SATA Controller Cards


Recommended Posts

The SAS2008 cards should all be capable of negotiating a narrower bus.

 

The controller itself should run in 1x and 4x, but the card implementation can avoid this.

 

from BR10i manual:

 

The ServeRAID™-BR10i SAS/SATA Controller provides four or eight serial ports for
connection to Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and Serial ATA (SATA) devices. Each
port is capable of a SAS link rate and a SATA link rate of 3.0 Gbps (gigabits per
second). The PCI Express transmission and reception data rate is 2.5 Gbps in each
direction, yielding a total bandwidth of 5.0 Gbps for each full-duplex lane. The
controller is implemented using four or eight PCI Express physical layers (PHYs),
which provide possible host-side maximum transmission and reception rates of up
to 4.0 GBps (gigabytes per second).

The controller supports PCI Express interfaces. The controller has the following PCI
Express features:
* Four or eight PCI Express physical layers
* Single-physical-layer (1 lane) link transfer rate up to 2.5 Gbps in each direction
* x8 and x4 link width support
* Automatic downshift to an x4 link width if the controller is connected to an x4
connector or to an x8 connector that is wired as an x4 connector

 

So will this work in my SuperMicro X7SPA-HF board that has a x16 connector wired as a x4 connector ???

 

I guess it will, correct?

Link to comment

Anyway, as far as I can determine, the Supermicro AOC-USAS2-L8i controller is pretty well compatible with unRAID (but not with all add-ons).

Can you post some pictures of the card installed into the server?

 

Okay, I can do ... but be warned that it's installed without a backplate fitted at the moment.  It's now past midnight, so I'll get my camera out in the morning.

Link to comment

Anyway, as far as I can determine, the Supermicro AOC-USAS2-L8i controller is pretty well compatible with unRAID (but not with all add-ons).

Can you post some pictures of the card installed into the server?

 

Okay, I can do ... but be warned that it's installed without a backplate fitted at the moment.  It's now past midnight, so I'll get my camera out in the morning.

 

Thank you, PeterB, because I want to understand what did you said by "swap the backplate or use spacers" in:

 

... but works perfectly well in a standard PCIe x8 slot, and is fully compatible with unRAID v5.0beta.  If you want to screw the board in, you will need to swap the backplate, or use spacers on the supplied backplate.

Link to comment

Don't forget that if you do use the UIO card in a PCIe slot the heatsink and connectors will be on the "reverse" side.

 

make sure you have room for that if it is not your "first card".

 

 

Then the next question would be if we could get unraid to see an expander with that card.

 

I have some LSI based expanders at work we are getting rid of along with the AOC-USA2-L8i cards. i could purchase those at the cost the recycling company would pay.

Link to comment

The odd thing about the way those cards have been spaced is that the backplate goes in slot 1 and the card plugs into the slot 2 socket.  It really needs to be spaced on the other side!

 

Anyway, I still have my card unsupported.

Link to comment
Some of the wider controller cards will work in a narrower slot if the user physically removes (e.g. melts the back with a soldering iron) the plastic at the back of the slot to allow physical insertion of the card. I am pretty sure that the BR10i, is advertised to work in a x1, x4, or x8 slot.

 

Buy a cheap pci-e riser card and melt that, few $ or £ or E and no risk to M/B warranty. Buy a spacer so you can screw the card down same height as the riser. Simples.

 

 

Link to comment

Hi all,

 

I know this is probably a very stupid question, but i'm still going to ask...

 

Will it be possible to plug the below card, featured on the first page of this thread, into a pci-e x16 slot? Is that what the 'or faster' means?

 

I cant find any reference to it working in a pci-e x16 slot on the manufacturers website, but i want that card, if it will work?

 

Thanks for the advice,

 

Rich

 

Adaptec 2241000-R PCI Express x4 SATA II (3.0Gb/s) 1430SA SGL

Requirements: PCIe x4 or faster slot

Link to comment

FYI, one of the Marvell guys on the linux-ide mailing list stated that they have a PCIe 2.0  x2  6Gbps SATA3 AHCI chip about to be released.

 

http://marc.info/?l=linux-ide&m=130781686110566

 

 

Maybe the chipset used in this card?

 

http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-SAS2LP-MV8.cfm

 

I doubt it - surely that card uses the mvSATA-supported x8 chip.

 

The guy was talking about a new series of chips, which are AHCI-compliant and only available in x1 form at present, with the x2 currently sampling.

Link to comment

Would be good to see an AHCI compliant 8 port HBA too...

 

Yep.  It'd be good to see something using a few more PCIe lanes too.  The Marvell guy doesn't state how many SATA ports this has, but I'm guessing it'll be a 4x 6Gbps port, PCIe 2.0 2 lane (x2) chip.

 

You could of course use third party PCI express switch chips such as those made by PLX to put multiple controller chips on the one card (Like HighPoint have done with two 2 port controllers on an x4 card).

 

You could e.g. put 4x of these Marvell chips on one card, and give it a PCIe x8 interface (via a suitable PLX switch chip).  Assuming they are 4 port, then you'd have 16 ports on one card.  It would of course be possible to go up to a 32 port x16 card by the same technique.

 

Tim.

Link to comment

with the release of the new beta, is there yet any consensus wich card is  a good choice for 3tb support?

 

Send me a 3TB drive and I'll test it on my Supermicro AOC-USAS2-L8i.  ;D  Supermicro claim that it does support 3TB.

Link to comment

There's a 2 port card here. Cost is $17.45, including shipping.

 

The page says it's 4 port, but it seems (from the comments) that it's actually 2 ports, as you have to select 2 out of the 2 internal and 2 external ports. One review says the chipset is SIL3132, and if you look VERY closely you can see under the big chip there's text that says SIL3132 VER C. I haven't bought the card, although I have bought other stuff from this site. They're generally been reliable, though from my experience reading the comments on various products, the pictures don't always reflect the product accurately.

Link to comment

Those jumpers actually divert the SATA signals themselves (i.e. the sata data goes through those jumpers).  That's a really bogus way of doing an internal/external switch, and leads to signal degradation which can result in data loss.

 

In fact I have a card with does this myself (looks identical to the pic), and it is unreliable except with very short SATA cables.

 

Probably OK, if you remove the jumpers, and pins, and solder it, but I'd recommend just getting a similar less screwed card design instead.

 

e.g.

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/PCIE-PCI-E-SATA-2-PORT-RAID-CARD-SIL3132-WORK-WINDOWS-7-/160595468201

 

(not that I've ever bought from that supplier myself - I've just looked at the pic, and it doesn't have those stupid jumpers).

 

Tim.

Link to comment

with the release of the new beta, is there yet any consensus wich card is  a good choice for 3tb support?

 

WD ship the Marvell 88SE9125-based rocketraid 620WDA with their 3TB drives.  They can be had at around $25 US I think.

 

I have one and initial testing shows good reliability, but I've (accidentally - thanks for a crappy flash script Marvell) put a non-Highpoint firmware on it.

 

Max throughput is a lot higher than the 3132s.

 

I'll report back here if I have any further conclusions.

 

Tim.

Link to comment
  • JorgeB unpinned and locked this topic
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.