Should have thought of it sooner, but you could connect the phone all alone through the "dodgy" Ethernet cable to one of the Switch 2 PoE ports - assuming the phone doesn't need Gigabit speed. Everything else could then go through the good cable to a non-PoE, port on Switch 2.
That's worth a try. Then I wouldn’t need to buy a Gigabit Switch with PoE. The standard Gigabit Switch would do.
If the Drobo FS is configured as a single RAID volume, I'm surprised at the around 44/27 MB/s read/write speeds for sequential files. So, you have something like a 10 TB single volume (5 x 2TB)? What RAID level is it configured at?
Does the Drobo FS backup software have a way to multi-stream your backups? This may better utilize the 100 MB/s or so of network bandwidth.
Yes, 5 x 2TB. The Drobo seems to be a mixture of RAID types, changing from one to the other as it needs. Just the 5C Enclosure alone costs around €300. A lot of processing goes on in there, which may be the cause of the 'slow' speed.
Just a few more things to check before upgrading my backup storage system. Thanks for all your help! I’ve learned a lot. I’ll pick it up again on Monday.
Well I finally have a StarTech 4 Port PCIe USB 3.0 card installed in my Dell T5500. It’s working really well with my 2 x Seagate 4TB drives, giving approx. 160MB/s read and write.
I also decided to buy the Drobo 5C and moved my 5 x 2TB drives from the slow Drobo FS (11MB/s) across to it. USB 3.0 speed there too through the StarTech card (100 - 150 MB/s).
Seeing everything was running literally 10 times faster, I’ve attached my old LaCie eSATA drives by eSATA port (plus a StarTech eSATA PCIe card on the way). So everything is transferring around the system at a nice speed!
Finally, my Drobo FS is waiting on standby for when I decide to use it as a Gigabit Ethernet NAS.
Thanks for all your invaluable help. The new year is off to a good start! 🙂
I'm still vetting the switch and awaiting parts. I'll do a separate post and link to it here when I'm convinced it all works together. Might be a month or two, though.
"PCIe switch card became available, which allowed me to bifurcate/switch the x8 PCIe lanes to (4) x4 M.2 NVMe ports"
Can you link or provide model number?
I think I've vetted this enough on my machine to respond.
Some background: A while back I noticed NAS suppliers started selling PCIe switch cards for their NAS server to allow owners to add M.2 NVMe SSDs to their device. Since the NAS servers didn't have PCIe Bifurcation support on their motherboard, they put it on the add-in PCIe card. Unlike prior non-NAS specific PCIe switch cards at over $400, these were reasonably priced. Some buyers of the NAS card(s) on Amazon reported it working on a regular PC. The device was for PCIe 3 and was still a little too expensive for me to bite. However, they also sold a PCIe 2 add-in card that was reasonably enough priced for me to take the risk and see if it would work, which it does in my older PCIe 2 system.
The model I'm using in my X58 chipset Dell XPS 435T/9000 is a QNAP QM2-4P-284 available from Amazon here for about $175 (I think I actually bought it at B&H Photo Video here). (Note descriptions of various models which are on the same page of Amazon's site seem to be mixed up.) Supports (4) M.2 NVMe SSDs at PCIe 2 speeds (~1700 MB/s) - I currently have 3 SSDs in the device. Note on the same Amazon page there's model QM2-4P-384 for about $262 which also has 4 slots, but at PCIe 3 speeds (~3500 MB/s). Both of the cards I've mentioned need a PCIe x8 slot in the motherboard and allow you to copy between any 2 SSDs in the card at the full speed of its PCIe version.
I don't believe any drivers are required for these devices - I didn't load any and there's no separate device in Windows 10 Device Manager (HWiNFO64 can see the switch and PCIe hierarchy, though). I don't know about support since I'm not using them in one of QNAP's servers, but with no device driver required I figured if it works I really don't need any support.
Info on QNAP's M.2 add-in cards here. Lots of models for both M.2 SATA and M.2 NVMe.
Today, more PCIe M.2 NVMe switch cards with bifurcation have started to show up for regular PCs, but I still don't see anything that matches QNAP's prices.
Manach
1 Rookie
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20 Posts
0
December 22nd, 2018 12:00
Should have thought of it sooner, but you could connect the phone all alone through the "dodgy" Ethernet cable to one of the Switch 2 PoE ports - assuming the phone doesn't need Gigabit speed. Everything else could then go through the good cable to a non-PoE, port on Switch 2.
That's worth a try. Then I wouldn’t need to buy a Gigabit Switch with PoE. The standard Gigabit Switch would do.
