Help with 4000 upgrade

[Phoenix32]

Originally Posted by cianwill

The Seagates have 4 platters, but with the extra power supply no problem.

Mirror is 374,292

3 Disk Raid 5 is 748,586

True, I have downloaded FreeNAS...I just haven't messed with it yet.

No joy on 4 Drives at 400GB each? Bummer...


Incidently, I went back and looked at your earlier post again with that "Preposterous" error number. Am I reading that right? It thinks 4 x 400 GB is 1.96 GB? Hmmmmmm That just can't be right... It must be sectors or something...

[cianwill]

Yes, truly a bummer! I think you are right about the number being the amount of sectors... I just wish I could figure out what it is that is keeping the fourth disk from the equation. It really does seem like there is a magic number that it won't let us cross...and it's somewhere between 754GB and 1.2TB

[Phoenix32]

Originally Posted by cianwill

It really does seem like there is a magic number that it won't let us cross...and it's somewhere between 754GB and 1.2TB

If this is true, and I am not saying it is or isn't, then I am going to have to assume it is that 3rd bit number of 1,099,511,627,776. I would also have to assume it would be something in the software, OS, BIOS, etc, and not in the hardware (3 extra bits is just not normal). My guess would be in the old FreeBSD it is based on and how it handles the software RAID 5. I would be VERY interested to know if it will do a RAID 0 over this boundary. Not that anyone really wants to use RAID 0 in a SNAP, but this would tell us a little something in the investigation.

I myself have seen 1 TB Snap 4000's for sale on ebay and people using them elsewhere, so I have to assume 1 TB is okay and it would fit in with being below the 1,099,511,627,776 number above. Has anyone seen a Snap 4000 in RAID 5 over 1 TB?

Another interesting point that may or may not make a difference here is the versions of the 4000. There are 4 versions of the 4000 using 3 different revs of the main circuit board. I wonder if there is any difference there either?

Damn I hate it when our conversations ends this way, and they do way too often. An unknown boundry that we can't figure out due to lack of information from the designers. So I will ask again in case someone missed it. Has anyone seen a Snap 4000 in raid 5 above 1,099,511,627,776 bytes?

[re3dyb0y]

It is usually just different revisions of the northbridge chips and such

At one point i had 3 2200 main boards

That was the only difference

(It had the same chips as my old 233Mhz PII - Aswell as being the same speed)

[pocketrocket]

I have read this over and over. I would like to put my 2 cents in.

I have a 4000 (os 4 hardware 2.0.1 bios 2.0.252) running 4-ST3250832A drives ( 250 gig) raid 5 for over a year now with no trouble.

I am now looking to do a 4000 with 320 or 400 or 500 gig drives. After doing a lot of reading I have found that the seagate drives ST400832A and ST500830A ( these each also have 3 platers )have the same power requirements as the 250 gig.
2.8 amps at startup and 12.8 watts active.
This leads me to beleave that power is not a problem at startup. The p/s in my current 4000 is 120 watts.
I only thing that is holding me back is cost and the huge number that has showed up here as a wall that can not be passed.

Is there any more information out there?

[blue68f100]

The most resent road block indicates that it can not handle capacity over 1T. In rush current has been a problem too with large drives.

[Phoenix32]

I myself would like to get some answers on this one, but I suspect nobody currently here knows for sure. I was going to go with 320GB drives (or 300) but am not sure if I should go with 250's now. Kinda sucks not knowing, the 320/300 drives do not cost much more really than the 250's and yet give ya an extra 150 to 210 GB more storage in RAID 5. It would be nice to know where that barrier is for sure. I suspect it is around 1.2 TB, but suspecting and knowing are two different things.

[blue68f100]

300 have presented problems when building the array. You will end up with a 3 disk array and 1 spare.

[Phoenix32]

Originally Posted by blue68f100

300 have presented problems when building the array. You will end up with a 3 disk array and 1 spare.

I thought it was the 400 GB that were giving this problem, not the 300 GB? Did I miss something? It was my impression that the people who have had SNAP 4000's here had only tried drives at 250 GB and below except for 1 guy who tried 500 GB drives and had the power issue with 4 drives (too many platters and thus startup power needed), and then the guy here in this message thread using 400 GB drives and got proposerous sector count errors.

I don't mean to argue, but I have tried to read everything here on the forum about the 4000's (I have a 4000 and a 1000) and what I just typed above was all I have seen in drives over 250 GB posted here. In fact, when I first came here and asked about this subject, the guy with the 500 GB drives was the only one who said he had tried anything above 250 GB drives and everyone else pretty much said they didn't know.

