NASLite Network Attached Storage

Is this bit not operative?
Why is "READ CAPACITY(16)" not used? Also, why is "Driver 'sd' needs updating - please use bus_type methods" included? (it is included on my SYSLOG too).

The "READ CAPACITY(16)" is the kernel adjusting the way it handles the device. It starts with lowest common denominator and muves up from there. The "sd needs updating" message is harmless and appears to be a "note to self"

more on the sd message here: http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/1/10/272

Right guys

Done some more testing thru the day and so far findings are that 4x1.5 and 5x1.5 TB drives in Raid 0 work



6 drives do not work (is there an 8Tib limit I wonder) will try this again though.

Just tried with 6 drives again and failed same as before

ERROR!

Formatting of Disk-1 Failed

Card reports as exporting a 8.18TiB Drive.

Thanks Tony.

I installed my 3Ware 9500S-12 this evening - now formatting a 3TB RAID5 array (4 x 1TB) on it in what feels to be about a third (or less) of the time that I formatted a 2TB RAID5 (3 x 1TB) on the Adaptec card last night.

ps. Thanks, dougal1957, for the tip about switching off the auto-carve setting on the card - I would have had real issues trying to solve that one....

Ran a DiskWriggler and got:

OK

We have got somewhere

Successfully formated a R0 array to 10.7TiB



Performance is acceptable I think



My next step is to rebuild with a 11 x 1.5TB drive R5 array with 1 hotspare when my other cables arrive.

Very many thanks to Ralph and Tony for there quick responses and to Mikeiver for all his help and tips.

Any comments gratefully accepted and over to Ralph/Tony for the next step

Great!

I will buy a M2 later today, so I'll have a serial to test the beta.

PieterB

Would it possible for me to get a copy of the beta? I've got 2 9500's, 3 Hitachi K72000's & 8 Seagate 500's raring to go.

THX,
JAck

Preliminary result (will be back with stats later):

3Ware 9690SA-8I
Six 1 TiB Samsung drives in RAID 6

3.6 TiB reported and available!
Thank you, R&T

Waiting for the NASlite-2 release.

PieterB

Very good news indeed! guess I need to start the look for one of the 16 port cards now. Guess rectal bleeding is going to be in my future!

Mike

Right

Latest is that I have abandoned the super AOC card (It is software raid big disapointment) so will be looking for another 3 ware card I think for the 8 1TB drives.

Currently initialising the 12 1.5TB drives 11 in R5 with 1 hotspare to give arround 13.6TiB (it is taking an age been going arround 6 hours and only about %50 done)

Will report back once I have it up and running along with DW figures.

Right oh

As promised I have now succesfully format my 12 disk array to 13.4TiB (x: in DW tests) and the 4 disks in R10 to 1.8 TiB (w: in DW tests)



Diskwriggler test show what I believe to be very acceptable results considering the it is running through 30 meters of patch cords and 2 switches.
next step is to consider going to fibre between new switch (Netgear GS724T) and the server which will be located 2 floors below. just need to locate a compatible sfp and interface card!
Any recomendations from Mike would be welcome here

12 disk results



4 disk Results



Comments anyone?

Ralph/Tony I think this is ready to go guys what do you say and many many thanks for your time and patience with us?

Those look like excellent results, dougal1957! I guess that's the difference you get when using a server class motherboard....

I'll be building a 4 x 1.5TB RAID5 array today and will post results later.

In the meantime, transfers to the server are much quicker, i.e. circa 34MB/s average over 264GB for the 9500S-12 rather than about 18MB/s to the 21610SA. I think that maybe the Adaptec driver needs a bit of attention too....

And you want to go fibre why?

The reason I have fibre is due to the fact that most managed core switches have fibre ports for the trunk. Both my Allied Telesyn gigabit switch and my Netgear have GBIC and SFP ports. I got allot of the parts needed for free or surplus for really cheap.

Fact is that all of my gigabit connections happen through good CAT5e cable. It's extremely reliable and the cabling is much cheaper and robust. I am just using ports that would otherwise sit idle and unused.

Having two switches between the server and a client is not going to effect your throughput, just your latency. It might add another 1mS to your ping, likely far less.

Bottom line is you don't need to go fiber. It does have advantages in that it is more reliable, connection to connection. You also need to be aware of that additional cost if you go retail though. Surplus it will yield a premium of maybe 20-30% in price over copper if you hunt hard and wait for the deals. It also has a bit of wow factor that the non tech types are impressed by.

I would start by surfing Ebay and seeing what is out there Then Googling the parts for sale to learn about them and look for reviews as well. Then make a list of parts to look for and be patient. You can post or PM me with any potentials.

Mike

Doug, I didn't catch how much RAM is in that machine? Filesystem check can be a pig. With that much iron spinning however, I'm sure you have plenty of silicon to back it up. Keep us posted on how it does.

BTW, the release ISOs are almost ready to go. If all goes well you may see them out by Wednesday.