Building a HTPC and looking for help - M1015

[Dudenell]

So I'm building a htpc / storage system for the home, the board will be an mini-itx (only 4 sata ports), so I decided to get a raid card for the HDDs.

I started looking into a raid controller, and with the suggestion of someone on reddit came across this site and the M1015 card.

What I'm thinking about doing is buying 4x - 4tb drives and creating a raid 10 array.
Here are my questions as follows:

1. Will the M1015 be able to handle a raid 10 array with 4tb drives?
2. Will this cable work with the m1015?
   http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...rue&Keywords=(keywords)&Page=1#scrollFullInfo
3. I just wanted to double check, but it doesn't look like the card has it's own processor / memory like for example the m5015. So everything is virtual?
4. Assuming this card dies, will I be able to rebuild my array on another system?
5. Since the 4tb drives are a little expensive at the moment, will I have trouble just connecting a regular drive onto the card in a non-raid?
6. Will I have any issues if I went with an AMD setup compared to an Intel?

Thanks for the help in advance, I'm really looking forward to building this system!

 

[supermacro]

Here are my questions as follows:
1. Will the M1015 be able to handle a raid 10 array with 4tb drives?

- according to this, Yes
http://www.hgst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/C17F42782AA50DCC882579D7007C4B29/$file/US7K4000CompatGuide_ver1.0.pdf

2. Will this cable work with the m1015?

- Yes

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...scrollFullInfo

3. I just wanted to double check, but it doesn't look like the card has it's own processor / memory like for example the m5015. So everything is virtual?

- It's the same as LSI 9240-8i so you can take a look at LSI's site for detail information. It does not have cache on-board and is LSISAS2008 based.

4. Assuming this card dies, will I be able to rebuild my array on another system?

- Huh? You mean with a different controller? I doubt it...

5. Since the 4tb drives are a little expensive at the moment, will I have trouble just connecting a regular drive onto the card in a non-raid?

- You shouldn't have any issues.

6. Will I have any issues if I went with an AMD setup compared to an Intel?

- I don't think so. Either should do.

 

[Dudenell]

Here are my questions as follows:
1. Will the M1015 be able to handle a raid 10 array with 4tb drives?

- according to this, Yes
http://www.hgst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/C17F42782AA50DCC882579D7007C4B29/$file/US7K4000CompatGuide_ver1.0.pdf

2. Will this cable work with the m1015?

- Yes

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...scrollFullInfo

3. I just wanted to double check, but it doesn't look like the card has it's own processor / memory like for example the m5015. So everything is virtual?

- It's the same as LSI 9240-8i so you can take a look at LSI's site for detail information. It does not have cache on-board and is LSISAS2008 based.

4. Assuming this card dies, will I be able to rebuild my array on another system?

- Huh? You mean with a different controller? I doubt it...

5. Since the 4tb drives are a little expensive at the moment, will I have trouble just connecting a regular drive onto the card in a non-raid?

- You shouldn't have any issues.

6. Will I have any issues if I went with an AMD setup compared to an Intel?

- I don't think so. Either should do.

Thanks a lot! I know a lot of those are simple questions and you really helped me out.

I guess my finishing question, is once I get the card, should I try and update the firmware on the card or change the firmware or should I just leave it as is?

 

[mobilenvidia]

RAID 10 on M1015 will not rebuild or work on say a Intel chipset

 

[Dudenell]

RAID 10 on M1015 will not rebuild or work on say a Intel chipset

So basically I would be forced onto an AMD system if I wanted to build with this card?

EX:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128567&Tpk=GA-H77N-WIFI

would not be usable?

 

[survive]

Hi Dudenell,

Is there any reason you don't just get a nice Intel board with built in RAID?

-Will

 

[Dudenell]

Hi Dudenell,

Is there any reason you don't just get a nice Intel board with built in RAID?

-Will

Size, was hoping to make this a smaller build in a
http://www.bitfenix.com/global/en/products/chassis/prodigy/

Case only takes mini-itx boards, and well for the features I'm looking for (built in wifi on the card, since I'm going to need it until I can run a line across the house) it has everything but the needed sata ports.

Here's what I was planning:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-3225 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor ($144.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($39.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: BitFenix Prodigy (Black) Mini ITX Tower Case ($79.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On ihes112-04 Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Keyboard: Logitech K400 Wireless Slim Keyboard w/Touchpad ($31.99 @ B&H)
Other: Gigabyte H77N-WIFI ($103.78)
Total: $480.72
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

Not including the raid card nor the HDDs.

Currently I have
2x - 1.5tb WD Green drives
2x - 2.0tb WD Green drives

with give or take 3.5tb of data between all of them. The thing is that none of the data is backed up, so I guess I'm trying to make an all in one solution for holding files / using as a home theater system. The raid 10 I'm thinking about doing will not be the main drive.

