LSI / 3ware 9650se-8LPML Questions

Wuzup101

Platinum Member
Feb 20, 2002
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I recently have outgrown my storage solution (2 x 2TB samsung HD204UI drives) and in a moment of "crap I need more space" picked up 4x 4TB segate NAS drives when they were recently on sale for $150 each (ST4000VN000 drives). I then proceeded to connect them to my P67 motherboard and use the on-board raid to setup a single large raid 5 volume spanning the entirety of the disks. After I finished, I decided that it might be better if I went with a hardware raid solution, so I started browsing e-bay, doing some research, etc... and picked up an LSI 9650se-8LPML with battery backup and cables for what I thought was a reasonable price ($80). Given that this is a very mature (old) card that had fairly solid reviews, I figured that it would serve me well for running the raid array (once setup - as I still am running off of the mobo). That being said, I also just picked up another 2 drives for the same price, and plan to setup a Raid 6 array on the LSI card with 6x 4TB drives. Eventually, I'll probably migrate the raid card and drives to a mITX system to be used as a home server.

My question is this - I'd like to know about any pitfalls that I might experience before I experience them (isn't that always the goal). I know it's a general question, but I'm new to raid (other than on board raid 0 and 1 that I've been using for quite some time). Are there any specific things that I need to worry about - especially for this older controller? I have updated it to the latest firmware and I have it installed with the latest drivers and software.

Additional information:
- The primary function of the raid volume will be to serve as a means of media distribution to the computers in my home. I've ripped and encoded most of my fairly extensive DVD collection to my existing discs but want to add my HD media from ripped BDs (hence the expansion).
- I'm not expecting this to be a foolproof backup solution of any kind. Given that I'll have a lot more space, I'll probably use it to image my OS drive as a means of a backup.
- I don't plan to backup the media files, just add some resilience over using JOBD. I could easily (at great cost of time) re-rip and re-encode the files from my personal collection physical media. I'd rather pay a bit more for the resilience.
- Files that I truly need to be backed up (tax documents, personal documents, pictures, family video, etc...) are backed up to thumb drives / portable hard drives and I keep a copy offsite (I really don't have a lot of that stuff anyway).
- I'm not terribly concerned with overall speed of the array. The current on board software raid 5 is fast enough for me as-is.
- The system housing the raid array is currently (and will be in the future) connected to a UPS system that triggers shutdown if the system is without power for 5 minutes (it provides 20+ minutes of power if necessary).

Sorry for all the noobish questions questions. I admittedly didn't do enough research into this topic before I purchased the controller. I could always re-sell it and go with another newer controller if it is really warranted.
 

Zxian

Senior member
May 26, 2011
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I have that exact same controller in my server. $80 is a steal (I paid $600+ several years ago). I'm running Server 2008 R2 at the moment and have had no significant issues to speak of. I'm running eight WD Red 3TB drives in RAID6 and still get very good performance.

If you happen to find that drives are continuously dropping out of the array, check your power supply. I had my old power supply start to fail, and the first indicator was that random drives would drop from the array (requiring a rebuild). After replacing the PSU last fall, I haven't had a single warning or error pop up.
 

BonzaiDuck

Lifer
Jun 30, 2004
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I had the -4LPML model with four 320GB Seagates in RAID5. I never had any problem with it. I was regularly logging on to the browser-based maintenance program, and I'd validate the array. The validation process would continue whether I was logged on or not, and I could come back to it and check the results.

Never had any drives drop out. Never had any drive go bad. It was probably the most stable aspect of the whole Q6600 system I built with it, and it was solid all over.
 

Wuzup101

Platinum Member
Feb 20, 2002
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Well that's good to hear. Thanks for responding guys! I'll also keep the PSU thing in mind if I start to see issues. My trusty corsair unit is getting on in the years...
 

Zxian

Senior member
May 26, 2011
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For what it's worth, the PSU that went was a Corsair HX520. Both it and it's larger brother (HX620) that I had in my desktop started to go around the same time.
 

BonzaiDuck

Lifer
Jun 30, 2004
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Well that's good to hear. Thanks for responding guys! I'll also keep the PSU thing in mind if I start to see issues. My trusty corsair unit is getting on in the years...

