Warp3

I was having this exact same issue but on a brand new VM with a fresh HASSOS qcow2 file (straight from Home Assistant's website) and couldn't for the life of me figure out why it wouldn't boot (since past UEFI boot issues have been due to Home Assistant OS updates breaking its own boot files but this was a fresh image file). I checked the XML view and sure enough it was set to raw instead of qcow2 for some reason. I changed that and it boots up just fine. I wonder what is causing unRAID to pick the wrong disk type.

I know this is a pretty old post, but it seems relevant to update it since I have some info that seems useful to this topic in general. I recently bought the 120GB Samsung 840 EVO (which I assume is the SSD referenced in the original post unless the "EVO" is different somehow). I installed it earlier today as a cache drive and unRAID (v5.0.5) is reporting the SSD as spun down right now (and it stopped reporting temperature when it did so), so it appears it does have a low power mode that it goes into when instructed to spin down.

I think this thread just solved the slow parity checks I've started having (estimating 40+ hrs for 4TB of parity, moving at about 26 MB/sec). At first I was suspecting the Supermicro SAS card I had just added (the same model as the author of this thread), but then later I confirmed in the BIOS that all 6 drives are showing attached to the motherboard with none on the Supermicro card yet (I wasn't 100% positive which port the new drive was using since I'm using 5-in-3 bays). Since this issue started at the same time I added the 6th drive attached to the 6th SATA slot on the motherboard, that very likely explains the issue (since the author of this thread noticed the same issue with his Jetway board). I have a different model motherboard, but it is still a Jetway board, so I'm going to see if mine has that same SATA / IDE option in the BIOS and hopefully that will fix this (and if not, it sounds like switching a drive or two over to the Supermicro SAS card should fix it). Thanks. UPDATE: That was it. I had two settings in the BIOS I needed to change. First SATA was set to "Native IDE" mode instead of AHCI. Secondly, SATA IDE Combined mode was enabled. After correcting those two (then fixing the boot order since the PC decided it wanted to boot from the HDDs now, instead of the unRAID flash drive), I started a new parity check: Speed: 103.39 MB/sec / ETA: 645 minutes. That is *much* better.

I was searching this forum for the very same issue. I have a completely different motherboard (a Jetway board from one of Rajahal's older 15-drive builds), but I just bought this same SAS card and am noticing the same issue. It almost seems like it is only read speed that is notably affected as the zeroing part of the pre-clear took a pretty normal amount of time, but read operations (like a parity check and the read tasks of the pre-clear process) are much slower than normal. It's an x4 card which I have in an x16 slot (the only PCIe slot on this board) so that part should be fine. I'm using a breakout cable into four of the five ports of a Norco SS-500 drive cage (with the other port plugged into the 6th SATA port on the MB). I have a parity check running right now and reporting 26.44 MB/sec as the current speed and is slated to take 42 hours (which is way longer than normal, even with 4TB of parity). Oddly enough, I thought the slot I used in the new SS-500 bay (which uses a different port layout than the older SS-500 I have) was the onboard one (as this MB has 6 onboard ports), but if it is using one of the SAS cards ports this issue would make more sense, thus my search. UPDATE: While typing this, I just remembered a post mentioning changing some settings on this card when you install it. I disabled INT 13, confirmed this card doesn't seem to have RAID mode enabled (it is in JBOD already), and in the process confirmed that the onboard SATA sees all 6 drives and there are no drives showing on the SAS card (so I was right about which port it was using). I then restarted the parity check and after a few minutes to settle in the speed went right back to what it was earlier (just over 26 MB/sec). I wonder if it is even the card at fault now since the drive isn't attached to it, but the timing is awfully coincidental. Unless the Jetway isn't playing well using all 6 ports or something. UPDATE2: It appears my problem was unrelated to this thread after all. I had two settings in the BIOS I needed to change (for the motherboard, not for the SAS card). First SATA was set to "Native IDE" mode instead of AHCI. Secondly, SATA IDE Combined mode was enabled. After correcting those two (then fixing the boot order since the PC decided it wanted to boot from the HDDs now, instead of the unRAID flash drive), I started a new parity check: Speed: 103.39 MB/sec / ETA: 645 minutes. That is *much* better.

