Guide To Building A Media Storage Server - Page 244

Get the IBM M1015. You can't beat it for the price. See my posts here, and here (or just read the whole thread, there's good info there). The only catch is not all motherboards will flash it to a 9211-8i. You may luck out, or you may have to try it in a few different ones before you have success (my first try didn't work, but it worked in another system). Once flashed though, it should work in just about whatever you put it in. My server board supposedly won't flash it (based on other reports, I didn't try), but it works just fine in my server.

Looks like the $75 IBM M1015s are gone.

I was between air video and streamtome, and went finally with streamtome, mostly out of having more recent updates and had some with the ipad3. Air video seems older and more mature though, and great user rattings, so was a hard choice. I just bought it on the morning and been testing for a couple of hours, and been great 9 out 10 played flawlessly (but you need to check the 2mb option, else it downgrades a lot the picture quiality). The app both on the server and on the ipad is working great. Good luck with whatever you end up with.


I think Darin explain it very well with his posts. I would go 9211-8i if you have a ton of money and dont care to gamble with the flashing M1015, but you will still need to flash the 9211-8i to IT mode, so really no escaping, so i personally would go with the M1015. There are sometimes people selling it on forums, like odditory sometimes has some, and he can preflash the cards to whatever you need so you know you get something that its working with the firmware you need.

Yeah, I may need to clarify... it is not an issue that is specific to the IBM branded card, LSI even has a KB article on it (though they make it sound like it's just a couple types of MBs that are affected). The IBM M1015 is an LSI card, it even says LSI on the board. It's just an OEM branding for IBM. It uses the same controller as the LSI 9211-8i. I didn't realize all the $75 cards were gone, when I look at the ebay link from where I bought mine, it says there are still six available. I didn't notice that there's no "buy" button. But it looks like they can still be found for around $125. That may be more than they were before, but still keeps them in line with the pricing of the AOC-SAS2LP-MV8. Based on odditory's response to my post, it sounds like the IBM M1015 is the better card.

I am not very familar with an SAS connection. It appears that the IBM board has two, correct?

Can someone explain how these are connected to the backplane on the Norco 4220?

Just in case you are insterested, i been testing all day streamtome, and seems pretty good, not sure if air video is better or worst, but so you get an idea, this is the server side usage,



The highest i seen is 54%, this is Xeon E3-1230 3.3ghz quad with hyperthreading, so probably a i3 can handle a single stream fine, but it might depend on the movie.

A single SFF-8087 SAS connector has four channels. I don't use a 4220; I'm using typical consumer level PC cases with SATA drives installed. So, for example, I use a single breakout cable that has four SATA connectors on one end, and plugs into a single SFF-8087 connector. So with that ignorance of Norco cases divulged... I believe that with a 4220, you would connect a single SFF-8087 cable to the backplane, and that backplane would then break that out to four different drives. So, I would assume a 4220 would have five SAS connectors for 20 drives. To get beyond the two connectors (8 drives) on an HBA with two SAS connectors, you could use a SAS expander, which is the SAS equivelent to a port multiplier, but on steroids. I'm using an HP SAS expander, which has nine SAS ports. I can connect one port on it to one port on the M1015, and the other 8 ports are available to connect 32 drives to.

Another option would be to just use multiple HBAs, if your motherboard has enough slots. The SAS expanders can be more expensive than the HBAs, so depending on how many drives you ultimately want, that might be cheaper (e.g. two m1015s would give you 16 drives cheaper than a single one + an expander. But a single one plus an expander will probably give you 36 drives cheaper than the 4-5 M1015s it would take, not to mention trying to get a MB with enough slots).

You have to be careful buying SAS cables, as there are several different connector types. Both the IBM M1015 and the internal ports on the HP card use SFF-8087 connectors. The single external connector on the HP expander is a SFF-8088 connector. There are a couple other SAS connector types, not sure what the Norco uses.

I am thinking to build Home Server for myself since WHS 2011 only $30 OEM after $10 rebate. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...7ed_WSAhttp://

But will it (M1015) allow the OS (WHS 2011) to spin down the drives?

I can't personally confirm it, because none of my drives seem to be spinning down at the moment (not even my MB ports). Not sure what's keeping them awake, I had them spinning down at one point. But if you read that thread, you will see others confirm that it does allow spin-down.

It does seem to be OS depending, though. In the thread you refer to, I don't recall any positive confirmations from windows users.

Jacob

Then you didn't look hard enough.

I missed that thread - thanks a bunch !
Seems like ebay is dry on the boards at the moment (< 80 $), so I will wait patiently ;-)

Thanks for the thread - haven't quite made it thru all 254 pages but almost.

Still lacking a bit of understanding re SAS cards (such as 1015) and expanders.

Currently I have aging WHSv1 with 16 drives or so - some of MB SATA, some of x8 JBOD Highpoint RAID card, another x4 JBOD via RAID card.

Thinking moving to SAS and/or expanders way to go to enable further external drives down the track and likely move to Windows 8/Storage Spaces.

Can I pull my existing RAID cards
- Replace them with a SAS card (such as Highpoint 2782) provided it is 'expander compatible'

- Get SAS Expander Such as Chenbros CK23601


Reconnect all drives (are recognised by WHS regardless of connection - been there done that before) and expect them to work (After initialization) ?

Pending Windows 8 down the track can then look at external SAS racks for more drives as needed?

Thanks

Glenn

@Glenn, i havent tried on my WHSv1, but my guess is that the drives will be recognized as long as windows can see the sata ports, but what idk and probably wont happen is to be part of you storing pool, but you can easily start copying to the pool and start adding gradually and so on.