You mentioned the Samsung -- I think also known as "F4" drives -- 2TB and SATA-II. Size limitations are one issue; speed is another. SATA-III HDDs will only get you the same speed-range per disk and a few extra features.

I was also looking into the offerings of large-capacity "NAS" drives, like the WD Reds and Seagate NAS units -- 2, 3, 4TB flavors.

Here, we get into the problem of MBR versus GPT partitioning. Zxian says he has eight of the WD Red 3TB units in RAID6. My understanding of it has Win 2008 R2 using GPT partitions, with more than one logical volume formatted on the disk (I'm using WHS-2011, which is essentially the 2008 R2). Maybe the choice of the controller resolves this issue, or maybe I don't have all the facts.

So for that -- a "sidebar" with Zxian: "How does it work with those large HDDs?" Wuzup101 wants to upgrade from 2TB drives; I want to upgrade from 1TB drives, and I'm a bit reticent about replacing them with 3TB or 4TB units until I know more.
 

Wuzup101

Platinum Member
Feb 20, 2002
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I currently have 4x 4TB drives installed in the system on the mobo's intel controller in Raid 5 (GPT disk). No issues setting it up. Are there any specific MBR vs GPT issues that you are specifically thinking of?
 

BonzaiDuck

Lifer
Jun 30, 2004
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I currently have 4x 4TB drives installed in the system on the mobo's intel controller in Raid 5 (GPT disk). No issues setting it up. Are there any specific MBR vs GPT issues that you are specifically thinking of?

I was looking at the "NAS" high-capacity drives such as those you're using. They have "less-than-stellar" customer reviews, even if we take customer reviews with (many!) grains of salt, so to speak. "DOA," "Crapped out after a week's time," yada-yada etc.etc. A lot of times I have to look at these reviews to see if there's some particular problem owing to the hardware and not the customer. And customers oft-times don't know squat about installing their hardware.

We went through this "AF" or Advanced Format issue -- resolved in Windows 7, apparently also resolved for WHS-2011 (or 2008 R2 -- whatever). Then there was the issue about disk alignment -- cautions directed at SSD purchasers but no less relevant for the AF drives.

So I was researching (in progress and glad for any of your input) the applicability of the 3 or 4TB drives to a WHS-2011 environment. So far, I'd turned up "yes -- it works" but caveats that it still led to formatting more than one logical drive on the GPT partition.

You're telling me you didn't have to do that? Or that somehow choice of the controller resolves it? Before I spend a bundle on a hardware controller, I'm looking into less expensive units such as a Startech [Marvell] controller I mentioned in another thread. The idea behind it: I'd first use these controllers to update some other LGA-775 systems -- workstations. There are plenty of slots in my LGA-775 server box available to add one there, too. I could then try one of the large capacity drives with prospects for adding it to my drive pool. This sidesteps the problem of attempting to use them with the old onboard SATA controller -- currently hosting four 1TB drives with no problem (and no GPT partitions).

Putting it all in the balance with the $$$, I could probably go this route hoping for success, and if it doesn't work, I might then look for a controller solution in either the SATA-III flavor or an older controller (like I'd used before and you're considering) in the SATA-II standard. But it would have to manage these large capacity drives.

Zxian says he's using a 9650 LSI/3Ware with those WD Red drives, and no trouble in RAID6. If I don't intend to use RAID and rather wish to use a drive pool, I'm wondering if I'll run into a snag.

OF COURSE . . . there's always the possibility of calling it quits with this old C2D processor and LGA-775 mobo -- at something exceeding the expense of a $90 PCI-E controller card. I still have to purchase the large drives requiring GPT. So . . . right now, I'm counting cash, making spreadsheets, looking at alternatives. If I can have my home server at minimum expense, I have more money to pursue my other tech-obsessions over the next year.
 
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Zxian

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May 26, 2011
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Here, we get into the problem of MBR versus GPT partitioning. Zxian says he has eight of the WD Red 3TB units in RAID6. My understanding of it has Win 2008 R2 using GPT partitions, with more than one logical volume formatted on the disk (I'm using WHS-2011, which is essentially the 2008 R2). Maybe the choice of the controller resolves this issue, or maybe I don't have all the facts.