The case itself only has 5 slots for 3.5tb drives, so that leaves me with less than 4tb of data if I were to raid 10 4x - 2tb

I guess if this won't work, then is there a raid card that could potentially? I'm not concerned about speed, more or less concerned about the data.

The only other thing that I could think of, is to completely drop the raid card and just get a NAS system for storage and have backups.

 

[Patrick]

4. Assuming this card dies, will I be able to rebuild my array on another system?

- Huh? You mean with a different controller? I doubt it...

I have actually had fairly good luck rebuilding arrays on different controllers of the same brand/ generation/ type.

 

[RimBlock]

Ok, seems like there is a little confusion on the raid rebuild.

If you build an array using a raid cards utilities then you will be very lucky if you can rebuild it on another raid card / chipset that is not the same as the original cards manufacturer and sometimes even the same manufacturers cards will not work or the same card with different firmware revisions may have issues.

So, for clarity ...

Raid array build on a LSI 9240-8i (M1015) will probably not rebuild on a Intel, or AMD, motherboard SATA raid chipet or Adaptec (PMC based) controllers but may possibly (no guarantees) rebuild on a LSI 9211-8i or LSI 9280-8i.

You have not mentioned which OS you were looking at using.

Another option if you were willing to step on notch higher is to get a card capable of raid 5 with cache and battery backup. LSI 5014 & 5015s seem to be popping up at a decent price on ebay at the moment. Using raid 5 you would get 3x4TB space available from a 4x4TB drive array.

From your selection, the CPU is fine (I use an Intel i3-2120 which handles full bluray ISOs streamed over a network connection), the 8GB could go to 4GB if you wanted, The case is very popular and pretty well designed. A H77 board would be fine as would a B75 board if you wanted to save a little bit. Note that large HD files (10GB+) may have issues if streamed from this machine to another via WiFi. It very much depends on your equipment and environment as to the max speed you can get.

RB

 

[Dudenell]

Ok, seems like there is a little confusion on the raid rebuild.

If you build an array using a raid cards utilities then you will be very lucky if you can rebuild it on another raid card / chipset that is not the same as the original cards manufacturer and sometimes even the same manufacturers cards will not work or the same card with different firmware revisions may have issues.

So, for clarity ...

Raid array build on a LSI 9240-8i (M1015) will probably not rebuild on a Intel, or AMD, motherboard SATA raid chipet or Adaptec (PMC based) controllers but may possibly (no guarantees) rebuild on a LSI 9211-8i or LSI 9280-8i.

You have not mentioned which OS you were looking at using.

Another option if you were willing to step on notch higher is to get a card capable of raid 5 with cache and battery backup. LSI 5014 & 5015s seem to be popping up at a decent price on ebay at the moment. Using raid 5 you would get 3x4TB space available from a 4x4TB drive array.

From your selection, the CPU is fine (I use an Intel i3-2120 which handles full bluray ISOs streamed over a network connection), the 8GB could go to 4GB if you wanted, The case is very popular and pretty well designed. A H77 board would be fine as would a B75 board if you wanted to save a little bit. Note that large HD files (10GB+) may have issues if streamed from this machine to another via WiFi. It very much depends on your equipment and environment as to the max speed you can get.

RB

Thanks for the clarification. I'm either going to go with a windows 7 or windows server 2008 R2 (MSDNAA).

My mind is still open about what I'm going to do with the raid itself, but I'm not positive I'm going to go for a raid 10 at this point either. The drives are probably going to cost me in the range of 800-1200 (200 each at a recent sale, but they were inside external hdds) but I know for a fact that I was going to need at least a controller card based on the number of sata ports on a ITX motherboard. Maybe i'll get lucky and they will have some of these 4tb drives at the next NCIX warehouse sale.

As far as the wifi, I don't want it to be permanent, but I want it to be an option for the time being while I figure out how to cut some holes in my walls.

The M5015 looks good, but isn't the m5015 only limited to raid only drives?
http://forums.servethehome.com/showthread.php?942-n00b-and-questions-on-M5014-and-M1015

Thanks for the help. I'm hoping to wait it out till black friday / cyber monday to see if I can grab anything cheaper / see how much these AMD A10 processor / mini-itx motherboards go for.

