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IOwnCalculus posted:I mean, how much real world difference is there going to be between the two? Given a choice I'll always take more cache but I wouldn't expect it to be meaningful in a home environment, doubly so when stuck in a ZFS array with lots of RAM. Yes this. Due to what I bolded, an extra 128MB cache attached to the disk's onboard controller ASIC is essentially meaningless. Linux (and lots of other common OS choices) will automatically use otherwise-free system memory as disk cache, and that memory is connected to the CPU by a very fast and low latency DRAM bus instead of sitting behind a glacially slow SATA link that forces higher latency block-granularity access. You can probably make the 256MB cache drive look better in a synthetic benchmark, but in the real world I doubt it matters at all. Basically all a spinning disk needs is enough DRAM to buffer a reasonable number of write requests so it can do a little bit of reordering and whatnot.
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Nov 1, 2017 05:56
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is there any way to flash the firmware on raid cards you can get on ebay that are gimped to only run in specific systems, without having that system on hand to make it work? I'm a bit of a noob on raid cards and bought something off of ebay listead as an "LSI 9264-8i" - a bit of research indicates it's likely an NEC card since LIi never sold a 9264. Anyway it doesn't show up at all on my ASUS Z270 tuf mark 2 - I've tried everything, including taping over a specific pin. Any ideas or should I just buy a slow rocketraid that I know will work since it's just for bulk storage? I can't use the integrated raid because I'm already using that on raid-0 M.2 drives (yes I know this was stupid), and when I tried to add a 2nd raid-5 array, it kept degrading and ASUS support told me it's because I was running two different arrays (I think that's bullshit since I get the same issue making a software raid in win10, but they weren't willing to help any further)
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Nov 1, 2017 19:32
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Does it not even show up when you run any of the LSI flash tools in DOS or a linux bootdisk or something?
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Nov 1, 2017 20:21
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IOwnCalculus posted:Does it not even show up when you run any of the LSI flash tools in DOS or a linux bootdisk or something? I haven't tried any of that, I just kinda figured if it didn't give me any splash screen on boot then it wasn't going to detect no matter what. I'll try a boot disk. Have I mentioned that I'm not good at this
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Nov 1, 2017 20:45
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zegermans posted:I haven't tried any of that, I just kinda figured if it didn't give me any splash screen on boot then it wasn't going to detect no matter what. I'll try a boot disk. Have I mentioned that I'm not good at this If you shutdown and restart your computer, just after the motherboard BIOS screen you should see the BIOS screen for your LSI card. If you don't see that BIOS screen, it means that either the card is broken or you're right, and it's truly incompatible with your hardware.
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Nov 1, 2017 21:01
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It could also have already been flashed without a boot ROM, or option ROMs could be disabled in your BIOS. There's pretty much no reason to get into the boot ROM if you're using it in IT mode so I have my systems set up to ignore option ROMs to speed up the boot process a bit.
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Nov 1, 2017 21:17
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bobfather posted:If you shutdown and restart your computer, just after the motherboard BIOS screen you should see the BIOS screen for your LSI card. Right, that's how cards I've used in the past used to work, no problems - but I'm just straight not getting that with this card - I was wondering if the board being UEFI somehow screwed with the integration, but I've tried it in legacy mode as well without success. bobfather posted:If you don't see that BIOS screen, it means that either the card is broken or you're right, and it's truly incompatible with your hardware. well that would blow. I found all the relevant firmware and walkthroughs online in the meantime so maybe the flash utility will be able to locate the card but I'm not hopeful. IOwnCalculus posted:It could also have already been flashed without a boot ROM, or option ROMs could be disabled in your BIOS. There's pretty much no reason to get into the boot ROM if you're using it in IT mode so I have my systems set up to ignore option ROMs to speed up the boot process a bit. you mean they may have disabled the part that shows up before the OS boot since you don't need the array to detect until you're in the OS anyway? I'm not getting any inkling from my device manager that anything is even in the PCI-E slot after booting the compatibility issues might explain why a $300ish LSI card was $80 on ebay though.
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Nov 1, 2017 21:22
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Good news is, EBay has your back on this. If all you're looking for in the future is a reliable HBA card, buy a Dell Perc H310. There's scores of them on EBay for < $40 a pop. Add some mini-SAS to SATA cables for $10 and you're good to go.
