Need advice with old hardware/move to ver 6

[relliott64]

Just now, Zonediver said:

Since there are 2ea light gray intel SATA III ports and I will be connecting my cache drive to one of them, would it be a good idea to hook the parity drive to the other intel Sata III port, or does it not matter?

 

BTW, my upgrade path has taken a turn. I just picked up 5/12TB WD external drives. I think what I am doing to do is copy all of my current server data to 2 of these new drives, then start from scratch with a new V6 array of 2ea data and 1ea parity 12TB drives, and then start copying my data back onto the server. As I empty the drives I'm copying from, I will add those drives to the array. Is this a crazy way to do it? I realize that the data will not be protected while moving files around, but the really important stuff is already backed up at a different location.

 

Just now, Zonediver said:

Important: Connect the cache-SSD at the light gray SATA-III-port (Intel) on the mainboard - dont use the ASM1061 for the SSD - they are only connected over PCIe x1.

The LSI-controller has a problem with trimm - rest doesn't matter - all disks are slower then SATA-II.

 

[Zonediver]

The Picture i posted shows one red marked SATA-Port. This is the Intel SATA-3 Port (see the manual).

The other two grey SATA ports (not marked) are from the ASMedia ASM1061. They are also SATA-3, BUT...

Both connections are connected over a single PCIe lane (x1) and have a max. throughput of 1x 375MB/s or 2x 206MB/s.

I recommend to connect the Parity-drive to one of the black SATA-2 connectors. These are also part of the Intel-Chipset.

Edited November 7, 2019 by Zonediver

[relliott64]

Sorry, I'm dense sometimes. In the picture, it was red, and the only gray ones I saw were the ASM1061's. I now understand that it was only highlighted in red for clarity.

The manual clearly calls out the one marked red in the picture  as the "SATA3 Connector (SATA3_0, Gray)" so that's where the cache drive will go.

 

With the new 12TB drives, I may not end up with as many total drives in the array.

Would it make sense to just use the one main board sata III connection for the cache drive, and hook all the other drives to the LSI sata card, or use the black MB sata ports also?

 

[Zonediver]

21 hours ago, relliott64 said:

With the new 12TB drives, I may not end up with as many total drives in the array.

Would it make sense to just use the one main board sata III connection for the cache drive, and hook all the other drives to the LSI sata card, or use the black MB sata ports also?

 

That doesn't matter, because a normal hard disk does not load a SATA-2 interface - so you can connect the drives wherever you want.

Here is my config for all SATA-connections as an example.

The ASM1061 (yellow) holds the unassigned device, orangebrown is the LSI 9207-8i.

Blue is the Intel-controller.

The SSD is connected to the Intel-SATA-3 connector (M1) and the parity is connected to a normal SATA-2 port (M4).

 

Edited November 8, 2019 by Zonediver

[relliott64]

Thanks, you've been a big help!

I'm still copying data off my current array onto portable storage. It takes a long time to copy 24tb at 75MB/S!

 

When the array is empty, I'll back up my v5 USB, and upgrade to V6, and start installing and configuring the new drives.

Curious though..Did you make that chart above listing the sata ports and drives in excel or something? I need to create one of those once I get up and running again.

[Zonediver]

On 11/11/2019 at 3:50 AM, relliott64 said:

Thanks, you've been a big help!

I'm still copying data off my current array onto portable storage. It takes a long time to copy 24tb at 75MB/S!

 

When the array is empty, I'll back up my v5 USB, and upgrade to V6, and start installing and configuring the new drives.

Curious though..Did you make that chart above listing the sata ports and drives in excel or something? I need to create one of those once I get up and running again.

Yes that's an Excel sheet for "orientation" to know what is connected where.

Edited November 12, 2019 by Zonediver