Upgrade from X7SBE to board w/ fan-speed control and S3 sleep

Hi guys,

 

I've got here a very stable build around the Supermicro X7SBE which unfortunately do not support the fan speed control scripts for unRAID and is not able to go into S3 sleep. As I want to have full control of fan-speed and the server to be able to sleep and get quiet if all drives are spun down, I would like to upgrade it. This probably will require an upgrade of the disk controllers, memory, CPU... if need be I would upgrade them too. Of course I would prefer to upgrade only the server board. Upgrade need to be to best available components like a Supermicro board, KVMoIP functionality, ECC protected memory, etc. 

 

So, S3 sleep and fan-speed control from within unRAID is a must.

 

The next thing is power consumption, as little as possible but not a must. I have thought about the X7SPA-HF with the IBM m1015 controller and the RES2SV240 expander. But what about disk performance of all 20-24 drives going through a single 4x PCI-e card? Installed drives are Seagate ST4000DM001 and ST4000NM0033 Constellation ES.3 for parity.

 

The fans installed in the 120mm Norco fan mid plane are DELTA AFC1212DE-PWM. They need to connect to the fan headers of the main board and can draw up .53 amps per fan. Also the two smaller 80mm in the back of the Norco 4220 case. The 4220 is eventually to be upgraded sometime to the 4224, so support for 24 drives at least is a must. There are no plans for ESX and virtualization (which actually would be in contradiction to the S3 sleep idea for when the system is not in use).

 

I would highly appreciate any advice. Thanks very much!

 

 

Here the other parts of that system:

 

Supermicro X7SBE with SIM1U+

Kingston 4x KVR800D2E5/2G memory

Intel E6550 with Scythe Ninja Mini and front-to-back blowing fan

Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 (x2), with 8087 SAS to SATA break-out cables (x5)

Norco 4220 with a 120mm fan midplane and 3x DELTA AFC1212DE-PWM

SeaSonic 750HX

 

I will basically hate to touch this system but would damn need that S3 sleep and fan-speed control 

 

I have thought about the X7SPA-HF with the IBM m1015 controller and the RES2SV240 expander. But what about disk performance of all 20-24 drives going through a single 4x PCI-e card? Installed drives are Seagate ST4000DM001 and ST4000NM0033 Constellation ES.3 for parity.

IBM M1015 is X8 card not a X4 by the way.  I use a RES2SV240 with a single connection to the M1015 so that I can get a potential 24 drive system with one card - on 3 different systems.  I get 130MB/s parity checks on outer cylinders dropping to 60-90MB/s on the inner cylinders.  I have 3 unRAID systems virtualized using RES2SV240's one with 2-4TB Hitachi's inner cylinders 60MB/s, Another with 3TB WD Red's that is 90MB/s inner cylinders and 3rd System with 2-4TB Seagates about 70MB/s inner cylinders.

Thanks Bob. I was referring to the IBM m1015 controller running in the X7SPA-HF with 4x as the X7SPA-HF have only 4x wired 8x PCIe slot. This means the X7SPA-HF falls out of the equation.

 

Thanks very much for your advice.

Thanks Bob. I was referring to the IBM m1015 controller running in the X7SPA-HF with 4x as the X7SPA-HF have only 4x wired 8x PCIe slot. This means the X7SPA-HF falls out of the equation.

 

Thanks very much for your advice.

Ah got you.  It would probably still work acceptably for me anyway.  I bet with newer faster drives I could get the 50-90MB/s I got on my X7SBE with AOC-SAT2-MV8's.