Supermicro MBD-X7SBE-O - Level 1 testing


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All the hardware is in place except for some of the the hard drives. I have done this round of testing with only 5 drives. Eventually this will be a 16 drives system (1 parity, 1 cache, 14 data).

 

Key Features:

 

1. Intel® Xeon® 3000 Sequence and

    Core™ 2 Quad / Duo Series in LGA775

    Package (FSB 1333/1066/800 MHz)

2. Intel® 3210 + ICH9R Chipset

3. Up to 8GB unbuffered ECC / non-ECC

    DDR2 800/667 SDRAM

4. Intel® 82573V + Intel® 82573L

    PCI-E Gigabit Controllers

5. Built-in SATA ICH9R Controller

    6x SATA (3 Gbps) Drive with

    RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 Support

6. 1 (x8) PCI-Express,

    1 (x4) PCI-Express,

    2 64 bit 133MHz PCI-X,

    2 64 bit 100MHz PCI-X

7. On board ATI ES1000 32MB Graphics

8. SIM1U IPMI 2.0

 

Manufacturer: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon3000/3210/X7SBE.cfm

 

Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182142&Tpk=x7sbe

 

These are the rest of the system components:

 

* Case: Antec 1200

* 4x drive cages (4-in-3):  CoolerMaster STB-3T4-E3-GP

* PSU: PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750

* CPU: E6750, stock fan

* Memory: ECC 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800 (Crucial CT2KIT25672AA800)

* 2x PCI-X controllers: AOC-SAT2-MV8

* nic: intel 1000 CT, PCI-E

* Parity hard drive: WD 1.0TB Green (WD10EADS) <- used only for some of the tests

* Cache drive: none

* Data drives: x3 WD 1TB Green (WD10EADS), x1 WD 1.5TB Green (WD15EADS)

* USB flash (boot device): Patriot mini 4GB, FAT32, unRAID 4.5beta6

 

Memory: memtest86+ run for 24hrs with no errors

 

Speed testing without parity:

 

Writing to disk1:         65-75 MB/sec

Reading from disk1: 95-105 MB/sec

Writing to a share: 49-51 MB/sec

Reading from a share: 75-95 MB/sec

 

Generating Parity data (WD10EADS): 48 - 58 MB/sec ~280 min

 

Speed testing with parity:

 

Writing to disk1:         14-15 MB/sec

Reading from disk1: 95-105 MB/sec

Writing to a share: 11.5-12 MB/sec

Reading from a share: 95-105 MB/sec

 

drive temps (load): between 30C and 33C, idle <30C

 

Is 11-12MB/sec write speed OK? I plan to use a faster drive for parity than the WD 1TB Green I used for this test. Hopefully that will improve speed a bit.

 

Luca

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Is 11-12MB/sec write speed OK? I plan to use a faster drive for parity than the WD 1TB Green I used for this test. Hopefully that will improve speed a bit.

Luca

 

I plan to migrate to the same motherboard. This board has the potential to support a huge number of drives.

 

The 12MB/s is about right for the WD Green on parity. (Actually I saw slightly less).

 

As I always suggest, use the fastest drive you can afford for parity.

 

Upgrading my parity from a 1TB WD Green to a Seagate 1.5tb 32MB cache 7200RPM drive brought a measurable and noticeable difference to how writes performed.  Especially for high speed torrent downloading and seeding.

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Is 11-12MB/sec write speed OK? I plan to use a faster drive for parity than the WD 1TB Green I used for this test. Hopefully that will improve speed a bit.

Luca

 

I plan to migrate to the same motherboard. This board has the potential to support a huge number of drives.

 

The 12MB/s is about right for the WD Green on parity. (Actually I saw slightly less).

 

As I always suggest, use the fastest drive you can afford for parity.

 

Upgrading my parity from a 1TB WD Green to a Seagate 1.5tb 32MB cache 7200RPM drive brought a measurable and noticeable difference to how writes performed.  Especially for high speed torrent downloading and seeding.

 

It is a nice board, not a complaint so far. I plugged the controllers into the 133MHz slots. The Seagate drive you mentioned is what I ordered for parity.  :P  I'll post new tests when the drive configuration is complete.

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I finished installing the remaining drives. I thought that running preclear on all of them would be a nice way to test for possible weak links.

 

I opened 16 putty sessions to the server, plus 1 console, and started preclear_disk.sh simultaneously on all drives. This is what it looked like: :)

681803520_yrUsd-O.jpg

 

drive type preclear speed temp (min/max)

--------------------------------------------------------------

wd 1.5 green 66~70 MB/sec 27~34

wd 1.0 green 59~60 MB/sec 27~34

wd 640 black ~74 MB/sec 32~39

st 1.5 7200rpm ~80 MB/sec 39~42

 

CPU: under load, CPU utilization run almost constantly around 20%

Memory: total 4051, used 1110, free 2941, buffers 805, cached 141

 

Preclear_disk time for drive type:

 

wd640 black: ~14 hrs

wd 1.0 green: ~22.5 hrs

st 1.5 7200: ~26.5 hrs

wd 1.5 green ~29 hrs

 

Preclear_disk.sh completed all sessions, reporting that all the drives have been successfully pre-cleared. However, for about half of them, the utility showed some errors, I attached a log of these drives. Obviously I am not smart enough to interpret the SMART info, can anyone tell me if they are something to worry about?