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Nov 1, 2017 21:26
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bobfather posted:Good news is, EBay has your back on this. I bought it like 6 months ago right before my daughter was born and haven't really had time to try to fix it until now; I imagine I'm out the money, which is fine. bobfather posted:If all you're looking for in the future is a reliable HBA card, buy a Dell Perc H310. There's scores of them on EBay for < $40 a pop. Add some mini-SAS to SATA cables for $10 and you're good to go. I actually looked at a Perc H310 but thought I might run into exactly this situation. Maybe I should have come here first. Are they just plug in play or do they need some firmware tweaking as well?
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Nov 1, 2017 21:30
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I flashed a Dell PERC card pretty easily and I don't even remember if I needed to tape a pin off the card or not.
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Nov 1, 2017 21:32
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zegermans posted:you mean they may have disabled the part that shows up before the OS boot since you don't need the array to detect until you're in the OS anyway? I'm not getting any inkling from my device manager that anything is even in the PCI-E slot after booting Yeah, it's very possible / easy to do that. Get your hands on the LSI tools and see what they say. Alternatively, boot from an Ubuntu disk or something and see what output you get from lspci.
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Nov 1, 2017 21:36
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alright so if I got a PERC H310 and followed this guide: https://techmattr.wordpress.com/2016/04/11/updated-sas-hba-crossflashing-or-flashing-to-it-mode-dell-perc-h200-and-h310/ I should be able to use this card in win 10 64-bit?
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Nov 1, 2017 21:53
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zegermans posted:alright so if I got a PERC H310 and followed this guide: https://techmattr.wordpress.com/2016/04/11/updated-sas-hba-crossflashing-or-flashing-to-it-mode-dell-perc-h200-and-h310/ I should be able to use this card in win 10 64-bit? That is indeed the guide lots of folks use. Edit: before you buy it, triple check that in your BIOS you haven't disabled option ROMs or similar options. But I think if the card just plain doesn't show up in Device Manager at all it's busted.
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Nov 1, 2017 23:43
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By default the option ROMs are disabled on a lot of the cards, since if you don't need to actually use the card with the raid features, why set it up to use that? If it doesn't detect at all hardware wise in your machine, as in you don't have a SAS card show up in the hardware manager, then it might be broke or gimped so hard it refuses to initialize at all. That said, the LSI flashing tool will detect anything with an LSI chip in it, so long as it's installed properly and not horribly broken or gimped.
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Nov 2, 2017 14:16
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you can also find pre-flashed IT mode cards on ebay for like double the price
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Nov 3, 2017 00:01
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I finally got around to upgrading my gaming pc, and now the mechanical HDD's are really loud because my new computer is so quiet. Is a Dell T30 still a solid pick these days? I thought about buying that and X number of Y tb HGST NAS HDD's. I have a spare 128GB Samsung 830 Pro for OS drive. It's not that fast but should be enough for a SATA drive, might as well run it to the ground. How reliable the HGST disks are? I don't mind breakdowns that much but re-ripping all the poo poo gets really old... But using a raid 5 with 4-8TB HDD's doesn't sound like a good option either. Also eBay is full of $50 windows 2016 server keys. How bad an idea buying one would be? In other thread people said at least win10 enterprise keys are fine, but does that apply to server keys too (I live in EU)? I'm used to windows and I don't mind paying a little extra so I can stay away from linux. Thanks in advance 
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Nov 3, 2017 09:16
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Ihmemies posted:I finally got around to upgrading my gaming pc, and now the mechanical HDD's are really loud because my new computer is so quiet. According to the latest blackblaze report HGST still have some of the lowest failure rates out there. If you like windows, and really don't wanna play with linux or FreeBSD (you should) server 2016 for $50 is probably a decent investment . I bought for my VM server in the basement an HP Zsomething workstation with dual Xeon CPU (from 2012 it seems) and is working really nicely, though I'm sure Dell is just as good.
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Nov 3, 2017 12:39
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bobfather posted:That is indeed the guide lots of folks use. I checked to make absolutely sure and yeah ROMs are enabled. I tried flashing in case the flash utility could see the card when nothing else did, but it didn't. So yeah I guess card is bad or terragimped beyond usefulness. Anyway Perc H310 on the way.
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Nov 3, 2017 16:22
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Ihmemies posted:Is a Dell T30 still a solid pick these days? I thought about buying that and X number of Y tb HGST NAS HDD's. I tried to put 4, 6tb hgst's into a Lenovo TS140. It technically supports 5 drives, except only two have cages. The other spots need adapters, then there's really no airflow, etc. Ran way too hot for my liking. Big pain in the rear end. Ended up getting an NZXT case and swapped everything over. For two drives the Dell is probably fine, 4+ I'd have second thoughts.
