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Project: Galaxy 4.75

I see there are a few people building systems with the Norco in this thread..I am just curious what SATA or SAS cards everyone is using.
 
Well most of us are using WHS so we dont need RAID...Odditory I think is using one of the new Adaptec Cards I think....Ockie is now using a couple of the Supermicro 8 port controllers plus the onboard....I am using a old 16 port Adaptec plus the onboard....And gjvrieze is using a Areca1280ml ATM the moment but he is thinking about changing to WHS so.....yea its not a comprehensive list but those are just a few that I can remember off the top of my head

*Let me know if I got your systems wrong guys*

If your thinking about doing a build it really depends on what you will be using it for and what OS you decide to go with. And more importantly your budget.
 
nitrobass24 said:
Well most of us are using WHS so we dont need RAID...Odditory I think is using one of the new Adaptec Cards I think....Ockie is now using a couple of the Supermicro 8 port controllers plus the onboard....I am using a old 16 port Adaptec plus the onboard....And gjvrieze is using a Areca1280ml ATM the moment but he is thinking about changing to WHS so.....yea its not a comprehensive list but those are just a few that I can remember off the top of my head

*Let me know if I got your systems wrong guys*

If your thinking about doing a build it really depends on what you will be using it for and what OS you decide to go with. And more importantly your budget.
Click to expand...

Sounds about right for us, typically I have various cards and I'm sure most of us do, the supermicro ones are the most common for my builds at the moment.
 
Ockie said:
Sounds about right for us, typically I have various cards and I'm sure most of us do, the supermicro ones are the most common for my builds at the moment.
Click to expand...

I have one of those supermicro cards (thanks to seeing your thread Ockie) and for the price it works great for me. I have a board with PCI-X so I don't even lose bandwidth, not like I need it with home server though.

I also have some old Promise SATA TX4 and an Adaptec 1210SA I shoved in my WHS box as well.

For me it came down to best bang for the buck plus what I had laying around.
 
n1ce_hat said:
I see there are a few people building systems with the Norco in this thread..I am just curious what SATA or SAS cards everyone is using.
Click to expand...

I tried areca 1680ix-24 but it was a bust with the seagate drives so, switched to areca 1280ML
 
Ockie said:
Sounds about right for us, typically I have various cards and I'm sure most of us do, the supermicro ones are the most common for my builds at the moment.
Click to expand...

I have two of them so far because of your recommendation. They work great with WHS.
 
An interesting thing I learned about WHS while playing with it:

- You can not really move files from shared folder to shared folder as you would move machine to machine
- WHS creates a D: drive or a data drive, the drive appears small (basically it's a remaining partition of your system drive), but has a virtual space of your entire system drive collection, you can dump to this drive under the share directory and it will be added into your system pool, so you can actually map to this directory directly (iSCSI anyone?!)
- WHS does not recognize files dumped straight into the data directory as "shared" files, instead, it assumes they are system files, however, they can still be shared and does show in the WHS console (shows up as "System Files" space).
- Moving files within the system directory is incredibly quick, which is nice to know
- To have files recognized as "shared folder space", it needs to be dropped in via network
- WHS maintains copies of your files on each drive, you can actually pull the drive and mount it into a machine with a drive letter, access the files, and then pop it back in the WHS box (great to know)
- WHS HATES disk duplication using acronis or trueimage etc.
- WHS doesn't autobalance during transfers, but it does keep itself pretty damn bussy at night doing it's own things
- It seems as if autobalance switches off when transfers taken place, several systems data transfers and have not seen any performance dropping even prior to autotransfers
- WHS is pretty quick with directory restriction placements upon users (this used to take me forever)

So far, it's everything I've wanted in such a system, I can't complain at all. The performance is still good, all the problems I've found has workarounds and it does have some extra perks. The systems are incredibly quiet, sips on power (so much less than before, that I actually overkilled on my UPS selection), and is a pleasant experience overall.
 
I used acronis to move my system disk to a new drive. It moved fine, except I had to do a repair install. At least all the tombstones were fine.
 
thebeephaha said:
I have one of those supermicro cards (thanks to seeing your thread Ockie) and for the price it works great for me. I have a board with PCI-X so I don't even lose bandwidth, not like I need it with home server though.
Click to expand...

