Upgrading my RHEL 5.2 (CentOS to be precise) file server, I seem to be asking too much of my Abit IG-81 & Pentium 4. If you've got a minute, here's the sorry tale ...

I'm not really bothered about lightning speed (always a bonus, just not a priority), so I thought this 2-year-old (or is it 3? can't remember) box would happily accommodate an extra 4-port SATA card to bring the full complement of storage disks to 8 (plus one PATA for the system). The Antec Titan 650 has plenty of room, though the drives in the upper chamber might appreciate some extra cooling at some stage. The original PSU at 550W seemed a little lean, so upgraded that to an Akasa, a little over 1KW. This is probably overkill, as my 8 drives are all Samsung 1TB, which are noted for their low power rating. But having been frustrated in the past by strange erratic problems due to an overstretched power supply, I prefer to err on the safe side.

The plan is to use software RAID-6, slightly paranoid, though at >6 drives probably prudent. I like RHEL/CentOS because I'm familiar with it, it's stable, and use the server for a bunch of other workaday tasks (DNS, mail delivery, DHCP, scheduling). At a stretch I'd consider Ubuntu I suppose. If I was feeling adventurous, I'd probably even look at OpenSolaris for the ZFS & raidz gooness. But I think I'll stick with the Red Hat for now.

The SATA card I chose was the Startech PCI, which I believe uses the Silicon Image 3114R chipset. Having "chased" the 4 devices (/dev/sda-d) plugged into the mainboard controller to identify each by serial # (and ensure they are identified in sequence) for ease of identification in the case of inevitable eventual failure, I plugged in the Startech controller.

Initially, the POST sequence did not recognise the add-in card, which seemed a little odd. This motherboard is barely overloaded; with adequate on-board VGA, the only other add-in card is a 100Mb NIC to replace the (not as yet natively supported) on-board Gb NIC. So I switched the 2 PCI cards and tried again. This time the controller was recognised, but not the PCI NIC.

So I headed for the BIOS settings and started to disable unused services (USB, serial, Parallel, FDC, Audio), and at last I was able to run both the NIC and the add-in SATA controller. Provided, that is, I didn't plug in all the drives.

Just about this stage, everything started to get a little out of control. In trying various combinations of attached devices and disabled on-board services, now I encountered issues with udev. Sometimes it would just hang, sometimes it would take minutes to complete its startup process. udev is something I know little about. I have made a note to try and understand the rationale behind it at some point. I would love to know how to (other than reinstalling the OS) re-initialise all its config files.

So here I am at a fork in the road. And at this point I would be interested to hear suggestions and advice from anyone still reading :-)

Do I persevere with the IG-81? Or should I bite the bullet and buy a mainboard with >=8 SATA ports? I'm beginning to lean towards the latter. At least this gives me an excuse to splash on a little more grunt, and will (in theory) guarantee mainboard support for this many devices.

If I stick with the IG-81, what can I try that I haven't already?

If I opt for a new mainboard, who can recommend (from first-hand experience if possible) a product with >=8 SATA outlets that is known to run RHEL? On-board VGA would be nice, but amounts to a sort of discount, as I presume I can get something reasonably inexpensive. Oh, just one more thing: I have a preference for Intel processors and chipsets. Not intending to get into an advocacy discussion here, just that I have had more stable experience with Intel gear than the others. And stability and reliability is what I care about most.

All the best. Thanks for reading ... and for any input!

I would recommend switching to a hardware RAID controller from 3Ware. Yeah it's a couple hundred bucks, but how much have you spent in drives already ? I think it would be a good investment if your data is important. This would also take the load off the CPU for the RAID calculation functions. They have lists of recommended motherboards and their cards are well supported in Linux and several other OS's. Theres several different families of cards to choose from PCI, PCI-X, PCI-E Just my opinion.

Motherboarc ompat lists.
9500SEPCI-E
9550SX PCI-X
7000,8000,9500PCI

also check the HD compatibility lists for the controllers if you decide to go this route.

I would also recommend a good case to hold all those drives.. I'm particularly fond of my Chenbro case. and with the 3ware card you would then gain HotSwap capabilities. http://usa.chenbro.com/corporatesite...9b18fdce44c807
Redundant power supply capabilities, proper hard drive cooling, etc..


No I didn't mention Motherboards directly but you could look at what in the compatibility lists above, that should steer you in the right direction. as for a motherboard with 8 Sata ports.. I have no clue what board would have that many ports that would all work without issues. Who knows what third party controller chips they throw on the motherboards these days to add additional SATA ports. I have read many accounts of people not being able to use certain on board SATA ports that were part of a 'RAID' (fakeraid) controller setup, because Linux wouldn't see them properly, even to use as standard ports for software RAID.

Best of luck in your search


P.S. Sorry I tend ot go overboard a bit when it comes to hardware. but it IS some nice gear

Thanks for the input :-)

Yep, I'm aware of the 3ware option, but the 9650SE-8LPML (8 port) would run about £300+ in the UK. Also, the case is here already, I'm just re-populating it to increase data capacity.

Also, since performance is not an issue, and the box is pretty much a dedicated file server (with other menial jobs part time), software RAID will suffice if I can just get the disks attached ...