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Nov 3, 2017 17:39
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I have a Dell T20 with three of the 8GB HGST drives added about a month ago (at least I think they're actually HGST, they're WD Reds stripped out of the $180 externals from Best Buy) running in a RAID 5, along with a Seagate 2TB 3.5" that I use standalone. The 2TB is in the top bay with an 8TB right below it and the other 2x8TB in the bracket on the bottom of the case. They were running a bit too hot for my comfort with just the stock exhaust fan, so I added a 92mm intake fan right behind the metal front wall with an adapter to take it down to 5V and here's what I'm seeing right now after an hour straight of writes: [<user>@<server> ~]$ hddtemp /dev/sda: WDC WD80EFAX-68LHPN0: 48°C /dev/sdb: WDC WD80EFAX-68LHPN0: 45°C /dev/sdc: WDC WD80EFAX-68LHPN0: 41°C /dev/sdd: CT240BX200SSD1: 28°C /dev/sde: ST2000DL001-9VT156: 39°C Still warmer than I'd like, although not seriously concerning. I plan to get a 120mm slim fan that can fit behind the plastic front panel and see if that improves results over the 92mm one. Eletriarnation fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Nov 5, 2017 |
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Nov 5, 2017 07:41
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Those temps don't look too far out of line with what I would expect. I've got a couple intake fans that are a half inch from my drives, and they idle in the low to mid 30s and peak in the mid 40s.
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Nov 5, 2017 13:45
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Is there any reason not to get Seagate archive drives? The 8TB one (ST8000AS0002) has by far the best price per gb and have good results in the backblaze analysis. Although it's a bit more than I need right now for non-redundant storage so I might go for a smaller drive and then get another one later. Speaking of redundancy, I recall there being a system that let you set up your storage such that part of it was fully mirrored for the critical data, and the rest was lower redundancy RAID or JBOD or something. Seems like that would be the best thing for me as I could keep a small amount of important documents highly secure, and leave my Linux ISO archive exposed to somewhat higher risk. Does such a thing still exist?
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Nov 5, 2017 14:09
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Their rewrite speeds are pretty bad if you do large writes. That's the biggest downside. If you're writing one time and only one time, they're great. But if you're using a copy on write filesystem (ZFS, for example), the problem compounds as the drive starts to get more full.
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Nov 5, 2017 14:15
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mobby_6kl posted:Speaking of redundancy, I recall there being a system that let you set up your storage such that part of it was fully mirrored for the critical data, and the rest was lower redundancy RAID or JBOD or something. Seems like that would be the best thing for me as I could keep a small amount of important documents highly secure, and leave my Linux ISO archive exposed to somewhat higher risk. Does such a thing still exist? Windows Home Server did this.
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Nov 5, 2017 15:45
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mobby_6kl posted:Speaking of redundancy, I recall there being a system that let you set up your storage such that part of it was fully mirrored for the critical data, and the rest was lower redundancy RAID or JBOD or something. Seems like that would be the best thing for me as I could keep a small amount of important documents highly secure, and leave my Linux ISO archive exposed to somewhat higher risk. Does such a thing still exist? If you're on windows Stablebit Drivepool lets you set duplication on a per folder basis. But duplicating across hard drives isn't really protected your files, make sure you have a real backup solution.
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Nov 5, 2017 16:38
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Thermopyle posted:Windows Home Server did this. Storage Spaces in Windows 10 still does this, if I recall correctly - you designate the drives as being used for Storage Spaces, then just carve out whatever pattern of mirrored/striped/parity logical arrays you want with the space available. I used it in my desktop for my previous 3x3TB RAID 5 for several months until I decided to migrate to my always-on Linux box and mdadm. Eletriarnation fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Nov 5, 2017 |
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Nov 5, 2017 16:51
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I'm pretty sure zfs has this capability but you might have to reorganize your folder structure. You have to create a dataset with the copies set to 2 or greater. So you can have zfs storage pools with raid 0 then set dataset to copies 2 for the important stuff you have.
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Nov 5, 2017 17:27
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Ditto blocks (copies = N ∈ N ≥ 2) exist to try and keep single-disk pools from losing data when a sector (and therefore a file) gets corrupted, so far as I know. I don't know how you'd set up such a system as you're proposing - but I'm not sure I'd encourage people to do it even if you could. Just because a filesystem is good at trying to not lose data, it doesn't mean that you should be giving the finger to Murphy.