Ah OK I think I know what i'm going to get. I didn't realize that you could put a PCI-X card in a regular PCI slot.. It would be cool to find a PCI-Express SATA 8 port card for the same price as that supermicro but I have not found anything even close in price.

Oh and thx for those WHS tips there Ockie they are very informative.

Ockie how much power do your servers consume each?
 
huskerpat said:
I used acronis to move my system disk to a new drive. It moved fine, except I had to do a repair install. At least all the tombstones were fine.
Click to expand...

For moving from disk to disk, that would be a fine application, but you still have to repair as mentioned.

As for trying to clone a disk to clone systems, no go, at least not worth the hassle. I was exploring ways to come up with an alternative to installing on 5 systems.

n1ce_hat said:
Ah OK I think I know what i'm going to get. I didn't realize that you could put a PCI-X card in a regular PCI slot.. It would be cool to find a PCI-Express SATA 8 port card for the same price as that supermicro but I have not found anything even close in price.

Oh and thx for those WHS tips there Ockie they are very informative.
Click to expand...
\

Yep, but keep in mind, not all PCIX cards can fit in PCI slots, they have to have the slot cutout in them.
 
Got my first SAT2 card in today and tested it out on my GB P35 DS3L. Fits good in all three PCI slots, with possible cable issues in the first and third slots. Overall I'm very pleased.

 
n1ce_hat said:
I see there are a few people building systems with the Norco in this thread..I am just curious what SATA or SAS cards everyone is using.
Click to expand...

Bit offtopic but I have just brought a Highpoint RocketRAID 2320. good card for my server.
really should make a worklog sometime...
 
Is 2GB enough for WHS? I know that it is 32bit, but would I benefit by upgrading the memory to 4GB?

Ockie,
I went with the same motherboard as you did (Bioster TF720), and I was wondering if you downloaded the drivers from Biostar's website, or just used the ones that came with the CD? Also, just to be sure, since the review on Newegg seem to indicate the drivers on the Supermicro CD were bad, you used the drivers on the Supermicro CD?
 
coolrunner84 said:
Is 2GB enough for WHS? I know that it is 32bit, but would I benefit by upgrading the memory to 4GB?

Ockie,
I went with the same motherboard as you did (Bioster TF720), and I was wondering if you downloaded the drivers from Biostar's website, or just used the ones that came with the CD? Also, just to be sure, since the review on Newegg seem to indicate the drivers on the Supermicro CD were bad, you used the drivers on the Supermicro CD?
Click to expand...

2GB is more than enough if you are just doing file serving.

The drivers from the motherboard are as follows:

NIC - Driver CD
CPU - Driver CD
subCPU/chipset - Nvidia.com using XP drivers (Do not install NIC drivers as you already have CD drivers and do not install display drivers)
Display - Do not use CD or Nvidia drivers, leave it with WHS default
SAT2 controller - Use CD drivers, do NOT use Adaptec drivers, WHS doesn't play nice with them
 
I'm wondering in all this WHS craze what kind of data redundancy you guys have since ditching all your RAID arrays/controllers?

I don't see myself ever switching from RAID6 arrays to something managed by an OS, let alone Winblows
 
pc299 said:
I'm wondering in all this WHS craze what kind of data redundancy you guys have since ditching all your RAID arrays/controllers?

I don't see myself ever switching from RAID6 arrays to something managed by an OS, let alone Winblows
Click to expand...

Well you are already biased based on your comments towards Windows so I'm not gonna try to do any convincing ;)

WHS can do file duplication on selected directories for those critical directories. Also backups are another form of having some form of copy of your data, this is a must even if you have a raid 6 array. And then finally, most of us have a backup server where we can mirror our setups to.
 
I have nothing against Windows, I run it all day long, but I prefer *nix in the server room as much as possible. I still don't see it being cheaper to run redundant boxen instead of RAID arrays, but it does give you a full backup vs. whatever RAID level you're running I guess.

