Project: Rackmount Overkill

Neuromancer · May 8, 2011

thideras said:
You could, but it won't be as fast as a hardware RAID controller and not all chipsets support port multiplication or may be limited to how many you can string along.

Rgr that... its up to teh controller on the backplane. (IE dont use the crappy jmicron I mentioned earlier as long as they both support FIS based switching though you should be good to go... sacrifice a little speed, gain a lot of storage).

I thought SAS and SATA were interoperable was the real point. Rahter SAS capable meant SATA accepted, not necessarily the other way around.

Automata · May 8, 2011

SATA will work with SATA. SAS will work with SATA or SAS.

Even if you don't use a "crappy" chipset, there is a chance it won't work. I know there were reports of Intel chipsets having problems with dropping drives when using port multipliers. Not to mention, an Intel chipset is limited to around 600-700 MB/sec total, which would be pitiful if you had multiple arrays and had to copy data between them. I guess if it didn't drop drives and you didn't care about how fast it was, it may be an option.

Neuromancer · May 9, 2011

thideras said:
SATA will work with SATA. SAS will work with SATA or SAS.

Even if you don't use a "crappy" chipset, there is a chance it won't work. I know there were reports of Intel chipsets having problems with dropping drives when using port multipliers. Not to mention, an Intel chipset is limited to around 600-700 MB/sec total, which would be pitiful if you had multiple arrays and had to copy data between them. I guess if it didn't drop drives and you didn't care about how fast it was, it may be an option.

I am confused again. Intel for sure does not work with port multiplication. Intel is a performance leader for sure per port if you believe that short stroking and back write caching is all its cracked up to be. Intel fails at doing what it says it is capable of doing. IE FIS based switching, and port multiplication (says it does both it doesn't.. I checked in my convoy review. Intel still performs well just does not do what it says it does.) Marvell 9128 chip myself for any real storage situations. I just run intel for OS

It works and well. FIS >command switching for port multiplication. Sure you are getting that with SAS but it is available with SATA as well. And splitting a sata2 port among 2-4 drives is not that big of a deal.

EDIT: Sorry, dunno why you mentioned Intel.. I thought we were talking 3rd party RAID cards. Intel does not make those do they? (If they did... I bet they would support FIS and PM and rock at it...)

EDIT EDIT: My point was... If you are using a good SAS based RAID card.. you can use port multipliers on it and get all your needs fulfilled very cheaply and use SATA drives. Might be as simple as using a SAS to SATA converter ( I have one of those cables SAS on one end 4 sata on the other.. costs about $3. I never tried using it because I was stuck on Intel chipsets till recently... dang going to have to pull it out now

)

Automata · May 9, 2011

I'm honestly confused by your post. I'm not even sure where to start.

So I won't! Time to sleep.

cw823 · May 9, 2011

Neuromancer said:
I am confused again. Intel for sure does not work with port multiplication. Intel is a performance leader for sure per port if you believe that short stroking and back write caching is all its cracked up to be. Intel fails at doing what it says it is capable of doing. IE FIS based switching, and port multiplication (says it does both it doesn't.. I checked in my convoy review. Intel still performs well just does not do what it says it does.) Marvell 9128 chip myself for any real storage situations. I just run intel for OS It works and well. FIS >command switching for port multiplication. Sure you are getting that with SAS but it is available with SATA as well. And splitting a sata2 port among 2-4 drives is not that big of a deal.

EDIT: Sorry, dunno why you mentioned Intel.. I thought we were talking 3rd party RAID cards. Intel does not make those do they? (If they did... I bet they would support FIS and PM and rock at it...)

EDIT EDIT: My point was... If you are using a good SAS based RAID card.. you can use port multipliers on it and get all your needs fulfilled very cheaply and use SATA drives. Might be as simple as using a SAS to SATA converter ( I have one of those cables SAS on one end 4 sata on the other.. costs about $3. I never tried using it because I was stuck on Intel chipsets till recently... dang going to have to pull it out now )

That's why he (and I) chose the HP SAS Expander. :shrug:

ocpokey · May 9, 2011

crazy mod, very impressive. Cool to see all the debate this has sparked ha.

Automata · May 9, 2011

cw823 said:
That's why he (and I) chose the HP SAS Expander.

I think we are talking about two totally different things. That is why I'm not sure what we are talking about.