Again, I do not mean to argue, but I want to make sure our information is correct and not getting blurred and confused over time because that can and does happen with so many SNAP variants, and even worse, versions of the variants out there. If someone has done this, then my apologies and PLEASE elaborate with more information please because this is the EXACT information I been trying to figure out without having to spend my minimal limited dollars on drives I may not be able to use and I just plain have not seen this information here on the forum.

[blue68f100]

No there were several users that tried the 300's and ran into problems building the 4 disk raid array. 400 & 500 had problems booting due to inrush current. I do recall 1 getting 300 running but it took like 5 days to build the array.

Would not want to be there if/when a drive fails.

[Phoenix32]

K, 250's it is...

[Geek_Ed]

OK, first, I have to acknowledge that I am a relative newbie to hacking snap servers (other hardware is a different story all together), but just how proprietary is the power supply in the 4000 boxes? I seem to remember reading in a thread here that it is a fairly low output unit, about 120W correct? Why hasn't someone replaced it with a better one yet?

Is it that much different from, say, a microATX power supply (after the microATX one is disassembled of course)? I guess I need to get my hands on a 4000 to find out for myself.

Try not to flame me too badly, remember I'm just ignorant fella stumbling around in this intelligent world.

[Phoenix32]

Originally Posted by Geek_Ed

Why hasn't someone replaced it with a better one yet?

Well, I was considering doing this if my 4000 would not power up 4 x 320 drives... BUT, since we can't go over 250 drives and the power supply can handle 4 x 250 drives, then why bother?

[Geek_Ed]

Very good point on the power supply issue.

Another question, has anyone checked out the NAS software (NASLite) from ServerElements? I have a copy of the first version, but it seems that version 2 has a pretty impressive feature list, runs on very modest hardware, and costs a whopping $30

[pocketrocket]

I just ordered 4 320's ST3320620A today so I will keep this site up to date as to what happeans.

[Phoenix32]

Originally Posted by pocketrocket

I just ordered 4 320's ST3320620A today so I will keep this site up to date as to what happeans.

PLEASE DO! Post in this thread what happens if you can. I am assuming a SNAP 4000 correct?

[blue68f100]

Originally Posted by Geek_Ed

Very good point on the power supply issue.

Another question, has anyone checked out the NAS software (NASLite) from ServerElements? I have a copy of the first version, but it seems that version 2 has a pretty impressive feature list, runs on very modest hardware, and costs a whopping $30

Haven't looked at that NAS. Does it give you a 30 day trial. And does is support Raid 0, 1, 5 at a minimium?

[re3dyb0y]

I've got a Copy of the Full Server Suite

Little out of date now, but not much

[Geek_Ed]

Do you mean the full version 1 server suite? From what I've read at the web site, there have been vast improvements with version 2. It does appear to support RAID, but only hardware RAID, but also supports USB and FireWire drives as well.

I'm going to shuck out the $30 bucks for it, so if anyone would like to "borrow" it to do some testing, feel free to email me.

[re3dyb0y]

Ive got the V1 SS i believe

I think its 1.5

Are you meaning?
http://www.serverelements.com/naslite-2-usb.php

As that is only one part of the software

Will drop you an email

[re3dyb0y]

With my download links from before

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[pocketrocket]

Just installed the 4 320gig drives. Raid 5 is now formating. When I get back to work on monday it should be done.

[Phoenix32]

Originally Posted by pocketrocket

Just installed the 4 320gig drives. Raid 5 is now formating. When I get back to work on monday it should be done.

So would I be wrong in "assuming" by your comment, that what Blue said about the 300/320 drives taking longer than normal to create/recover a RAID 5 arrary? Meaning, a large RAID 5 arrary takes a while to build/recover, but these 300/320 GB drives are taking a lot longer than is normal in the SNAP 4000 to build/recover?

[pocketrocket]

No I do not think it will take all that long. It was running about 30 min when I went home and it was 27% done. So use this as a base it should take about 2-3 hrs to finish.

[blue68f100]

From what users have reported, the 300 formated fine, when they went to build the array (4 disk) is when all the problems showed up. But again he is using seagates, which has have the fewest problems. Those are the new 7200.10 Perpendicular drives.

What version of OS are you using, as well as HW, I think all of the bios are the same.