Vocatus Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 Hi all, I recently purchased a Chenbro storage server on eBay. Box contains 12 SATA hard disks, controlled by two RAIDCore BC4852 (8 port model) PCI-X cards. Each card controls 6 drives. Each card can see the 6 drives attached to it. I can create and delete arrays just fine. unRAID does not recognize any of the drives attached to the cards. What configuration should I use on the cards in order for unRAID to recognize them? Options are various RAID levels, and then a "Volume" option which says it "concatenates all free space into a single volume." I attempted this, but unRAID still did not recognize any drives in the computer. Help! Link to comment
Rajahal Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 Basically you want to disable all the card's RAID settings. If it has a non-RAID or JBOD setting, try that. Also, I don't see any mention of those cards in the SATA Controller compatibility list, so it could be that unRAID doesn't have the appropriate drivers to recognize those cards. If that is the case, you can either attempt to install the drivers yourself, or email LimeTech and request that the drivers be added to the next unRAID release. Link to comment
Vocatus Posted January 18, 2011 Author Share Posted January 18, 2011 Basically you want to disable all the card's RAID settings. If it has a non-RAID or JBOD setting, try that. Also, I don't see any mention of those cards in the SATA Controller compatibility list, so it could be that unRAID doesn't have the appropriate drivers to recognize those cards. If that is the case, you can either attempt to install the drivers yourself, or email LimeTech and request that the drivers be added to the next unRAID release. Oh boy...that's not what I wanted to hear I read here that this guy was using these cards just fine, but I'm not getting anything to recognize the drives (Windows server boot disk, unRAID boot key, anything) even though they show up in the controller menus and I can activate arrays just fine. There's no JBOD option. I initialized all the disks, but none of them show up. The server IS using a backplane, should that affect anything? Link to comment
bcbgboy13 Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 I believe they do work however you have two of them and then there is an old server (with unknown so far motherboard) Post your complete hardware configuration, then try Unraid with only one card and post your syslog. In order to eliminate the backplanes use only a few HDs connected directly to the controller. Link to comment
Vocatus Posted January 18, 2011 Author Share Posted January 18, 2011 I believe they do work however you have two of them and then there is an old server (with unknown so far motherboard) Post your complete hardware configuration, then try Unraid with only one card and post your syslog. In order to eliminate the backplanes use only a few HDs connected directly to the controller. Thanks for the help bcbgboy13, The hardware config is as follows: - Tyan Tiger i7505 (intel 7505-based with 2x HT Xeons @ 3.06GHz) motherboard - 2x RAIDCore PCI-X 133MHz (NOT PCI-E) controllers (I got Ubuntu & Mint to detect the drives successfully 30 min ago, so I know they at least work) - I'm not sure of the backplane make/model, it's nested in there pretty good and I'd have to tear everything apart to get at it :-P I'll attempt plugging a couple drives directly into the controller, and try only one controller after that this afternoon. A side issue is that the server will only boot from the USB drive sporadically. For every 10 reboots I might get 2 successful USB boots. All other times the server doesn't detect the USB device successfully, or does but fails to boot. USB 1.1 mode doesn't seem to help. Link to comment
bcbgboy13 Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 Check your BIOS and update to the latest one (apparently at some points one revision fixes the USB boot problem). This motherboard will be poor choice even if the controllers work as you only have five PCI buses and not a single PCI-X. The parity checks, rebuilds, etc will be very very slow. Try to look for alternative motherboard on EBay with multiple PCI-X buses if you find out the controllers both work. Good luck Link to comment
nia Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 FWIW I had mine running as pure PCI - not PCI-X. I have managed to keep at the native 8 SATA + PATA ports on my current motherboard, so I do not currently have the Raidcore in production. Link to comment