If the Drobo FS is configured as a single RAID volume, I'm surprised at the around 44/27 MB/s read/write speeds for sequential files. So, you have something like a 10 TB single volume (5 x 2TB)? What RAID level is it configured at?
Does the Drobo FS backup software have a way to multi-stream your backups? This may better utilize the 100 MB/s or so of network bandwidth.
Yes, 5 x 2TB. The Drobo seems to be a mixture of RAID types, changing from one to the other as it needs. Just the 5C Enclosure alone costs around €300. A lot of processing goes on in there, which may be the cause of the 'slow' speed.
Just a few more things to check before upgrading my backup storage system. Thanks for all your help! I’ve learned a lot. I’ll pick it up again on Monday.
Have a great weekend!
Seamus
Techgee
2 Intern
•
623 Posts
0
December 22nd, 2018 13:00
An article here benched the Drobo FS at 39/27 MB/s (read/write). So, your numbers are pretty much on target.
If you want higher numbers, locally attached storage is your best bet - USB 3.1 should help there.
Have a good weekend!
DellFan1980
2 Posts
0
December 27th, 2018 17:00
"PCIe switch card became available, which allowed me to bifurcate/switch the x8 PCIe lanes to (4) x4 M.2 NVMe ports"
Can you link or provide model number?
Manach
1 Rookie
•
20 Posts
0
January 2nd, 2019 13:00
Hi again Techgee,
Well I finally have a StarTech 4 Port PCIe USB 3.0 card installed in my Dell T5500. It’s working really well with my 2 x Seagate 4TB drives, giving approx. 160MB/s read and write.
I also decided to buy the Drobo 5C and moved my 5 x 2TB drives from the slow Drobo FS (11MB/s) across to it. USB 3.0 speed there too through the StarTech card (100 - 150 MB/s).
Seeing everything was running literally 10 times faster, I’ve attached my old LaCie eSATA drives by eSATA port (plus a StarTech eSATA PCIe card on the way). So everything is transferring around the system at a nice speed!
Finally, my Drobo FS is waiting on standby for when I decide to use it as a Gigabit Ethernet NAS.
Thanks for all your invaluable help. The new year is off to a good start! 🙂
Seamus
Techgee
2 Intern
•
623 Posts
0
January 4th, 2019 10:00
DellFan1980,
I'm still vetting the switch and awaiting parts. I'll do a separate post and link to it here when I'm convinced it all works together. Might be a month or two, though.
Manach, sounds like a major improvement!
Manach
1 Rookie
•
20 Posts
0
January 4th, 2019 11:00
It is indeed!
Very happy!
Mostafa Galileo
1 Message
0
August 18th, 2019 10:00
Techgee
2 Intern
•
623 Posts
1
September 23rd, 2019 14:00
I think I've vetted this enough on my machine to respond.
Some background: A while back I noticed NAS suppliers started selling PCIe switch cards for their NAS server to allow owners to add M.2 NVMe SSDs to their device. Since the NAS servers didn't have PCIe Bifurcation support on their motherboard, they put it on the add-in PCIe card. Unlike prior non-NAS specific PCIe switch cards at over $400, these were reasonably priced. Some buyers of the NAS card(s) on Amazon reported it working on a regular PC. The device was for PCIe 3 and was still a little too expensive for me to bite. However, they also sold a PCIe 2 add-in card that was reasonably enough priced for me to take the risk and see if it would work, which it does in my older PCIe 2 system.
The model I'm using in my X58 chipset Dell XPS 435T/9000 is a QNAP QM2-4P-284 available from Amazon here for about $175 (I think I actually bought it at B&H Photo Video here). (Note descriptions of various models which are on the same page of Amazon's site seem to be mixed up.) Supports (4) M.2 NVMe SSDs at PCIe 2 speeds (~1700 MB/s) - I currently have 3 SSDs in the device. Note on the same Amazon page there's model QM2-4P-384 for about $262 which also has 4 slots, but at PCIe 3 speeds (~3500 MB/s). Both of the cards I've mentioned need a PCIe x8 slot in the motherboard and allow you to copy between any 2 SSDs in the card at the full speed of its PCIe version.
I don't believe any drivers are required for these devices - I didn't load any and there's no separate device in Windows 10 Device Manager (HWiNFO64 can see the switch and PCIe hierarchy, though). I don't know about support since I'm not using them in one of QNAP's servers, but with no device driver required I figured if it works I really don't need any support.
Info on QNAP's M.2 add-in cards here. Lots of models for both M.2 SATA and M.2 NVMe.
Today, more PCIe M.2 NVMe switch cards with bifurcation have started to show up for regular PCs, but I still don't see anything that matches QNAP's prices.