Yes, I've done exactly that. I have 21 drives in WHS v1, some of which were on a SiI3124 card with port multipliers. I replaced that with an IBM M1015 flashed to an LSI 9211-8i, attached to an HP SAS expander. After installing the driver and a reboot or two, the 8 drives that were formerly attached to the SiI3124 came up in the pool just like before. The advantage is the new card is faster, I still have 28 empty ports to expand into, and I now get SMART data on those drives (I previously only got it on the drives attached to the MB).

Thanks - have done just that $-gone (except went for 9211-8i - similar price here) Did debate about a bigger port card 4-8 etc but in end just seemed to complicate things a bit much.
Will let you know how migration and installation goes.
Glenn

Has anyone sucesfully used the 4.0.0.1200 driver with the SuperMicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 (v1)?
If so, what firmware did you use? And with how many cards? And with what OS?

Thanks!
(still haven't been able to get two cards working on my Asus P8B WS motherboard. One card has 3.0.15N firmware, the other 3.0.21. I cannot disable option-rom in my bios. I run WHS 2011 and ON-Board sata controller is set to AHCI. This might be part of the problem, according to this thread http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?...LP-MV8&page=29...)

This won't be built until I return from my trip, this will give me plenty of time for the HDD market to go back to its 2011 pre-flood pricing.

I want to do more with the server (WHS 2011). Right now it streams Recorded TV back to the HTPC or TV Series/Movies and backs up all the clients in the house (3).

Additional features I want to add -

Hardware:

Fractal Design Case or Full Tower, 6-7 2/3TB drives (4TB currently), 65W TDP Quad Core APU (Trinity likely), (6) DVD-RW's, Intel Gigabit NIC and decent SATA expansion card.

Software:

WHS 2011 w/Drive Pooling or FlexRAID, PLEX Server, Router/Real-Time Anti-Virus software, iLead DVD Ripper, dbAmpPower Batch Ripper, EXACT Copy, Sick Beard and uTorrent with Web UI.

Is anybody doing anything similar?

I wanted to put the optical drives in it to allow for mass ripping. I have a ton of CD's I need to rip still and my DVD collection with includes Robotech, Big O and Outlaw Star. I will be adding more as we go along so I wanted plenty of space.

I've only seen gaming towers with the 6-7 5.25 external slots, so the FD cases might be out. I like the NZXT Whisper Silent Full Tower. Plenty of space (9 hdd and 6 optical!) and its affordable (a bit over $100 at NE). Pair this with a fan less Seasonic PSU for near-complete silent operation when being uses as a server. Of course when ripping DVD's or CD's it would be as loud as the drives are. That said, Rip Monster featured on Tekzilla could not be heard by the mic on the host of the show, so I doubt it would be loud at all.

Opinions?

Why do you need 6 DVD-RW's? You could easily do 3 drives and add a HD cage and give yourself more storage.

Or since you are doing a mass ripping have a few of those drives on externals that can be connected whenever you need the extra drive space. Like 3 in full time and then 3 that can be connected whenever you need them.

Supposedly someone in this forum was able to install Microsoft Security Essentials on WHS 2011. Instead of waiting for the details to be posted at some point in the future, does anyone here know how to do this? From my understanding it only worked on some early ~2010 beta version. I see that a version of Forefront works too.

Right now I just keep WHS locked down as much as possible without AV, but would like to consider installing a light AV solution.

Impatient, aren't we?

Looking at the beta version is a good place to start.

BTW there is no "supposedly" about it:

I was hoping there was a better solution than a 2 year old beta.

Why? Updates just fine.

And I would argue that there is no reason to use the locked down version of Explorer. I never locked down my other PCs and don't see why a server would be any different.

Important data should be truly backed up and shouldn't reside on just the server anyway.

The internet explorer default lock down on WHS2011 is terrible.

First thing anyone should do is install chrome or firefox.

Otherwise you can't even download things you need without the hassle of serious IE setting changes... and security exceptions.

Anything that needs downloaded for my server I download from my laptop and save it to my server's shared "downloads" folder. I'd say the last thing anyone needs to do on a server install a web browser. Why do you think MS locked down IE on WHS anyway? My crappy locked down IE is good enough since it is only needed for programs that use a browser for interfacing (FlexRAID, SABNZBD, Homeseer...).

Remember that Dashboard thing? The intent is to use that instead of local or remote connecting.

My first trial install of WHS I was unlocking IE and used Firefox. Then realized I shouldn't be messing around there and removed it. The second install I never unlocked IE.

I'd argue that is bad advice for a server. There are plenty of other machines to use for the web. Of course you wouldn't lock down other PCs, but a server IS different.

My WHS contains my local backup. Crashplan deals with my offsite backups. I want that to be as isolated as possible.

Again, this is how you use a server. I researched this extensively across different websites and this is actually a very diverse subject on how different people use AV (or lack thereof) on their servers.

Many people don't use AV at all on their server and let it have full internet access. The reason they don't use AV is they think it bogs down the server. They use MSE on all their client PCs which they claim can detect viruses, malware, etc on the server and deal with it appropriately.

I don't subscribe to that theory, however, as I think you should try to run some sort of AV on the server itself if possible.

I do recognize that especially in a HTPC forum there are definite needs and wants to having more internet access on the server itself. I don't see how this is any different than the person who has their data stored locally on their HTPC assuming you can use MSE.

Also, there are other AV programs for free that work very well on WHS 2011, btw. MSE just happens to be my favorite.

Don't get me wrong --- I am not saying (or even encouraging) surfing the net on your server. That should be done on your client PCs. But there are definite needs to having direct internet access on your server for anonymity's sake.

I wasn't talking about using AV on a server or not, that is a different discussion. I was talking about using a web browser on a server and that unlocking and/or installing a third party browser would be something to discourage. The locked down IE is good enough for accessing a program's web interface. Anything else you should consider doing somewhere else besides a server.