This is my main server right now (old pics) and I'm thinking about adding this enclosure, moving my 16x500GB to it and throwing in 16x1TB or 1.5TB (depending on spare $$$$ and pricing around christmas)

I'm also going to be unloading my ARC-1160ML2 and swapping to a cheaper Adaptec 31605 and 3085 (hopefully it works with the Chenbro 3U chasis)

If everything pans out the way I want it to, until I fill the new array I can use the 3U array as a backup. I'll also have the option of adding a second for my next upgrade, and having two attached to my 4U so I can have three arrays connected to the same box.
 
Sorry for the craptastic pictures, this cheap camera is a real pos.

dsc00296vh6.jpg


dsc00299rp4.jpg


dsc00301xx3.jpg
 
Im wonderin if maybe Ockie should close this thread and create a new one with the updated project status. Since this project has changed so much from the original and expanded to a MultiGalaxy, I would like to see a separate thread dedicated to the whole Galaxy Rack detailing the how and why so ppl can see the big picture.

I am planning on migrating my 20TB into energy effecient servers using the Norco case and this is a very useful worklog.
I need to find someplace to dump my pics so I can start my worklog...
 
I will do a whole writeup when I'm totally completed with this project.
 
Blue Fox said:
That's room for a lot of drives. :eek:
Click to expand...

Right now 3 servers are stocked with drives, the other two are empty (I really didn't want norco to change the design on me before i complete the project, rofls). My goal is to try and strike a deal on 1.5 tb drives or 2.0 tb drives, most likley 1.5tb drives for the secondary systems for cost.
 
Holy shit....Ockie what happened two days ago you had two norcos now 5?? Also are the new ones the original revision?
 
Ockie,

I cannot get drives connected to the red ports to be seen by the board unless I have the SATA mode in the BIOS set to AHCI. Unfortunately, if I set it to AHCI then WHS does not load.

Are there any work arounds?

I haven't transferred much of my data yet, but from what I understand I would need to reinstall WHS.
 
criccio said:
Like that will ever happen... :D
Click to expand...
tru, lol

nitrobass24 said:
Holy shit....Ockie what happened two days ago you had two norcos now 5?? Also are the new ones the original revision?
Click to expand...

Heh, this was the purpose of a rack. You can't have a rack and not have it stocked fulll ;) These are the newer versions.

coolrunner84 said:
Ockie,

I cannot get drives connected to the red ports to be seen by the board unless I have the SATA mode in the BIOS set to AHCI. Unfortunately, if I set it to AHCI then WHS does not load.

Are there any work arounds?

I haven't transferred much of my data yet, but from what I understand I would need to reinstall WHS.
Click to expand...

You should use the blue ports, not the red :)
 
Ockie what's your wife's email address... methinks she needs to see some pictures. Obviously she hasn't been in the basement yet, eh? :)
 
Master Ockie, I have a question..

What do you think is the minimum rated power supply to be used in a... Galaxy? I have two power supplies that I can donate to my Galaxy cause, but i'm not sure if they can hack it under the pressure of 20 spinning disks.

#1 is a Zalman ZM600 (600w)
#2 is a Thermaltake w0049 (680w)

Do you think I should move to a larger supply?
 
Ockie,

I think it is better if I explain what exactly has happened.

I installed WHS with SATA Mode select set to "SATA" in the motherboard bios. Everything went smoothly, and I did not get a BSOD during the installation.

Then while I was adding drives to WHS, I could not get it to recognize any drive connected to the red ports on the Biostar motherboard. The only way the board would see those drives would be if I set SATA Mode select to "AHCI" in the bios of the motherboard. Of course, when I did this WHS would no longer load.

Since I had not transferred that much data I decided to try a reinstall with AHCI selected. Once I set this and started the reinstall, it BSOD during the first step.

At this point, I don't know what to do. Any advice would be appreciated.
 
n1ce_hat said:
#1 is a Zalman ZM600 (600w)
#2 is a Thermaltake w0049 (680w)

Do you think I should move to a larger supply?
Click to expand...

Definitely not #2. Thermaltake lists that PSU having out of spec ripple. Not something you want to have to with 20 drives.

Not too sure about #1. Good quality PSU but not sure if it can handle 20 drives. If you look through all the 20 drive setups here, the smallest PSU I've seen in those setups is a good quality 750W PSU like the Corsair 750TX or PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750.

@ coolrunner84
What did the BSOD say?
 
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