My build is: 

Asus Pro WS WRX80e-SAGE Wifi II

STARTECH.COM 8 port - 6Gbit/s PCIe x4 Gen2 to SATA III - (8P6G-PCIE-SATA-CARD)

20TB Seagate EXOS X20 ST20000NM007D

 

I have 3 x 20TB drives I'm working with. I will reference them in this post with the 2 last characters of the serial number - 'B9', 'DJ', '4A'

 

Its an all new setup meaning no important data anywhere and can be taken down and brought up when ever required. 

 

When booting up all drives is found and visible in the Unraid dashboard. (it took a while to get here, had to disable IMMOU in the Bios)

 

I assign the disks to array slots in the dashboard. Lets say I picked 4A as the parity drive, start the array, start the parity build - then after approximately 5GB of parity building it stops, after a minute or two I get thusands of erros on the parity drive.

 

So I attempted new power cables - same result.

Then new data cables (those cables that came with the controller) - same result.

I tried new SAS port on the controller - same result.

I then tried using the drive 'DJ' instead of '4A' as the parity drive - same result.

I then tried using SATA cables to plug directly to the motherboard and everything seemed fine - success.

 

That configuration is just not a great fit for my build with the placement of those cables os I went back to the controller and this time I picked 'B9' as the parity drive and it worked. B9 got to around 50 GB before i decided to cancel the parity build. 

 

 

So my question is what is going on here?

 

 

I have attached diagnostics of an attempt where I used the 4A as the parity drive. Got to around 5GB and realized it failed again. Attempted to cancel the parity build before it could error out entirely and update the array device with errors. I then attempted to format the drives just to realise that the two drives that is unable to act as the parity drive (DJ and 4A) had transitioned to some sort of disconnected state... 

 

tower3-diagnostics-20240509-0957.zipHope that someone with more Unraid experience can help me figure this out. 

Try using the onboard SATA controller to see if it makes a difference.

2 hours ago, JorgeB said:

Try using the onboard SATA controller to see if it makes a difference.

 

Hello again Jorge

It works when I plug the drives directly into SATA 6GB/s ports directly on the motherboard.

 

Is that what you mean by onboard SATA controller? Plugged them into Ports 1,2,3

(page 1-12 in the manual - https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/Socket sTRX4/PRO_WS_WRX80E-SAGE_SE_WIFI_II/E21365_Pro_WS_WRX80E-SAGE_SE_WIFI_II_UM_WEB.pdf?model=Pro WS WRX80E-SAGE SE WIFI II)

 

 

Its a quite bad solution for my build as the enclosure is a Fractal 7 XL with a storage configuration - its big, but not big enough for the Asus Pro WS to have any room for cables out the side without costing my HHD trays.

.. well maybe I can force some cables that way, but it will be super tight.

Besides, I have 9 drives more waiting to get added so I would still need to utilize the PCIe for connecting storage.

Edited May 9, 20242 yr by leth

23 minutes ago, leth said:

Is that what you mean by onboard SATA controller?

Yes, if that works it suggest an issue with the other controller, you can try one of the recommended ones:

 

 

3 hours ago, JorgeB said:

Yes, if that works it suggest an issue with the other controller, you can try one of the recommended ones:

 

 

 

That is now my conclusion as well. 

 

I have now tested with a controller I have working in my second Unraid server and that worked out just fine.

 

Must be a compatibility issue with the 8P6G-PCIE-SATA-CARD from StarTech.com.

 

I found an identical controller to the one I tested on Amazon that I just ordered.

 

It was a "LSI 2008-8i" and listed on Amazon as "SXTAIGOOD LSI 9201-8i 9211-8i SAS2008 Chip 8-Port 6Gb/s PCI-e HBA SAS SATA RAID Controller Card 2*SFF-8087 SATA" 

 

 

I hope I may event get better speed as its an x8 instead of x4..