So for that -- a "sidebar" with Zxian: "How does it work with those large HDDs?" Wuzup101 wants to upgrade from 2TB drives; I want to upgrade from 1TB drives, and I'm a bit reticent about replacing them with 3TB or 4TB units until I know more.

Server disk management

The 3ware controller exports a single volume that's available for partitioning just like any other drive. If I were to format it as MBR, then I'd be limited just the same way as if I were to try to format a single 4TB disk.

I've migrated storage solutions a couple of times now, and for simplicity's sake, I've preferred to have both arrays/pools available at the same time and copy/sync the files across.

I think that you're SoL when it comes to GPT support on WHS2011. I don't have a system running WHS2011, so I can't confirm, but you may want to consider using a different operating system if you need support for drives larger than 3TB.
 

Wuzup101

Platinum Member
Feb 20, 2002
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I was looking at the "NAS" high-capacity drives such as those you're using. They have "less-than-stellar" customer reviews, even if we take customer reviews with (many!) grains of salt, so to speak. "DOA," "Crapped out after a week's time," yada-yada etc.etc. A lot of times I have to look at these reviews to see if there's some particular problem owing to the hardware and not the customer. And customers oft-times don't know squat about installing their hardware.

We went through this "AF" or Advanced Format issue -- resolved in Windows 7, apparently also resolved for WHS-2011 (or 2008 R2 -- whatever). Then there was the issue about disk alignment -- cautions directed at SSD purchasers but no less relevant for the AF drives.

So I was researching (in progress and glad for any of your input) the applicability of the 3 or 4TB drives to a WHS-2011 environment. So far, I'd turned up "yes -- it works" but caveats that it still led to formatting more than one logical drive on the GPT partition.

You're telling me you didn't have to do that? Or that somehow choice of the controller resolves it? Before I spend a bundle on a hardware controller, I'm looking into less expensive units such as a Startech [Marvell] controller I mentioned in another thread. The idea behind it: I'd first use these controllers to update some other LGA-775 systems -- workstations. There are plenty of slots in my LGA-775 server box available to add one there, too. I could then try one of the large capacity drives with prospects for adding it to my drive pool. This sidesteps the problem of attempting to use them with the old onboard SATA controller -- currently hosting four 1TB drives with no problem (and no GPT partitions).

Putting it all in the balance with the $$$, I could probably go this route hoping for success, and if it doesn't work, I might then look for a controller solution in either the SATA-III flavor or an older controller (like I'd used before and you're considering) in the SATA-II standard. But it would have to manage these large capacity drives.

Zxian says he's using a 9650 LSI/3Ware with those WD Red drives, and no trouble in RAID6. If I don't intend to use RAID and rather wish to use a drive pool, I'm wondering if I'll run into a snag.

OF COURSE . . . there's always the possibility of calling it quits with this old C2D processor and LGA-775 mobo -- at something exceeding the expense of a $90 PCI-E controller card. I still have to purchase the large drives requiring GPT. So . . . right now, I'm counting cash, making spreadsheets, looking at alternatives. If I can have my home server at minimum expense, I have more money to pursue my other tech-obsessions over the next year.

I'm not sure where the less than stellar reviews are coming from. The Seagate NAS drives (at least the 4TB drives that I purchased) have similar review rating distributions to WD RE4 drives on Amazon. Most of the 1 star reviews on newegg/amazon are from people bitching about DOA units and shipping methods (this is common across pretty much every mechanical hard drive on the market if you look at those reviews).

I don't know - I've never had a single mechanical HDD arrive DOA... and I've bought a lot over the years. I did have 1 samsung 830 come DOA (luckily I had purchased a pair of them). I assume that when it happens people like to post about it. If it comes DOA, just like any other computer part... you return it.

That being said, I haven't heard anything negative about the Seagate NAS drive failure rates (which is what I'm most concerned about).

I can't tell you anything about WHS2011 as I've never used it. I can tell you that GPT is working fine on my install of Win 7 home premium. My array has a current formatted capacity of 10.9TB with a used capacity of just over 3TB. Formatted as a single drive.
 
