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Project: Rackmount Overkill
- Thread starter Automata
- Start date
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2006
thid, adragon, know that I will purchase as many hard drives as I need to to make sure that I have more storage than you do.
my rack is out in the garage, everything is sitting on a folding table right now.
First time I've seen this thread thid, definitely subscribed. Have heard about WHS and those expanders, and while I really dislike WHS, I have been curious to see some real word use of expanders from someone that can find their *** with both hands.
I am accepting defeat due to the Ratified contract I have received on my first home purchase.
The house trumps defeating a measly "green" hehe..
How exactly do you have that hp sas expander hooked up? It looks like you have it hooked up incorrectly, but I could be wrong.
According to http://f.imagehost.org/0311/HPSAS-Ports.jpg the bottom two ports (lowest on the card) should be inputs, not outputs (8 is the first input connection port, then 9), then start plugging drives into port two (top left on the card).
Just missed a couple Samsung F4 2tb drives OB at the egg for $51.99. A bunch of those plus one of these expanders and I might use WHS as a backup for my primary array.
According to http://f.imagehost.org/0311/HPSAS-Ports.jpg the bottom two ports (lowest on the card) should be inputs, not outputs (8 is the first input connection port, then 9), then start plugging drives into port two (top left on the card).
Just missed a couple Samsung F4 2tb drives OB at the egg for $51.99. A bunch of those plus one of these expanders and I might use WHS as a backup for my primary array.
OP
- Joined
- May 15, 2006
- Thread Starter
- #767
The SAS expander is completely invisible to the operating system and does not interact with it, from what I've read. It only uses the PCI-e bus for power. I'm not sure how you update the firmware, though. That bit doesn't make sense.
I'm still getting good performance from the array. This is with 6 drives in a RAID 6.
I'm still getting good performance from the array. This is with 6 drives in a RAID 6.
Code:
[user@thideras-server ~]$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/hitachi/bigfile.omg bs=1G count=6
6+0 records in
6+0 records out
6442450944 bytes (6.4 GB) copied, 13.4527 seconds, 479 MB/s
[user@thideras-server ~]# seeker /dev/sdb1
Seeker v3.0, 2009-06-17, http://www.linuxinsight.com/how_fast_is_your_disk.html
Benchmarking /dev/sdb1 [7804682173 blocks, 3995997272576 bytes, 3721 GB, 3810879 MB, 3995 GiB, 3995997 MiB]
[512 logical sector size, 512 physical sector size]
[1 threads]
Wait 30 seconds..............................
Results: 75 seeks/second, 13.198 ms random access time (291601166 < offsets < 3992809789676)
- Joined
- Jul 5, 2008
- Location
- CFL
You probably update the firmware through the PCIe slot or by using that SAS to SAS connector cable using special firmware software to "look" for it.
There's gotta be a technical document on the chip the sas expander uses or for the part itself to be able to determine why port 8 and 9 are labeled as inputs, yet the order of which you connect the cables doesn't matter...
There's gotta be a technical document on the chip the sas expander uses or for the part itself to be able to determine why port 8 and 9 are labeled as inputs, yet the order of which you connect the cables doesn't matter...
It's my understanding the documentation from HP on the card is less than accurate, but who knows. The best source for info is here, all 80+ pages.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1484614
I [H]ate posting links from there
OP
- Joined
- May 15, 2006
- Thread Starter
- #770
Thanks for the link cw. I'll bookmark that and start reading it. I won't pass up a way to get better performance for free. The reason I can't simply switch it to another port is literally because of the cables (8087 <-> 8087). They are 1ft in length and aren't long enough to reach the "proper" ports. If the ports on the RAID card were on the end, then it wouldn't be an issue; but you can see how the current setup just barely fits. My only worry at this point is if it I switch it. I've "moved" back into the RAID array and I'd have to shuffle information to guarantee that I don't lose something. I can try to import a foreign configuration, but my card did not like that one bit when I added the SAS card.
The Hitachi drive is in for RMA as of this last Thursday, so I should have that eventually (where x < infinity).
VM wise, I am now on KVM/Qemu as a hypervisor. Most of the VM's are set back up (i.e. reinstalled), except for the linux VMs, which I'm just being lazy about. I got the ability to access libvirtd from another computer with my own credentials. No more SSH'ing into the server, su-ing to root and running virt-manager. Simply fire it up on my desktop OS. ;D
I was tinkering around with the migrate feature, but I couldn't get it to work. I'm probably missing a library on my desktop. Was just a test, so I didn't mind.
The Hitachi drive is in for RMA as of this last Thursday, so I should have that eventually (where x < infinity).
VM wise, I am now on KVM/Qemu as a hypervisor. Most of the VM's are set back up (i.e. reinstalled), except for the linux VMs, which I'm just being lazy about. I got the ability to access libvirtd from another computer with my own credentials. No more SSH'ing into the server, su-ing to root and running virt-manager. Simply fire it up on my desktop OS. ;D
I was tinkering around with the migrate feature, but I couldn't get it to work. I'm probably missing a library on my desktop. Was just a test, so I didn't mind.
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2000
- Location
- Albany, NY
Damn, wish I had found this thread a while ago. I've been learning Win Homeserver, and decided to figure out servers, so I picked up a couple of HP Proliant DL380's to tinker with. As its only been a couple of weeks, just figuring configurations(I'm going from scratch), has been an adventure. Guess I have a lot more to do.
OP
- Joined
- May 15, 2006
- Thread Starter
- #774
It is very addicting once you get started, watch out.
QFT, I still have a DL380, DL370, and a Powervault 220S that I haven't racked. May not turn them on, but I have to at least full up the rack.
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2000
- Location
- Albany, NY
No kidding, thid. I have already bought a bunch of larger SCSI drives for 1 and a new controller for the other. I hate to be defeated by hardware.
I might be able to snag 10-12 146Gb SCSIs from work, but at this point I can't decided what I would need them for. I think my powervault 220s mostly just has 36s in it right now, maybe half full.
Would be great attached to a cluster though, as iirc you can hook two servers up to share the same data off the array
Would be great attached to a cluster though, as iirc you can hook two servers up to share the same data off the array
Which reminds me, earlier in this thread BossBorot asked about the 470 chassis from Norco, and I have two. You can in fact put another 5-drive chassis in the far right opening once you unscrew the FP connectors and install them vertically. So 15 drives very easily doable.
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2005
- Location
- Tau'ri
I ran a port multiplier off my onboard marvell nic (9128) with SATA drives. 4 drives, one port. you can't do the same?
EDIT: Cheap jm 323 controller does the port multiplication.
Oh... port multiplication sort of works on Intel too if you have a raid device in between it. IE.. the 4x 2.5" sata backplane with the jm323 controller in it I mentioned above. You wont get 4 inidividual drives though so technically the jm is doing the port mulitplication. Marvell saw right through it though and I could even skip the jmicron RAID utility and use marvells.
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