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PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2013 4:42 pm 
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It's my understanding that these things support a 1-5 port multiplier, so i was actually thinking i would cheap out, and get something like this. Well, try, at least. But then i started worrying. How good is the port multiplier tech anyway? I read somewhere that if one drive on a port multiplier dies, all the rest of the drives quit responding as well. Is this an issue with the X310 as well, or was that just their testing environment that was behaving that way?

I know people use port multis with these HP Datavaults, whats your experiences, have it been straight forward, no real issues, or has it been hell and mayhem? Please share.
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2013 7:42 pm 
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If you set the port multiplier up to run JBOD or Just a Bunch of Disks three is no issue with the other disks if one fails. Having said that if one drive is bad it can cause issues with booting a server or computer. Most issues you will find with port multipliers have to do with drives dropping out or trimming out. Its a rather annoying issue that's not easy to figure out. I am others have discussed this issue in great detail trying to rule out potential issues.

My first experience with a Port Multiplier was with an EX470 and I never experience issues accept when I connected by mistake a failed drive which I was able to quickly identify because of the LED indicators on the unit. The next time I put port multipliers to use as on a different server where I ran like 6 of them and they ran great for quite sometime then I started experiencing random drive drop outs and I could never quite figure out why.

Recently I tested out a 4 bay unit on my WHS2011 server and it ran without any issues. Then I migrated the server OS to WS2012E and this time tested out a 5 bay port multiplier and ran that test for a month maybe a bit longer and it ran without issue.

The server software I was running when I did experience issues was WHSv1 with a wide variety of controllers and cables to see if I could improve the situation before biting the bullet and built my current server which has ample space to support all the drives I could ask for.

The card which you have pointed out looks like a very low cost solution but then you need to put it into an enclosure, power it and provide the cables to the drives which may prove to be more expensive then just buying one off the shelf from a supplier as they often show up between $75-100 on sale.

I can not speak about the X310 but many forum members here do use port multipliers and some have absolutely no issues with them while others do but having a port multiplier is not exactly a waste of money. I often use them for docking stations where I can connect drives to a client quickly to work on them. My latest client I built has external tooless trays and backplanes so I use those the most these days.

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PostPosted: Wed Jul 24, 2013 2:05 am 
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I suppose if a drive is set up in a RAID envirorment it makes sens it fails the whole thing, but it seams here that regardless of how the drive is configured when one drive fails it puts the entire unit offline without error messages.
Now, i have no idea what hardware or configurations these tests were run on, and i have no idea what conclusion they came to "down the line" so to speak.

My main problem with obtaining a off the shelf solution is mainly just that. I haven't ever seen one at "consumer prices" here in Sweden. Second hand units on eBay or similar have a unfriendly habit of costing more in shipping then the unit it self costs, bringing the total well over the price of just getting a new headless server / NAS.

My intention is to use a fairly dumb, and hence cheap multiplier, and let the X310 manage the drives rather then having a smarter unit RAID/JBOD them. It should also mean i can add drives, and replace them with larger ones, as i go. And when i decide to get rid of the X310 all i need is a Port multiplier friendly controller card, and my Proliant ML 350 (WHS2011) can just "take ownership'" of the darn thing by moving a cable. Well, i think, at least.

Anyway. I got a number of chassis with 4-6 hotswap bays, and power-supplies. It seams stupid to use a 4U chassis and only stack a couple of drives in em, but at least it should help in keeping the noise down.

Thank you for the thoughts.
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 24, 2013 4:09 am 
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Do you have the ProLiant ML350 now running WHS2011 or is that going to be your next server? Not sure which Generation ML350 you are referring to but if your intention is to run WHS2011 on a ProLiant ML350 then why even bother with expanding out the X310. Of course you could use USB drives which run slower but if your not using the USB Ports and need to add more capacity until you setup your next server then that might buy you some time.

The term JBOD means Just a Bunch of Drives and this is exactly what you want and what your actually describing. Just wanted to clarify this so that we are on the same page. Any port multiplier running JBOD can be move to any computer and used provided the unit has an eSATA Port which is Port Multiplier Aware. There are also USB Versions which allow for more drives but those larger units come at a steep cost.

Unfortunately I am not familiar with venders in your country and I know if you do not word things properly on the customs forms in some countries they place a huge adder cost.

What is the customs or VAT tax rate in your country?

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~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 24, 2013 4:46 am 
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The ML350 is a G5, it's up and running, but it has to get a new drive cage. It currently has 6 out of 8 2,5" SAS drives, and quite frankly, the speed is entertaining, but the cost of space at that rate is just... insane. I intend to have the cage replaced with the 6x3.5" flavor instead, losing 2 drives to gain economy.
It's also quite simply to noisy, so i'm looking for some less heat generating components to try and tweak that. Thinking low voltage pair of CPU's, (yes, pair. I'm aware the 2011 home server OS wont use but the single socket, but if i'm ever going to get rid of it, my chance is better if it has a matched pair of CPU's) and i'm hoping a pair of 2GB FBDIMM's will be enough rather then the stack of 8GB ones i got now, and so on. I need to figure something out when it comes to the PSU. The redundant design is nice, but the noise from that thing alone is mad. Quite honestly it's frightening, and i'm not sure it's at all possible to make the noise come down to a level where it can actually be used in a living-room. But for all intents and purposes i at least pretend to plan with evolving that route.

Customs, 0-17%, depending on exactly what it gets shipped as. "Electronics" is just shy of 4%, "computers" is 0% and "spares" / "replacement parts", is what ever the customs people think it looks like when they check it out. On everything, including shipping and insurance.
VAT, 25%. On everything, including shipping and insurance.
Plus a handling fee. Depending on what transport company ends up doing the customs work thats anywhere from 10 to 100 USD. Generally in the lower end, companies generally handling larger packages charge more, pretty much.
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