A while back, I mentioned upgrading my server, and providing “updates as they happen”. Well, I got so excited during the process that I didn’t stop to provide updates or any pictures. Suffice to say, everything got installed. “Everything” would include:
- 32 GB of RAM
- An LSI 9207-8i Host Bus Adapter and Mini SAS to SATA Cable
- Two Samsung 860 EVO 500GB SSDs
Regarding the HBA, as I was querying the members of the UnRAID Facebook group I participate in, I was made aware that this controller can get a tad warm. So I did some research and ended up on this page, which provides a walkthrough and parts list to add a small fan to the board’s heatsink. So I also ordered and received one of the itty bitty fans mentioned in the article as well as the screws and nuts to mount it, and added it to the controller prior to installation in the server. [Side note: yes, I did unfortunately purchase a large quantity of screws and nuts just to get two of each of the ones I needed, as I attempted to comb my local area for them only to find that pretty much nobody sells them in brick and mortar stores (RIP Radio Shack of the 70’s-80’s). So, if you need any of these things for your own projects hit me up, I’ll give you a sweet deal on them.]
In keeping with tradition, my son is hardware and I’m software. With that in mind, Jonas went about swapping out the memory, mounting the SSDs and routing the cabling for them. We collaborated on adding the fan to the HBA and then he went about installing the board into the server. We said a little prayer (:P), powered it up, and I then worked to make the configuration changes within UnRAID to assign the two new devices as cache drives. The final step was configuring and executing the mover process, which also succeeded without issues.
Everything worked wonderfully! The weekly docker updates move much faster and quieter since the dockers now live on the cache drives, and updates don’t slam the array as they did previously.
As of today – December 13th (happy Friday the 13th, by the way!), the server’s been up for about a month with no real issues. I definitely recommend UnRAID for anyone who might be looking for a NAS solution!
Well that about wraps this up. Have a good one, and happy holidays!!