Neuromancer · May 9, 2011

thideras said:
I think we are talking about two totally different things. That is why I'm not sure what we are talking about.

Yup and I reread the last page of the thread to get focused, and your comment about having to use SAS drives was not there anymore (I guess it never was) that was what made me post.

So guess it was all moot.

Oh and my intel comments were about the ICH9/10 series. Not the server systems. I was poo pooing them fro not doing what they said they were capable of (FIS based port multiplication)

cw823 · May 10, 2011

Neuromancer said:
Yup and I reread the last page of the thread to get focused, and your comment about having to use SAS drives was not there anymore (I guess it never was) that was what made me post.

So guess it was all moot.

Oh and my intel comments were about the ICH9/10 series. Not the server systems. I was poo pooing them fro not doing what they said they were capable of (FIS based port multiplication)

A measly 4-6 ports, thideras and I are better than that! :thup:

My stuff should be in tomorrow, but now I'm just trying to find stuff to fill up my rack before I post pictures, maybe I should bling mine out so it's shinier than thideras.

Automata · May 10, 2011

cw823 said:
A measly 4-6 ports, thideras and I are better than that!

cw823 said:
My stuff should be in tomorrow, but now I'm just trying to find stuff to fill up my rack before I post pictures, maybe I should bling mine out so it's shinier than thideras.

You would need a heck of a lot of polish to get close to mine! Not to mention, mine is deeper than a standard rack.

cw823 · May 10, 2011

/me shops online for gold-plated rack screws

Automata · May 10, 2011

Found a way to get the cables into a "proper" port and added my second cable for dual channel. I simply swapped the cards around. Not sure why I didn't think of that earlier.

No speed increase from swapping, but it had no qualms about swapping channels on the SAS expander. I had to add a high speed delta tri-blade fan to cool the RAID and SAS cards since the tiny 40mm fan I had used wasn't going to fit.

CompuTamer · May 10, 2011

...overkill much?

Automata · May 10, 2011

CompuTamer said:
...overkill much?

Clearly not! My server isn't full.

CompuTamer · May 14, 2011

That rack is twice the size of the racks in my school!

I think they only have 200 computers coming into each one....?

Automata · May 14, 2011

Well, SSD just completely failed. It was an OCZ Vertex 30 GB drive.

I was working with the server when it went completely unresponsive. I went down to see what was going on and the monitor was covered in read errors for /dev/sda; the SSD. Rebooted and the disk isn't listed. Grabbed another cable, same thing. Pulled the drive out of the system and put it in my laptop, the OS doesn't recognize it.

Should have stayed with the SAS drives.

neonblingbling · May 15, 2011

Yeah, those OCZ drives do not seem to have the best reliability... Warranty for me worked our fine though.

Automata · May 15, 2011

Even if they do follow through with the RMA, I don't intend to keep it. I had been running the SAS drives in the server for over a year without any of the three dropping or showing signs of issues, but this SSD failed very quickly. I'm not impressed and I want this server to be far more stable than it was today.

I guess this teaches me to use server drives for a server OS. Luckily, the only data that was lost was my VM configuration files, which I can re-create with some ingenuity or command line magic. I had a working backup of my /etc folder from when I swapped the RAID card. Most of the files within that have not changed in months. I have the pain of reinstalling again and getting it setup like it was to do today.

Automata · May 15, 2011

Got everything up but CUPS, at the moment. Took just under 2 hours. VM's are running as well.

To make it run a bit smoother, I added a second network cable, created a bridge and set the VM's to that. They won't slow down the network when they have traffic.

cw823 · May 17, 2011

My cables are *** backwards, port "3" is actually port 0 according to the areca software. They work, they're just labeled backwards

Project: Rackmount Overkill

Member

Destroyer of Empires and Use

Member

Destroyer of Empires and Use

Honeybadger Moderator

Registered

Destroyer of Empires and Use

Member

Honeybadger Moderator

Destroyer of Empires and Use

Honeybadger Moderator

Destroyer of Empires and Use

Member with Some Fancy Text Under His Name

Destroyer of Empires and Use

Member with Some Fancy Text Under His Name

Destroyer of Empires and Use

Member

Destroyer of Empires and Use

Destroyer of Empires and Use

Honeybadger Moderator

Similar threads