 

Luca

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That's some testing job... and performance with 16 drives running all at once.

Glad I bought that Mobo too.

 

the smart stats do not look too alarming.

 

The one that stood out was

Seagate 1.5TB 7200RPM (parity drive):

Yet, many of these numbers are normalized with internal values and time. So I cannot say it's something to worry about.

Do a smart -t long test and if it's clean you're good.

 

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The Seagate parity drive passed the long SMART test, so I guess I'll start copying some data over. Which brings me to my next question.  ;D

What is the most logical way to setup the folder structure?

 

My previous array was RAID5. All media was in a single "media" folder (how inventive, I know), then subfolders for pics, audio, video...

In unraid, you have a chance to organize your data by drive as well. For instance keep a folder (or group of folders) of related content confined to one drive.

 

I realize I could just create a "media" share and let unraid worry about where to place the data, but is there a better way?

 

Luca

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I realize I could just create a "media" share and let unraid worry about where to place the data, but is there a better way?

 

Luca

 

It really is all personal preference.  I have my audio, DVD's, TV Show rips, and SciFi rips all in separate folders.  I prefer it that way so that I can fill a drive as I go and keep all the SciFi on one drive (at least for now)  The only collection I have that spans more then one drive is my DVD's.  The new Fillup option for share allocation is what I really want to use but I am currently running 4.4.2 and it does not have this option.  I instead restrict what disks a share is allowed to use and that gives me the "Fill up" option but with a little more work (not that big a deal to me).

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Weebotech: you are right, I moved my question to the software forum  :)  I run some further (and longer) testing on the server.

This round of tests run for several hours, over a couple of days. I think that the results are close to minimum speed for this system. I also attached new syslog, and hdparm results.

 

- cache drive disabled:

------------------------------

write to disk (parity):         > 13.6 MB/s

write to share (parity):         > 12.6 MB/s

write to disk to disk (parity) > 13.4 MB/s

write to disk (no parity):     ~ 51-58 MB/s

write to share (no parity):     > 32.2 MB/s

 

- cache drive enabled:

------------------------------

write to share (parity):         > 30.2 MB/s

read from share:               ~ 70-75 MB/s

 

Luca

 

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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 months later...

I just got my X7SBE board yesterday with two AOC-SASLP-MV8 cards. does anyone have these working in the PCI-e 4x slot? for some reason I cannot get these cards to work in that slot, they work fine in the 8x slot. i am thinking i have a bad board but want to make sure...

 

thanks

James

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As far as I know and just got confirmed from the Supermicro site at http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-SASLP-MV8.cfm that card is a 4x PCIe and must work in a 4x slot?!

 

thanks, the 2 cards i have will not work in the 4x slot but they do work in the 8x slot.

 

I just called and according to supermicro tech support the 8x slot will operate at the 4x when the card is plugged in there. they are not sure if the cards are compatible in the 4x slot (they mentioned something about the south bridge) and have opened a case to further troubleshoot. they have me doing a rma on the board and get a replacement just in case i have a bad board.

 

if anyone can confirm that the AOC-SASLP-MV8 card does work in the 4x slot it would be great.

 

 

thanks

James

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Hmm, not sure what they are talking. The PCIe slots of the X7SBE are 4x and 8x, both physically and electrically. Look here http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon3000/3210/X7SBE.cfm How can a 4x card work in the 8x slot but not in the 4x slot, just wondering. Perhaps those cards are 8x and falsely advertised being 4x?

 

a x1 port can support 2 drives.

8 ports x4, seems about right.

Besides, the card would not fit in a x4 slot

 

>> How can a 4x card work in the 8x slot but not in the 4x slot, just wondering.

Might be a bios thing,  Maybe the card's bios needs to be scanned and that is turned off.

Might be where the x4 slot is. Look at the block diagram on the manual.

I tried an x4 marvel sata adapter in the x4 slot and it worked fine.

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thanks, the 2 cards i have will not work in the 4x slot but they do work in the 8x slot.

 

I just called and according to supermicro tech support the 8x slot will operate at the 4x when the card is plugged in there. they are not sure if the cards are compatible in the 4x slot (they mentioned something about the south bridge) and have opened a case to further troubleshoot. they have me doing a rma on the board and get a replacement just in case i have a bad board.

 

I am very interested in the same two card config you are trying to get working, I looked through the motherboard manual, did you try messing with the PCI-E BIOS settings identified below?

 

Slot 4 PCI-Exp. X4 / Slot 7 PCI-Exp. X8

Access the submenu for each of the settings above to make changes to the following:

Option ROM Scan
When enabled, this setting will initialize the device expansion ROM. The options are Enabled and Disabled.

Enable Master
This setting allows you to enable the selected device as the PCI bus master. The options are Enabled and Disabled.

Latency Timer
This setting allows you to set the clock rate for Bus Master. A high-priority, high-throughout device may benefit from a greater clock rate. The options are Default, 0020h, 0040h, 0060h, 0080h, 00A0h, 00C0h, and 00E0h. For Unix, Novelle and other Operating Systems, please select the option: other. If a drive fails after the installation of a new software, you might want to change this setting and try again. A different OS requires a different Bus Master clock rate.

 

Hope you can get it working...

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