Recommend motherboard for home storage

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BlueLineSwinger

Active Member
Mar 11, 2013
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This looks interesting:
2x SATA (6Gbps)
4x SATA (3Gbps)
8x SAS2 (6Gbps) via LSI 2308

Not sure if I like wasting 4 SATA ports for 3 Gbps.
Not sure how different the LSI is from HBA+LSI.
This might be a better board if I decide to go the dedicated NAS route.
As stated prior, spinners work just fine on SATA2 with no performance degradation.

The LSI controller is the same one used on many of their PCIe HBAs. It's just that, instead of being a separate card, it's integrated into the mainboard.

I use mine for a dedicated NAS, but there's no reason you can't do the virtualized NAS plan. Unless somehow a ceiling of 4 cores/8 threads and 32GB RAM are somehow too low.
 
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rubylaser

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Jan 4, 2013
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I figure since the NAS is just serving files, running PLEX (maybe), and calculating parity bits and checksums during the night, that using simple/free VirtualBox (or maybe VMWare?) wouldn't degrade performance or have problems. And then I can run my Windows workstation natively. Another advantage is simple backups of the NAS when using a virtualized container.

I'm open to all choices, as long as there is a good cost/benefit.
Sure, it would work fine, but it has some overhead and won't perform quite as well. Another option if your workstation is a Windows 8.1 box, is to install the Hyper-V role and use that to virtualize right on your workstation. Just pass the disks through to the VM, and it's ready to go.
 

chinesestunna

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Jan 23, 2015
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Sure, it would work fine, but it has some overhead and won't perform quite as well. Another option if your workstation is a Windows 8.1 box, is to install the Hyper-V role and use that to virtualize right on your workstation. Just pass the disks through to the VM, and it's ready to go.
Pass disks or controller? Is it safe to pass disks in Hyper V for software RAID? I know ESXi that's a bad idea for software RAID
 

rubylaser

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Jan 4, 2013
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Pass disks or controller? Is it safe to pass disks in Hyper V for software RAID? I know ESXi that's a bad idea for software RAID
You can pass physical RDM disks for things like FlexRAID on ESXi and be okay. Hyper-V has an abstraction layer as well, so it prevents getting SMART data or disk spindown in a VM. For me, this prevents me using it to virtualize a fileserver. I would rather use ESXi on hardware that supports VT-D and pass through a controller which allows native access to the disks.
 
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chinesestunna

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Jan 23, 2015
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You can pass physical RDM disks for things like FlexRAID on ESXi and be okay. Hyper-V has an abstraction layer as well, so it prevents getting SMART data or disk spindown in a VM. For me, this prevents me using it to virtualize a fileserver. I would rather use ESXi on hardware that supports VT-D and pass through a controller which allows native access to the disks.
Ok that makes sense, thanks for the clarification!
 

snakyjake

Member
Jan 22, 2014
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You can pass physical RDM disks for things like FlexRAID on ESXi and be okay. Hyper-V has an abstraction layer as well, so it prevents getting SMART data or disk spindown in a VM. For me, this prevents me using it to virtualize a fileserver. I would rather use ESXi on hardware that supports VT-D and pass through a controller which allows native access to the disks.
Can you please explain more?
I've been looking at a guest with Open Media Vault, and it shows SMART status. I have no problem looking there for the info.
I like spindown because I need the system available 24x7, but not always used 24x7.
 

TuxDude

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Sep 17, 2011
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I'm not that familiar with passing through disks under HyperV - but on ESXi you can access the SMART data, and likely also spin-down disks, for physical-mode RDMs, but not virtual-mode. I have a suspicion that Hyper-V pass-through disks are closer to ESXi's virtual-mode and may not allow the low-level access, but I've never tried it.
 

rubylaser

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Jan 4, 2013
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I'm not that familiar with passing through disks under HyperV - but on ESXi you can access the SMART data, and likely also spin-down disks, for physical-mode RDMs, but not virtual-mode. I have a suspicion that Hyper-V pass-through disks are closer to ESXi's virtual-mode and may not allow the low-level access, but I've never tried it.
Yes, you are correct. Hyper-V seems to have more abstraction than ESXi's physical RDM.
 

rubylaser

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Jan 4, 2013
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Can you please explain more?
I've been looking at a guest with Open Media Vault, and it shows SMART status. I have no problem looking there for the info.
I like spindown because I need the system available 24x7, but not always used 24x7.
Can you see all of the SMART values? Not just the model number and whether it passed or failed? Tracking the raw numbers is really where SMART data can actually be beneficial.