Vocatus Posted January 19, 2011 Author Share Posted January 19, 2011 Check your BIOS and update to the latest one (apparently at some points one revision fixes the USB boot problem). This motherboard will be poor choice even if the controllers work as you only have five PCI buses and not a single PCI-X. The parity checks, rebuilds, etc will be very very slow. Try to look for alternative motherboard on EBay with multiple PCI-X buses if you find out the controllers both work. Good luck No, the cards are definitely riding in PCI-X buses. Here is the link to the exact board revision, it's the model s2665 with three PCI-X slots (2x 100MHz, 1x 133MHz). I have the latest BIOS, and it does technically support USB boot, but like I said, it's very flaky...can't be counted on to reliably boot. The main two issues then are: 1. Flaky USB booting. Can I overcome this with a kicker floppy? I have searched high and low and can't find the files for it. 2. unRAID (when it does successfully boot) doesn't recognize the drives. Ubuntu/Mint v7 DO see the drives however. Link to comment
Vocatus Posted January 19, 2011 Author Share Posted January 19, 2011 FWIW I had mine running as pure PCI - not PCI-X. I have managed to keep at the native 8 SATA + PATA ports on my current motherboard, so I do not currently have the Raidcore in production. Is there a different driver for PCI-X vs PCI? My card is the extended-length card and I don't think it will fit in a regular PCI slot Link to comment
bcbgboy13 Posted January 19, 2011 Share Posted January 19, 2011 No, the cards are definitely riding in PCI-X buses. Here is the link to the exact board revision, it's the model s2665 with three PCI-X slots (2x 100MHz, 1x 133MHz). I have the latest BIOS, and it does technically support USB boot, but like I said, it's very flaky...can't be counted on to reliably boot. The main two issues then are: 1. Flaky USB booting. Can I overcome this with a kicker floppy? I have searched high and low and can't find the files for it. 2. unRAID (when it does successfully boot) doesn't recognize the drives. Ubuntu/Mint v7 DO see the drives however. This is different animal and it will be a good choice (if no concern for power) Put the one card in the PCI-X 133MHz bus and the other in one of the 100 MHz PCI-X Regarding USB boot - I know some people here use CF card and one CF to IDE adapter and boot from this "IDE" drive. You still need a small USB drive to hold the license (as it is tied to the USB GUID). The controllers are extended length but they do fit and work very well in a regular PCI bus without problem - the only problem is that the regular PCI bus is 32 bits and the bandwidth is shared (and limited by the specs) between all the devices attached to this bus. Link to comment
nia Posted January 19, 2011 Share Posted January 19, 2011 FWIW I had mine running as pure PCI - not PCI-X. I have managed to keep at the native 8 SATA + PATA ports on my current motherboard, so I do not currently have the Raidcore in production. Is there a different driver for PCI-X vs PCI? My card is the extended-length card and I don't think it will fit in a regular PCI slot I'm sorry - can't help you there. But at bcbgboy13 states, it should be possible to run it as a regular PCI in a regular PCI slot. You could test that just to see if it works at all. Link to comment
Vocatus Posted January 20, 2011 Author Share Posted January 20, 2011 I gave up, it's making my head hurt too much. I think I'll just load up my old P5 motherboard with an extra SATA controller and all the drives from this box. Link to comment
SSD Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 Good plan. Stick with PCIe controllers if you can. Link to comment
Vocatus Posted January 20, 2011 Author Share Posted January 20, 2011 Good plan. Stick with PCIe controllers if you can. In a totally unrelated topic, anyone want to buy a sweet Chenbro storage box? Perfect for unRAID Link to comment
Rajahal Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 Which box is it? Might you be able to reuse the box and just ditch the internals? Link to comment
Vocatus Posted January 20, 2011 Author Share Posted January 20, 2011 Which box is it? Might you be able to reuse the box and just ditch the internals? It's a 3u, 12 drive bays connected by a backplane. Pretty sweet box actually. However i'm selling it on Craigslist today and just using my old box and stuffing it full of hard drives + a PCI-E 4x 4-port SATA card. I got the Chenbro for $400 loaded with 500GB drives, and the drives alone are worth that much, so I'm not too bummed about it. I just didn't feel like tearing out the internals and re-wiring everything. Plus it's really loud (6 fans). Link to comment
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