Critique my motherboard, SATA and drive plan and give input on server upgrade for 10 drive array, 2 parity and 2 cache


Recommended Posts

I'm in middle of contemplating hardware upgrade to my Unraid system and wrapping my head around it all since there are so many things inter-related. Would appreciate some help.

 

I currently have:

  • 6 drives in the array
  • 1 parity
  • 1 cache (512GB SSD)
  • 2 drives precleared but un-assigned. These are on standby in case I need to replace a drive so I can do it more quickly.
  • All drives directly connected to my ASRock E3C224D4I-14S motherboard which an LSI 2308 onboard, which supports "8 x SAS2 from 2 x mini SAS 8087"
  • Intel Xeon E3-1231 v3 3.4Ghz
  • 32GB ECC DDR3 RAM
  • Rosewill RSV-L4412 4U case. This is a 4U case that fits up to an enhanced ATX motherboard so my motherboard options are unrestricted.

 

My plan is to upgrade my motherboard and CPU (for another reason), and in process I may as well look at how I'm connecting my drives. What I want ideally (changes in bold)

  • 6 drives in array
  • 2 parity (add redundancy)
  • 2 cache (add redundancy and change to NVMe)
  • 2 drives on standby
  • New Motherboard
  • New CPU (Likely switching from a Xeon to a Core i7)
  • 32GB ECC DDR3 RAM (I've read I can continue to use ECC RAM on a non-ECC supporting CPU)
  • Dedicated SATA card (improve perf, better scalability)

 

SATA CARD

For the SATA card, my research indicates that a good bang for the buck is either the LSI 9207-8i or LSI 9211-8i, and their only difference seems to be PCie 3.0 vs 2.0 (specific post talking about it). Since I plan to go NVMe for cache drive away from SSD connected to my SATA card or motherboard, seems like there's no real difference to me so I should just go for whatever is cheaper which seems to consistently be the LSI 9211-8i.

 

On ebay they seem to run between $50-$75 from theartofserver (a regularly recommended eBay seller on this forum and on unraid subreddit). These cards from this seller come already flashed for IT mode (Example LSI 9211-8i, Example LSI 9207-8i) which simplifies things.

 

I realize the evaluation whether a card is good for my situation depends on # of drives and motherboard compat. Since I'm vying for a new motherboard, my guess is that's a non-issue since I can tailor the choice.

 

So 2 questions:

  1. What do you think of my choice of LSI 9211-8i? Anything I'm missing in my decision making criteria?
  2. How do I get support for 10 drives since a single LSI 9211-8i card maxes out at 8? I've seen "expanders" for $200+ dollars (most commonly recommended one is the RES2SV240 which is $250) which makes sense if I'm using RAID functionality natively on the cards. But since these will be in IT-mode, I'm using them as a simple HBA controller, so is it OK to just buy 2 x LSI 9211-8i for approx $100 total and connect 8 drives on 1 card, and 2 drives on the other? (which leaves me expansion for 6 more drives in future). Alternatively, I've read I could use an inexpensive HP Expander card like this HP 468405-001 HP SAS EXPANDER CARD ($20 renewed) and according to this comment on reddit, it doesn't even need to be connected to the motherboard if I'm short on PCie slots, it only needs power. Note: One thing i don't like about this last approach it is looks like I need to connect to the card using external cables outside of the case to connect the LSI 9211-8i to this HP 468405 expander? Not end of the world, but feels sloppy.

 

MOTHERBOARD + CPU

Mentioned above, but I was thinking about a Intel Core i7 4770 or 4790 for balance of performance and Quick Sync support for hardware accelerated transcoding for Plex. Question: Good idea or should I go with a more recent CPU so my motherboard choices open up?

 

For Unraid, I like the a USB directly on the motherboard since I plug my tiny USB key directly, without it dangling outside the case. Question: Do most motherboards have this feature? The last motherboard research I did was like 5 years ago when I got my ASRock which has this.

 

NVMe for Cache drive instead of SATA SSD

Seems like prices are cheap enough to just go with NVMe now since they range from $50-$80 for 512GB. So my cost is 2x that since I want 2 cache drives for redundancy. Question: Seems like as long as I get a motherboard with two PCIe x4 slots, I'm good, right? Or are there other considerations?

Link to comment
1 hour ago, jbartlett said:

NVMe drives can disable PCIe slots and/or SATA ports if installed.

I thought NVMe plugged directly into PCIe slots? Also, given that I am going to a LSI SATA card, extensive onboard SATA ports on the motherboard isn't as important, right?

Link to comment
33 minutes ago, tmchow said:

I thought NVMe plugged directly into PCIe slots? Also, given that I am going to a LSI SATA card, extensive onboard SATA ports on the motherboard isn't as important, right? 

NVMe drives can plug in via different methods, via a m.2 slot, PCIe adapter, etc. m.2 slots are known to disable PCIe slots if in use. As ramblinreck47 said, be sure to check the MB manual to check for any usage restrictions.

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.