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BonzaiDuck

Lifer
Jun 30, 2004
16,218
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I'm not sure where the less than stellar reviews are coming from. The Seagate NAS drives (at least the 4TB drives that I purchased) have similar review rating distributions to WD RE4 drives on Amazon. Most of the 1 star reviews on newegg/amazon are from people bitching about DOA units and shipping methods (this is common across pretty much every mechanical hard drive on the market if you look at those reviews).

I don't know - I've never had a single mechanical HDD arrive DOA... and I've bought a lot over the years. I did have 1 samsung 830 come DOA (luckily I had purchased a pair of them). I assume that when it happens people like to post about it. If it comes DOA, just like any other computer part... you return it.

That being said, I haven't heard anything negative about the Seagate NAS drive failure rates (which is what I'm most concerned about).

I can't tell you anything about WHS2011 as I've never used it. I can tell you that GPT is working fine on my install of Win 7 home premium. My array has a current formatted capacity of 10.9TB with a used capacity of just over 3TB. Formatted as a single drive.

Hope I still have your attention on these issues.

Acronis TI 2014 supposedly has a feature that will recognize and manage the full drive size of GPT partitions -- with a likely ability to format them as one logical drive.

Maybe I should post my remaining questions in another thread, but I'll take a stab here -- then the other thread later:

"Can I mix MBR and GPT drives in the same system if the OS can handle either?" I would think so.

On the matter of customer reviews, you are correct about the behavioral and "skill" aspects across the board. I try to find serious reviews with lab-tests. I found one such publication about the WD Reds: All it could do was to cite customer gripes at the Egg. The reviewer likely got a good one, made his remarks and conclusions, then mentioned the Egg reviews.

I don't remember ever getting a bad drive, but there's always a first time. Here and there, you fiddle with the packing and RMA preparations; sometimes you pay postage. It's a headache I always want to avoid, even if all my RMA experiences were . . acceptable -- satisfactory.
 

iluvdeal

Golden Member
Nov 22, 1999
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$80? Great deal. I've been running a 9650SE-4LPML with 1TB drives in RAID5 for years. As a storage drive, they work fine for me. Once these drive start to go down, I'll probably just replace them with 4TB drives if they are cheap by then. I see no reason to get a more expensive newer RAID card.

The only thing I faced is the 3ware web interface for alerts (3DM2) stopped worked after some Windows update a few years ago. It's a nice utility as you can have it send an alert email immediately when a drive fails, so it's definitely something you want to setup and run. I haven't bothered look for a fix until your post inspired me to do so, looks like I just need to replace a file: http://blog.shawnhyde.com/post/2012...nnect-with-Internet-Explorer-Firefox-etc.aspx
 

Wuzup101

Platinum Member
Feb 20, 2002
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"Can I mix MBR and GPT drives in the same system if the OS can handle either?" I would think so.

Yes. That's not a definitive answer for every system out there (but I assume it's the case as I believe all systems that are hardware/software compatible with GPT would be backwards compatible with MBR). That being said, my 1TB SSD OS drive is formatted MBR with my raid array in GPT.
 

Wuzup101

Platinum Member
Feb 20, 2002
2,334
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$80? Great deal. I've been running a 9650SE-4LPML with 1TB drives in RAID5 for years. As a storage drive, they work fine for me. Once these drive start to go down, I'll probably just replace them with 4TB drives if they are cheap by then. I see no reason to get a more expensive newer RAID card.

The only thing I faced is the 3ware web interface for alerts (3DM2) stopped worked after some Windows update a few years ago. It's a nice utility as you can have it send an alert email immediately when a drive fails, so it's definitely something you want to setup and run. I haven't bothered look for a fix until your post inspired me to do so, looks like I just need to replace a file: http://blog.shawnhyde.com/post/2012...nnect-with-Internet-Explorer-Firefox-etc.aspx

Nice thanks! I do have 3DM2 installed and I used it to upgrade firmware on the card; however, I have yet to setup any alerts (as I'm still waiting for 2 more drives before I wipe the array as it sits and move it to the LSI card). In the mean time, I'll check into those alerts!