 

[matt_br]

Hello,

You also could go for this motherboard, it has 6 sata ports and is mini-itx : http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/P8H77I/

 

[odditory]

Since cost is enough of a concern, and you only need 4-5 drives and its just for home storage then you're going down the wrong path with peashooter host based RAID like that found on an M1015. And if you're inexperienced with RAID thats one more reason to stay away from it - there are a lot of gotchas not immediately evident, and the abstraction layer it introduces versus just keeping individually NTFS formatted disks is where inexperienced users run into a lot of trouble when problems arise like cheap "fakeraid" not handling failures gracefully and then people turning a bad situation worse with trial-and-error panic trying to correct the problem and ending up with total data loss.

The only hardware RAID worth doing for more than 2 drives is a legit RAID card with onboard XOR thats capable of RAID6, if thats not affordable or the usage scenario doesnt warrant it (yours doesn't) then better off staying JBOD and using a non-striping parity system like Flexraid (pooling+parity), or DriveBender (pooling) + Snapraid (snapshot RAID1/5/6 parity), etc.

Critical to remember: RAID is an uptime and performance multiplier, thats it. Its not inherently more reliable than a single disk, it only reduces time to recovery, which at home isn't normally an issue. For home storage purposes, single-disk throughput is more than enough, saturates Gig Ethernet, and striping your data across multiple disks with RAID only introduces an extra and unnecessary layer of complexity in your usage scenario.

M1015 is an excellent card but I'd only ever use one for JBOD, and even then, there are downsides like the inability to spin down drives after a period of inactivity which is something you want in an HTPC/home storage scenario. Where it shines is the ability to connect a lot of drives and scale past 8 with one or more SAS expanders. Again, not something you appear to need.

Bottom line: Get a motherboard with enough SATA ports for the max # of drives you're going to buy. Format each one GPT/NTFS, and then duplicate (backup) any critical files and set everything else to snapshot based single or double parity with any of the software solutions as mentioned.

 

[mobilenvidia]

Odditory is right.

M1015 = best for IT mode passthrough or IR mode simple RAID0 boot drive with SSD's
M1015 in native LSI9240 just rubbish, onboard controller can do just as well.

M5014 much better bet to run any kind of RAID, especially data you can't afford to loose.
And it's often cheaper than a M1015 these days.

 

[RimBlock]

Would never do raid on a motherboard controller. Have had raid arrays not accessible after a motherboard bios update for completely unrelated issues before.

The 9240-8i has a much better gui for creation of arrays. I prefer it over the 9211-8i IR for clients needing raid 1 or 10 as it is easier for them to access and maintain the arrays themselves. That, however, is the only real advantage IMO.

There is a comparison table for the soft-raid solutions on the Snapraid site here. Apparently it has been deleted a number of times from the FLexRaid site when people have linked to it .

RB

 

[Dudenell]

Well I went ahead and bought the system, put it together, and now months down the road after selling the M1015 that I received for ~$60 I'm regretting it. I really need a card that can do jbod with more than 2 ports, and well it seems this was the cheapest at the time. I know I'm putting myself at a lot of risk not raiding any of my drives, but honestly I really wish I kept this card. I cannot find a card that can do jbod cheaper than $150 on pci-e

 

[BigXor]

Well I went ahead and bought the system, put it together, and now months down the road after selling the M1015 that I received for ~$60 I'm regretting it. I really need a card that can do jbod with more than 2 ports, and well it seems this was the cheapest at the time. I know I'm putting myself at a lot of risk not raiding any of my drives, but honestly I really wish I kept this card. I cannot find a card that can do jbod cheaper than $150 on pci-e

Raid is definitely not a secure solution. As Odditory said it's mainly for speed multiplication.

Grab a diskless JBOD NAS and fill it with drives as necessary for backup. Backing up your data is way more secure than Raid.

I have over 3600 movies and tv shows on my server with 2 backups. One being FlexRaid, which will concatenate individual disks to look like one big disk. I disconnect the FlexRaid setup except when backing up, that way even a power surge won't take out my collection. Lose a Raid array and you lose everything.

[edit] I just remembered that a couple years ago I had a Raid controller decide all on it's own to initialize all my disks in the array. Most people only consider Raid in regards to losing drives. Believe me the controller can fail and do damage.

 

[Lost-Benji]

I have skimmed over the bulk of the thread and I agree with everyone's comments. I do however wonder why the OP wasn't pulled up earlier on the idea of 4x 4TB drives in RAID-10, mainly because it would have been a bloody waste of space.



OK, OP, if you get a HBA of any type, look at ditching Win7 for Win8 and use the storage spaces. This in Parity with some proper setup will see reasonable write speeds and bloody fast read speeds (enough to flog multi-GbE). If you need RAID-10 (buggered if I know why on a media server), then look at the Double-Mirror setting. This is stupidly fast read/write for even the smallest files.

It will work on any drives connected to the host via SATA, SAS, IDE, USB or firewire. Even SATA Port-Multipliers.