I had considered that possibility (since I've read about using SD card readers as boot devices on this forum previously), but we should be ok with the 2 key + 2 flash drive setup since the 2nd flash drive will be designated for the sole purpose of having a ready spare boot device. I'll definitely keep that option in mind, though (both for my home server and for this new corporate one).

Thanks to both of you for the input. I did consider 7200rpm drives, but green drives should work fine for the intended usage of this machine (if it were behaving as anything but a backup server, that would be a different story). If not, we can always add some 7200rpm drives later or setup a high-speed cache drive. Even with 7200rpm drives, I doubt we'll hit the 650W PSU's limit anytime soon, but we can always swap that later should the need arise. I did note that your spec sheet pointed to monoprice (and it pointed elsewhere for the SAS card as well), but as you noted, it is much easier to be able to order it this way and the cost difference is fairly minor compared to the cost of the entire build.

I've been running an unRAID server at home (based on Rajahal's 15-drive budget box specs) for a while now, mostly as a media server, and have been quite happy with it thus far. Anyway, we are now looking to replace an old SNAP NAS at work. It still works, but won't talk to our Active Directory domain (we just recently elevated to Server 2008 functionality level, which is apparently what broke the AD functionality of the NAS) and is quite old anyway (800GB of capacity from ATA drives). I created the spec sheet below based mostly on Rajahal's 20-drive rackmount build. This server will be purely used as a backup destination for other machines (mostly Windows servers) on the network, thus I based it on the lower powered "budget" build rather than the "beast" version. - unRAID Pro 2-key bundle = $149 (http://www.lime-technology.com/products/registration-keys) - 4U 20-bay = $329.99 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219033) - 2TB Hitachi Green = $129.99 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145475) - 2TB Hitachi Green = $129.99 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145475) - 2TB Hitachi Green = $129.99 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145475) - 2TB Hitachi Green = $129.99 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145475) - 2TB Hitachi Green = $129.99 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145475) - Corsair TX650 V2 650W ATX12V/EPS12V = $89.99 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139020) - ECS A885GM-A2 (v1.1) AM3 AMD ATX = $64.99 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135272) - NORCO SAS Reverse Breakout cable = $14.99 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133033) - AMD Sempron 145 2.8GHz AM3 45W Single-Core = $39.99 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103888) - Crucial 2GB 240-pin DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) = $12.99 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148221) - Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 8-Port SAS Card = $109.99 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101358) - NORCO SAS to SAS cable = $19.99 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133034) - NORCO SAS to SAS cable = $19.99 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133034) - Lexar JumpDrive Firefly 4GB = $6.99 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820191278) - Lexar JumpDrive Firefly 4GB = $6.99 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820191278) Total = $1515.84 By my calculation that should allow up to 22TB of data (using 2TB drives and assuming no cache drive) with no other purchases except HDDs or up to 38TB with an additional SAS card and two additional SAS-to-SAS cables. The reason for opting for the 20-drive case is that cases which are smaller in capacity aren't notably cheaper and 20-drives is already severe overkill for the expected capacity needs of this project, so there is no need to spend the extra for the 24-drive case. Is there anything in my spec list that looks out of place or mismatched (particularly the cabling, since I don't have much personal experience with SAS cabling)?

Last I checked, CDW's prices don't seem to have changed, at least not on their Seagate GoFlex External drives which we've been buying at work. Perhaps their internals have, but I hadn't really priced those lately. Speaking of which, the Seagate GoFlex 3TB is $10 cheaper than the 2TB model (same model number other than the capacity) at CDW right now.

Just to update my old post, it turns out this can be done by sharing the /mnt/user folder via an smb-extra.conf file. That made things much nicer. That's what I finally ended up doing on mine. All the case fans have LEDs anyway, so you don't really *need* a power light since the whole case practically lights up when you turn it on.

