You replied twice, so you got the PMs.

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Thanks.

-Jordan

Hey Guys,

Still having some hardware issues with my build so moving a little slower along then I would like. As far as setting up AHCI, is there a specific resource I can read up on how to do this, or do you have any tips? Right now I have the O/S loaded and one of my 5-3 HDD Cages installed (the other 2 cages are currently the hadrware problem so those are out)

I got your message and your board is packed and ready to go. I'll go to the UPS store as soon as it's open and send you the tracking number.

It took me about 6 hours to figure it out and get it working. Patience and persistance. I was just about to give up, start over, set up AHCI from the beginning, and re-load the OS. Since you're using a Gigabyte AMD mobo and you've already loaded the OS, the method I posted should work. I found the info buried in a Google search on a German language computer forum. The translation was strange and it took me awhile to figure it out, but after several attempts, I got it to work.

I am about to reload the system. I can get one AOC to support AHCI, the other one, for some reason, needs to have the drives installed then turn the system on for them to be seen. Tried removing the card, reinstalling drivers, back and forth, no luck. Patience went out the window last night

Following these instructions to get AHCI on at install:
http://wiki.wegotserved.com/index.php?t ... ome_Server

Hopefully that makes a difference. Of course, could be a bad card, could be a bad backplane, could be a .... lots of testing on this setup.

But it is more fun than other things I could be doing.

I am going to write up a step-by-step if I get this to work properly since I think more people are going to do this. I saw your questions on the H forums, questions from others on WGS and my questions here. Popular build but little documentation to go through it without a six hour ordeal.

The AHCI I've been referring to is for the mobo only. The SASLP cards are hot swap out of the box and do not rely on the mobo AHCI to work.

Cavediver/Walkabt,

Thanks, I will give it a shot. I was just about to hit the German forums!!!

If either of you guys document setting up AHCI let me know, if you set it up in a new thread I will do a write up on the MSS.net blog highlighting

On my Supermicro, I did not use ACHI on the mobo since the only sata ports I used were for the system drive and DVD writer. The Supermicro MV8 card drives the rest of the disks and hot swaps are with the card. If I go for more disks, I will just add additional MV8's. Seems to work really well.

Hmmm...I didn't even think of that. I have one of the Supermicro cards and am going to need another card eventually. My case can only hold 16HDDs anyhow so I can either get another 8 port SuperMicro for the 15 pooled drives and leave the O/S drive with the mobo (and not use AHCI), or use the mobo sata ports for the pooled drives (and set up AHCI) and get a 4 port Sata controller card to handle the rest of the pooled drives (6 HDDs including O/S on mobo sata ports, 8 HDDs on Supermicro, and remaining 2 HDDs on some 4 port sata controller).

What I have found is the supermicro cards pass all SMART data and work well, some of the other cards on the market, especially the 2-4 port cards don't work well with smart data. I think it is almost essential that temperature data be passed thru in order to monitor the drives and failure data is required. I have had a drive or 2 fail but impact has been zero since I got notification that failure was imminent. Just removed the drive thru the console and replaced without any down time.

Edit: The other thing I thought about was, make sure you understand the drivers required and how to do a server recovery if the system drive fails at some point. The most simple implementation is probably your best bet. ACHI complicates the recovery procedure.

Do SFF-8087 cables have to go in a specific direction?

I didn't reload, thanks for letting me know the MV8s already are AHCI. Tested each backplane, tested each cable, tested each port on each card - everything ok now. Only thing I did was change the direction on two cables... could just have been a fluke.

Everything is fine. Only issue with the Norco 4220 was the USB cable from the front header was missing one of the little female connectors - off to radio shack to see if they can provide that.

This actually was not bad, just so many things to test when you are done. Now letting it burn in, then kill-a-watt later today.

As far as I know, the SFF-8087 cables are not directional. I didn't worry about it with mine. As for the USB cable, mine had one 3-pin connector and one separate single pin ground connector all housed in the larger white cable coming from the front.

I might have one bad backplane, the 4 pin molex connector jiggles and it seems to go out every so often so I emailed Norco for a replacement for that and the USB connector cable. Minor issues.

I had one bad backplane as well. I emailed the Norco rep a photo of the defective sas connector and they replaced the backplane right away. But I'm having issues with the replacement backplane. The little led lights only work on one drive. All of the rest are dark.

Backplanes sure seem a little fragile. The backplane of two of my hdd cages form my build are bad. The cage has a dip switch that you can turn on or off if you have a fan attached. This switch is busted on these two backplanes so the cage thinks a fan is connected but not working and the bomb alarm sounds...