anywhere 6 Report post Posted December 6, 2013 Since the card is handling the drives directly, and assuming the os has decent driver support, if the main board gets upset over 2tb+, it shouldn't bother it with 3tb drives, since the main boards controller isn't handling the drives directly? Or could it be a pci bus issue? I planned on buying a pci sata2 card, and being mid 2007, I'm sure the motherboard won't agree with 2tb+ drives, and I was curious if this would be a possible, simple, until further planned, workaround, besides a bios flash, if available. Sent from my rooted HTC Supersonic using Tapatalk 2 Pro Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dietrc70 6 Report post Posted December 7, 2013 (edited) If the controller card supports the drive, then the motherboard and bus won't matter. The manufacturer website should tell you if the controller supports large drives. Did you mean a PCIe card? I'd be surprised if any PCI cards support 2tb+ drives. Edited December 7, 2013 by dietrc70 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
anywhere 6 Report post Posted December 7, 2013 http://www.sybausa.com/productInfo.php?iid=530 Many reviews of using linux/Ubuntu on 3tb+ when jbod I checked reviews on Amazon, tiger direct, newegg, etc. I'm going debian/mdadm Cheap way to get started until I find $800 for a decent mobo/cpu/memory/pcie card and go 64bit for zfs Sent from my rooted HTC Supersonic using Tapatalk 2 Pro Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
anywhere 6 Report post Posted December 7, 2013 well, since you made the point of stsandard PCI cards questionable for drives over 2Tb, my search continues to make sure this card will support 2Tb+... it uses the Silicon Image SIL3124 chipset, which, is used in the pcix and pcie versions of the card, and obviously i'm sure those support 2tb+ i'm not sure if standard PCI bus will give problems with addressing that much space? i wouldn't think so. It does mention directly from manufacture 2.7Tb is max array size if you use the cards onboard garbage, but if using JOBD mode, i should be able to hand down raw drive sizes to the OS and go software from there, so i hope.. i'll keep searching. if i find my ansswer, i'll post a reply and deem the thread as solved. regardless, appreciate any replies in the meantime. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dietrc70 6 Report post Posted December 9, 2013 The bus isn't an issue. It just carries data according to the PCI specification. It doesn't know or care if the data is from a video card, RAID controller with 4TB drives, Ethernet, etc. The only limitation of the PCI bus is it's ~110 MB/sec maximum bandwidth. I think your Sil will support a large drive as a data drive--but I'm not sure if it would be able to boot from one. Check the SiI website and driver/firmware notes. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
anywhere 6 Report post Posted December 9, 2013 Don't care about boot. Boots from an old dependable Seagate 8gb I'm gonna gamble it, nurse it until I get an amd quad core, mobo/ram/etc. If it's a bust, guess I'll be moving to better hardware sooner then I thought. Thanks. Sent from my rooted HTC Supersonic using Tapatalk 2 Pro Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
anywhere 6 Report post Posted December 22, 2013 Worked. 4x4tb drives in an array. 130mb/sec. Next year comes quad core and pcie..... Muaha. I had to move quick, I had pata's puking fast... $35 band aid until new mobo/cpu/PSU/ram Sent from my rooted HTC Supersonic using Tapatalk 2 Pro Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
