New Build: "theone" - update January 29, 2010


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Hello,

 

January 29, 2011

 

Added another 2 HDDs - one (WD5000AAKS) to array and another (Hitachi HDS721680PLA380) out of array for torrent downloading.

 

Currently doing parity check of existing 3 drives and preclearing the new array drive - all 5 drives spinning.

Power consumption: 56W. Drive temperatures between 37C-41C.

 

Steady state/idle: Power consumption: 50W. Drive temperatures between 36C-38C (all 5 drives spinning).

 

Additionally:

  • Updated to unRAID version 4.7.
  • Added NFS sharing (in addition to SMB) for my "Media" share for use in Popcornhour. This was done to enable disk spindown again since POPCORNHOUR has timeout problems with SMB shares that are spun-down. Changed "SMB://TOWER/Media" to "NFS://TOWER:/mnt/user/Media"

 

October 30, 2010

 

First power outage since I have my unRAID server. The APC UPS and drivers worked flawlessly shutting down the server after 5 minutes and bringing it back up after power returned with No parity errors.

 

October 4, 2010

 

I finally got the Gigabit Switch I intended: HP Procurve 1410-16G (16 port gigabit switch):

http://h10146.www1.hp.com/products/switches/HP_ProCurve_1410_Switch_Series/overview.htm#J9560A

 

I Ran a performance test from my PC (Intel E8400 8GB) to the unRAID server via a network SMB share.

The test was conducted using CrystalDiskMark (2 cycles - 500MB data package).

Results below.

 

Great improvement !!!

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
                          Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [sATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

          Sequential Read :    47.580 MB/s
         Sequential Write :    33.356 MB/s
        Random Read 512KB :    29.902 MB/s
       Random Write 512KB :    24.994 MB/s
   Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :     1.091 MB/s [   266.3 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :     7.971 MB/s [  1946.0 IOPS]
  Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :     0.124 MB/s [    30.3 IOPS]
 Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :     4.790 MB/s [  1169.5 IOPS]

 Test : 500 MB [V: 82.6% (1539.4/1863.0 GB)] (x2)
 Date : 2010/10/04 19:42:52
   OS : Windows Vista Ultimate Edition SP2 [6.0 Build 6002] (x64)

 

July 29, 2010

 

I added the 3rd HDD to the array.

All 3 drives are spundown - power is: 21W !! This is low.

 

July 28, 2010

 

I finally received the APC Back-UP RS BR550GI UPS.

It has an LCD screen so now I know exactly what my power consumption is:

 

Normal (no read/write): 30W

Reading: 36-37W

Writing: 36-37W

Spundown: 23-24W (The WD10EADS is not spun down because it is not part of the array yet)

 

June 29, 2010

 

Performing parity check at ~93,000KB/s - after bad unraid shutdown.

 

June 15, 2010

 

  • Finally preclear_disk script has finished. Took about 35 hours for 2x 2TB drives simultaneously.
    results: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=4068.msg65059#msg65059
  • Defined one drive as Parity and another as Data - Performing parity sync at 57,570 KB/s. - Estimated time: 570 minutes
  • Tested reading/writing speed connected via a 10/100 router - averaged 11.2MB/s which maxed out the connection - not bad !
    To Do: Get gigabit router  :D
  • Since I don't have a gigabit network I decided to copy over my files by placing my NTFS data disk inside the unRAID machine but not assigned and did the copy using the command line "cp" after mounting it via unmenu, also used Midnight Commander

 

June 12, 2010

 

I finally got all components together (see signature) and build my first unRAID raid:

  Case: Thermaltake Wing MA VI5000BNS

  Motherboard: Supermicro X7SPA-HF

  Memory: 1x 2GB Kingston 667MHz

  PSU: Corsair CX400W

  Storage: 2x WD20EARS (jumper on 7-8 of-course), 1x WD10EADS

  Boot Device: Sandisk 1GB Cruzer Micro Skin

  unRAID version: 4.5.4

 

As I suspected the Samsung 800MHz SO-DIMMs that I planned on using didn't work with this motherboard so I had to go buy the Kingston 667MHz SO-DIMMs.

 

currently I am preclearing both WD20EARS drives (2 telnet sessions as advices) before copying over my existing data and then I will add the additional WD10EADS drive.

 

I will buy an APC UPS (RS 500VA) for this raid machine.

 

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Wow, that's quite a fan right above the CPU.  I think you'll find it unnecessary, as the airflow through your case is about perfect from the drives in the front to the exhaust in the back.  I disabled my side blowing 120mm, and my system runs at below 30 all day long.  Nice build!

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The RED fan comes with the case and helps the airflow from front to back.

It is not for the CPU as it is an ATOM and doesn't need cooling.

I am considering removing either the front (BLACK) fan in front of the HDDs or the back (RED) fan.

There is also a exhaust 120mm fan above the CPU inside the power supply.

 

 

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Depends on how many drives you eventually want to use.  I would definitely keep the front (black) fan to help cool the hard drives if you plan on packing a lot more in there.  From the pictures it looks like there isn't much space between the drives.  However, I expect you could lose the back (red) fan because the PSU fan will pull enough air to direct airflow and keep the CPU cool.

 

When playing around with fans, it is always easier to just disconnect the fan's power source and run the server like that for a few days to watch temps.  Parity checks are great for checking temps as well, since they work all the drives.  Run a parity check for 30 mins (and then cancel it if you want to) and you should have a reasonable idea of your drive temps in a worst-case scenario.

 

Just for kicks, you could try disabling both front and back fans for a while just to see if your temps get into the danger zone (45+ C).  Since you are using all green drives, I doubt they will.  If that's true, then you could have a (nearly) fan-less build (minus the PSU fan, of course - there's nothing you can do about that one)!

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There is about 5mm between each drive - it doesn't seem too crowded.

 

The PSU fan is hardly rotating since the power consumption is very low - I will test it when my UPS arrives (I don't have any other way).

 

Currently the fans are quite enough so I will leave them running for now - The server is next to my TV and hardly audible.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi,

 

I'm currently in the process of pulling together a unraid box with the same Supermicro board and was just wondering how you could tell it was the memory causing issues? I've got the same board and its not POSTing or showing anything on the screen. I've heard all the stories about how this board is quite finicky about memory and just wondered what I should be looking for?

 

chrs

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Hi,

 

I'm currently in the process of pulling together a unraid box with the same Supermicro board and was just wondering how you could tell it was the memory causing issues? I've got the same board and its not POSTing or showing anything on the screen. I've heard all the stories about how this board is quite finicky about memory and just wondered what I should be looking for?

 

chrs

 

What memory do you have?

 

My board didn't POST as well and also no video signal. There was also no beeping.

 

I had another 667MHz memory laying around so I tested it and it worked.

 

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Hi,

 

I'm currently in the process of pulling together a unraid box with the same Supermicro board and was just wondering how you could tell it was the memory causing issues? I've got the same board and its not POSTing or showing anything on the screen. I've heard all the stories about how this board is quite finicky about memory and just wondered what I should be looking for?

 

chrs

 

What memory do you have?

 

My board didn't POST as well and also no video signal. There was also no beeping.

 

I had another 667MHz memory laying around so I tested it and it worked.

 

 

I've got a couple of stick of 667MHz memory from an old Dell laptop was hoping they would work so I could get the machine booting and worry about memory later. Sounds like you had the same issues I'm having so I think I will hunt down some new memory. From all the posts I've read it seems like people are having success with Kingston memory, I've got the model number of a particular 2gb stick known to work so will try and get some of that. Thanks for your help.

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