read 9210 as 9211  

is that the only difference between 9210 and 9211 the position of the sas port

 

sorry again i hate dislexia

Not sure about the one from eBay. It shows it's shipping from China. I personally try to avoid ordering parts from China but that's just me. Mostly due to the shipping time. If that doesn't bother you they do seem to be a highly rated seller.

 

I was looking at the 9210/11 differences last night. It does look like the only difference between the two is the position of the ports.

ah ok  thats what  i thought in the end too

oh do you know anything about multipler cards  i was looking at this instead of getting a raid card?   1 Sata port on your motherboard equals 5 sata ports or so

i saw it from the 45drives  cases and backblaze  they use a 1 Sata port to a 5 sata multiplier

https://www.ebay.com/p/SATA-1-to-5-Ports-Multiplier-Extender-Adapter-Riser-Card-SATA-Hub-SATAII-3gbps/2228735005?iid=253228455152

1 hour ago, comet424 said:

ah ok  thats what  i thought in the end too

oh do you know anything about multipler cards  i was looking at this instead of getting a raid card?   1 Sata port on your motherboard equals 5 sata ports or so

i saw it from the 45drives  cases and backblaze  they use a 1 Sata port to a 5 sata multiplier

https://www.ebay.com/p/SATA-1-to-5-Ports-Multiplier-Extender-Adapter-Riser-Card-SATA-Hub-SATAII-3gbps/2228735005?iid=253228455152

I’ve heard SATA port multipliers can be problematic. Plus there’s a lot less bandwidth there. Squeezing 5 3 Gb drives through a single 3Gb link. Performance is likely going to be bad. Particularly on parity checks. During parity checks my LSI card can be pushing over 1 gigabyte per second during the first 25% of the scan.

ok i kinda understand... and if hard drives can only do 256meg/s  then isnt a 6GB/s be good 

as the 12TB drive is Sata3  but it only does like 256 meg/s   nothing like the SSD at 500  so wouldnt that be good?    and why does the first 25% go 1gigabyte per second

here is couple links

https://www.backblaze.com/b2/storage-pod.html

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build-cheap-cloud-storage/

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/open-source-data-storage-server/

 

i like the case but at over 1000 canadian  it isnt worth for it me for home use  but love how its compact etc