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Nov 5, 2017 21:15
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I'm running a 2007 Dell desktop as a media server. The server software is now on faster desktop because of performance issues, but I'm certain that my real bottleneck is the external hard drives connected through the Dell. I'm thinking of buying a NAS solution (probably the Synology DS718), and moving everything to that, but by all accounts the Dell is already close to what I need:
Current specs are
Everything else is stock, and as far as I can tell cannot be upgraded, but the processor benchmarks seem competitive with what would be in the DS718. If I buy a NAS case, can I strip the processor from the Dell? Or are the related limitations of such an old processor not worth the trouble? Would I even be likely to save money in the long run if I'll need to get everything else piecemeal?
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Nov 6, 2017 03:23
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Oh hey, I have that exact computer with an E8600 as my HTPC. You can't use that proc in a remotely new machine - you could try to find some used S775 motherboard and build a system around it, but realistically you'd be better off getting something like a mini-ITX board with embedded Celeron over that for several reasons - reliability, power consumption, modern motherboard features, the fact that you wouldn't actually save much money building a new system around an ancient processor when all the other parts are the same cost... you get the idea. You could also get a USB3 card or eSATA adapter for that Dell and an external multi-drive enclosure to plug in to the faster interface, but you'll pay a substantial portion of the cost of a new system for that. If I recall correctly, the PCIe x1 slot is directly under the x16 slot as well so if you're using an add-in GPU instead of onboard video it may be blocked. e: really though, that thing uses like 65W at least idling. If you leave it on all day and you're paying $0.10/kWh, it's going to cost you an extra $50 a year. An embedded Celeron motherboard with 4GB RAM would cost like $100 and use less than half as much power. I considered replacing mine with the J3455 NUC for that reason but I only leave it running when watching something on it, so it was less compelling. Eletriarnation fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Nov 6, 2017 |
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Nov 6, 2017 06:46
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lostleaf posted:I'm pretty sure zfs has this capability but you might have to reorganize your folder structure. You have to create a dataset with the copies set to 2 or greater. So you can have zfs storage pools with raid 0 then set dataset to copies 2 for the important stuff you have. That won't work, the entire pool will still be lost if one drive dies and you won't be able to import it. You can do this by setting up multiple pools on different partitions of the disk, but it's not really ZFS doing it at that point.
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Nov 6, 2017 09:36
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Eletriarnation posted:Oh hey, I have that exact computer with an E8600 as my HTPC. Thanks! I have an ancient memory of buying a USB3 card for this thing years ago, but what you're saying about the energy demands makes sense. Still leaning towards a pre-built, but I built my daily driver PC from scratch and it might be a fun project this winter.
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Nov 6, 2017 10:07
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bobfather posted:That is indeed the guide lots of folks use. ok got the card, followed the guide on a testbed at work and everything checks out in terms of detecting - will the win7 drivers from the guides work with win 10 or is there some other preferred driver that people use?
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Nov 6, 2017 20:56
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zegermans posted:ok got the card, followed the guide on a testbed at work and everything checks out in terms of detecting - will the win7 drivers from the guides work with win 10 or is there some other preferred driver that people use? My Windows 10 install saw the card instantly. No external drivers needed at all. ESXi will also likely work with it right out of the box, as will FreeNAS.
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Nov 6, 2017 21:46
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good deal.
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Nov 6, 2017 22:23
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ok the controller detects, but the 4 hard drives plugged into the controller don't. Could it be that I got a super lovely sas converter cable from amazon? e: I'm an idiot and the plug wasn't seated derp
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Nov 7, 2017 02:25
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Is https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA5AD5YN7412 a decent deal or is Gold one of those lines that's actually trash somehow? I'd probably put it in my desktop mostly for a place to put local nightly backup images and other big files I don't want included in my nightlies.
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Nov 7, 2017 21:04
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Munkeymon posted:Is https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA5AD5YN7412 a decent deal or is Gold one of those lines that's actually trash somehow? I'd probably put it in my desktop mostly for a place to put local nightly backup images and other big files I don't want included in my nightlies. It's an Archive drive which are shingle drives, they tend to have pretty poor performance on random writes.
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Nov 7, 2017 21:20
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If you're going to do just one drive, why not get that external red for $180 and just leave it in the enclosure?
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Nov 7, 2017 21:28
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Paul MaudDib posted:It's an Archive drive which are shingle drives, they tend to have pretty poor performance on random writes. Huh, that's a new one on me. I guess I'll just get one of those enclosures and shuk it since it's not that much more money and it's more room, anyway. Thanks IOwnCalculus posted:If you're going to do just one drive, why not get that external red for $180 and just leave it in the enclosure? I don't want the nightly to depend on an external device. Munkeymon fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Nov 7, 2017 |
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Nov 7, 2017 21:34
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