Hi all,

 

This is not directly related to unraid, as my unraid box is working great, this is more hardware and my windows home server which my unraid server serves to back up.

 

So I am rebuilding my home server for needed expansion. Looking into my options I decided on the Norco 4220 case which houses 20 Sata HDD and uses mini sas connectors. Originally I was just planning on using some si 3114 PCI sata controllers, but after reading found more than 1 of these does not always play well on a single system, so I started looking at other options. My Current Server is on a Biostar board with a Phenom 9550 in it, the board has 4 sata ports, 3x PCI and 2x PCI-e x1. Looking around on the internet I found this posting http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14239786#Media

 

 

 

If you look about 1/2 way down they list 2 different configurations for the 4220. 1 uses PCI-X in a PCI slot, the other PCI-e X4 controllers.

 

They clearly state the X4 version is quicker but do not talk much about media streaming, in my house we occasionally have 2 or 3 clients streaming movies or recorded tv from the home server.

 

My question is, can the PCI-x version do this without issue? I realize it would be slower than the X4 solution, however this would require a motherboard swap, I have the 9550 but only DDR2 ram and I do not want to have to buy new mb and ram for this if possible, but If there is a significant enough of a difference between the 2 I will try to find a board that can use the 9550 and my ram that would suit the bill, but only if the PCI-x solutions would potentially cause performance issues in a media streaming  / backup server.

 

Just looking for opinions pointing to either one of these solutions being far superior and why before I fill a shopping cart with more goodies for the build (already blew $40 on a 3125 PCI-e X1 4 port I will not be using....

 

all help is appreciated.

 

 

 

thanks,

 

Tom

 

If you are buying a new motherboard anyway, I would definitely opt for PCIe instead of PCIX.  It will be faster and cheaper.  The PCIX card that you already bought will likely work in a standard PCI slot (though at PCI speeds, of course).

 

PCIX is fast enough to stream HD content.  Even PCI is fast enough to stream HD content as long as only one drive at a time uses the available bandwidth.

The card I bought was a PCI-e X1, so that will be either resold or saved for my unraid server.

 

I have not bought a motherboard yet, that is the reason for this post, to sort out how big a difference using 2 of the PCI-X card in PCI slots would be as compared to the 2 PCI-e X4 Cards.

Ah, I see.  In that case, the answer is: there will be a big difference.

 

Here's some rules of thumb for keeping your speeds optimal:

 

PCI is good for one drive.  Multiple PCI slots are generally still only good for one drive since they often share bandwidth.

 

PCIe x1 is good for 2 drives.

 

PCIe x4 is good for 8 drives.

 

I'm not exactly sure where PCIX fits into that lineup, but I think it is slower than PCIe x4 and faster than PCIe x1 (but that may be wrong).  However, I do know that PCIX cards plugged into PCI slots will only run at PCI speeds, so therefore they will only be good for 1 drive.

Then Bingo we have an answer, I will get a board with minimum 2x PCI-e 4x Slots and 2 of the PCI-e 4x 8 port controllers with 6 onboard.

 

So I will configure like this:

 

MOBO Port 0 - WD Black 2.5" 360GB - OS

MOBO Port 1 - SLim DVD ROM

MOBO Ports 2 - 5 - 4x Sata to Mini Sas

 

Card 1 to Mini Sas

Card 2 to Mini Sas

 

That should work dandy for all 20 drives.

 

Thanks!

Just wanted to clarify concerning PCI bus.  Your comment is for simultaneous drive accesses.  You could hook up 10 drives to the PCI bus and each would give full speed if none of the others are being accessed at the same time.  It is therefore best to limit one (or up to 4 if you can live with slower parity checks) in the array, and use other PCI slots for other uses, like cache drive or warm spare.

 

I have 2 PCI slots in my server.  I use one for preclears and the other for installing a temporary disk on the server.

 

Ah, I see.  In that case, the answer is: there will be a big difference.

 

Here's some rules of thumb for keeping your speeds optimal:

 

PCI is good for one drive.  Multiple PCI slots are generally still only good for one drive since they often share bandwidth.

 

PCIe x1 is good for 2 drives.

 

PCIe x4 is good for 8 drives.

 

I'm not exactly sure where PCIX fits into that lineup, but I think it is slower than PCIe x4 and faster than PCIe x1 (but that may be wrong).  However, I do know that PCIX cards plugged into PCI slots will only run at PCI speeds, so therefore they will only be good for 1 drive.

Quite true, bjp999.  I used to mention that whenever I discussed PCI, but I've decided to omit it now.  I personally wouldn't trust an unRAID server that can't rebuild from parity in a reasonable amount of time (say, 10 hours or less).  Therefore, I would recommend to anyone that they run more than one drive from the PCI bus even though they certain can do so.

 

talex: Here's the cables you'll need -

 

To connect the SAS backplane to the motherboard ports

NORCO C-SFF8087-4S Discrete to SFF-8087 (Reverse breakout) Cable x 1

 

To connect the SuperMicro SAS cards to the SAS backplanes

NORCO C-SFF8087-D SFF-8087 to SFF-8087 Internal Multilane SAS Cable x 4

 

You can probably find these cheaper if you shop around, these links are just for reference.

Thanks alot, that is helpful, had them in my cart, but did find some for about 1/2 that. I love th egg but they can kill you on cables.