Living room: Zotac Zbox HD-ND02-U (Atom 330 + ION 2) running XBMC Live Bedroom: An old Dell Dimension 2350 (with a GeForce 8400 GS video card installed so it can do hardware video decoding) running Ubuntu and XBMC Due to the anemic CPU of that Dell, I originally planned to buy a second Zbox for the bedroom, but then I realized it was much smarter to at least try a cheap video card in the computer first (which only cost me $40 vs $300-ish for another Zbox+SSD setup). That machine is too old for PCI-e and finding a suitable Nvidia-based AGP card proved virtually impossible, but it still plays high bitrate videos just fine even with its PCI video card. I've found very few files that won't play well on these two setups.

I understand. That wasn't really a critique of the build listing, but rather something I know I should have thought of beforehand. However, since you asked for a suggestion: You could just put in a disclaimer stating something to the effect of: "While other parts in the list may or may not include SATA cables, you will need up to Qty x 5 of {link to SATA cables}." Worst case is that someone overbuys on their build by a few cables at $3-$4/each (and having a few spare SATA cables around for troubleshooting a file server isn't a bad idea anyway). In my case, I'd have reacted to that wording by buying the full 5 cables and thus would have only been out like $7 bucks for the 2 cables my MB already included, which is rather minor on a $600 build. Bingo! That was one of my suspected culprits as well since the existing network cable was of unknown origin (it probably came included with some other device I bought in the past). I removed the "cable of unknown origin" and plugged in a known good Cat 5e cable and the link light on my switch went from amber (10/100) to green (1000). There are definite advantages to the user share system, but the lack of the ability to nest shares has some downsides compared to other file sharing setups (unless I'm overlooking the ability to do that in unRAID). Personally, I'd love to see a feature like a "super share" that would allow me to map a drive to say \\unraid\shares which would then have all the other user shares underneath that structure (in other words, my \\unraid\music and \\unraid\tv shares would also be accessible via \\unraid\shares\music and \\unraid\shares\tv).

About a week ago I built an unRAID server using one of your prototype build specs and really appreciated having a list of known compatible parts like that. I've built systems before (and have worked as a support tech in IT for about 13 years now) but the last one I built had an Athlon XP (or maybe it was even an AMD K6, I can't recall now), so I'm nowhere near up on all the latest build terminology (and most of the machines I support for work are pre-built Dells). I certainly could have spec'ed my own system, but having that pre-researched list saved me a lot of time. The system I built was your listed 5-drive budget system, but with the 500W power supply from the fully filled 15-drive version and with only 3 drives for now (Samsung EcoGreen 2TB). (I started with only 3 drives as that would allow me to try unRAID without paying for it yet and it is still plenty of space for my current storage needs.) (EDIT: My build used the previously spec'ed JetWay JMA3-880GTV2-LF motherboard that apparently is no longer available on NewEgg; I see the other thread shows a different board now.) Some thoughts: - The blue power LED is surprisingly bright on that Azza case. That thing lights up a completely dark room as well as a night light or a cheap LED flashlight, so I may yank the power lead for that light (since the power status is already obvious by the lit fans included in the case). The drive LED is amber and isn't nearly as bright, so I'll likely leave it connected. - Flattening the little ribs that are made to act as a shelf for each drive was a bit of a pain (so the Norco 5-in-3 module would insert properly), but I imagine most cases would have that issue. - The total build as specified comes with 2 SATA cables (both coming with the JetWay motherboard) so you'll need more than that unless you already have a supply on-hand (a fact which I completely overlooked until the parts arrived). - The server is only connecting to my gigabit switch at 100Mbps for some reason, though I haven't really tried to troubleshoot that issue yet, so it may be something simple. It's taking me a bit to get used to the concept of unRAID's user shares (vs the normal Windows or Linux file-sharing methods), but overall I'm very glad I opted for unRAID over the various other setups I considered for expanding my storage library.