Highpoint Rocket 620 @Newegg $10 after $15rebate (FS)

[UhClem]

Newegg has the Rocket 620 for $10 AR shipped (rebate valid on purchases thru 14Dec2012). [Link]

 

This is a 2-port Sata3, PCIe_v2 -x1 card; uses Marvell 88SE9128 chip. Note: this is NOT a RocketRaid 620 card, but if you're reading this, you [should] know that doesn't matter. In fact, this card (less $$) might be preferable (less BIOS bloat/delay).

 

--UhClem

 

[dave_m]

And another 15% off with code EMCJHJC93

[jhales]

Anyone used this with Unraid?

 

Using tapatalk

 

 

[BobPhoenix]

Anyone used this with Unraid?

 

Using tapatalk

I'll let you know next week as I ordered one for my N40L for drives 5 & 6.  Just didn't like the idea of using the eSATA port and it doesn't appear to be working anyway.  At least not with the eSATA to SATA cable I bought.  I haven't had a chance to test with my "toaster" dock yet to see if it is the port or the cable.

[NodNarb012]

Thanks UhClem and dave_m, I just ordered one of these for my new HP N40L MicroServer once I saw the low-profile bracket and placement of the SATA connectors.  If it doesn't work with unRAID, I can always use it in one of my desktops.

 

@BobPhoenix, I'm still looking for a bracket to mount drives 5 & 6, which one are you using?

[UhClem]

And another 15% off with code EMCJHJC93

Good catch!!

 

But damn!--I didn't get around to reading that e-mail till after I ordered (not gonna hassle the Egg for a few shekels, when the fault is mine). Then again, it's really 37.5% off, since it "comes off the top" [ 25 - (25 * .15) - 15reb = $6.25 !!] Thats' a really Good Deal.

 

NOTE:

Mine just arrived. It is a Rocket 620A which has a Marvell 88se9120 chip -- vs. the 88se9128 chip on a 620. Of possible significance is the fact that the 620A board/chip IDs as 1b4b:9120 (vs. 1b4b:9128 on 620). I don't use unRAID, but if your new board's connected drive(s) don't show up, you might want to try elkay14's enable_ahci script, with a minor edit to add 1b4b9120 to the strings.

 

--UhClem "A penny saved is better than a penny earned."

(They tax your earnings! [but cheer up--things may/will get worse.])

 

 

 

[jumperalex]

I have no need for this.  But I have money left over from a previous rebate, and I'm sure I will need it someday.  So order placed   Thanks for the heads up!!!

[dave_m]

NOTE:

Mine just arrived. It is a Rocket 620A which has a Marvell 88se9120 chip -- vs. the 88se9128 chip on a 620. Of possible significance is the fact that the 620A board/chip IDs as 1b4b:9120 (vs. 1b4b:9128 on 620). I don't use unRAID, but if your new board's connected drive(s) don't show up, you might want to try elkay14's enable_ahci script, with a minor edit to add 1b4b9120 to the strings.

 

Good to know, I was planning on using the script, but didn't know it might need modified.

[BobPhoenix]

@BobPhoenix, I'm still looking for a bracket to mount drives 5 & 6, which one are you using?

I'm using a Double Twin.

[mexicanmike]

Has anyone used this in a n40l yet? Using unraid, did it require the script?

[BobPhoenix]

Has anyone used this in a n40l yet? Using unraid, did it require the script?

I will be next week when I get it.

[mexicanmike]

Has anyone used this in a n40l yet? Using unraid, did it require the script?

I will be next week when I get it.

 

Looks like my initial report was false. This unit does recognize with unraid 4.7 without issue. I will try to test with 5.0rc8, but if it works with 4.7, I imagine we are good to go. I have 6 HDD;s hooked up in a N40L and will report back as I transfer data from my other n40l.

[NodNarb012]

NOTE:

Mine just arrived. It is a Rocket 620A which has a Marvell 88se9120 chip -- vs. the 88se9128 chip on a 620. Of possible significance is the fact that the 620A board/chip IDs as 1b4b:9120 (vs. 1b4b:9128 on 620). I don't use unRAID, but if your new board's connected drive(s) don't show up, you might want to try elkay14's enable_ahci script, with a minor edit to add 1b4b9120 to the strings.

 

Good to know, I was planning on using the script, but didn't know it might need modified.

 

What's the purpose of the script?

[BobPhoenix]

Has anyone used this in a n40l yet? Using unraid, did it require the script?

I will be next week when I get it.

 

Looks like my initial report was false. This unit does recognize with unraid 4.7 without issue. I will try to test with 5.0rc8, but if it works with 4.7, I imagine we are good to go. I have 6 HDD;s hooked up in a N40L and will report back as I transfer data from my other n40l.

Yep.  Plugged the parity and cache drives into this card and then plugged the card into the x16 slot on the N40L.  Put everything back together fired it up and am now getting 86MB/s on a parity check with 4% complete - unRAID V5.0rc4.

[UhClem]

Yep.  Plugged the parity and cache drives into this card and then plugged the card into the x16 slot on the N40L.  Put everything back together fired it up and am now getting 86MB/s on a parity check with 4% complete - unRAID V5.0rc4.

I'm curious--is one of your data drives, or the parity drive, some old dog-slow disk? ie, < 90MB/sec for a max transfer rate (ie,"4% complete"==outer/fastest zone). Or is unRAID's parity check not able to sustain full drive speed? (of the slowest drive, of course)

 

[i don't use unRAID, but I do run a N40L, and I do get full drive speed (120+ MiB/s using 5x7K2000 2TBs) for the first ~15% of a comparably similar parity check (w/different software).]

 

[BobPhoenix]

Yep.  Plugged the parity and cache drives into this card and then plugged the card into the x16 slot on the N40L.  Put everything back together fired it up and am now getting 86MB/s on a parity check with 4% complete - unRAID V5.0rc4.

I'm curious--is one of your data drives, or the parity drive, some old dog-slow disk? ie, < 90MB/sec for a max transfer rate (ie,"4% complete"==outer/fastest zone). Or is unRAID's parity check not able to sustain full drive speed? (of the slowest drive, of course)

 

[i don't use unRAID, but I do run a N40L, and I do get full drive speed (120+ MiB/s using 5x7K2000 2TBs) for the first ~15% of a comparably similar parity check (w/different software).]

The cache drive is the 250GB drive the N40L came with.  The parity and data drives are 1TB EADS and EACS WD Green drives so old and slow compared to newer EARS, EARX models.  However it seems that it is slower to me with the N40L than I get to the same drives RDM'd on a Xeon unRAID VM on a different box. Note I'm using the same unRAID version (5.0rc4) everywhere.  Think the CPU speed is affecting the write speed a little as mentioned in another thread by another user that was using an ATOM.  Works for me as a backup device since I'm not downloading, extracting, etc... on it - just backup destination for Acronis, WHS BDBB and driver/forum/manufacturer download destination.

[UhClem]

Thanks. FYI, according to WD spec sheets, the 1TB EADS, EARS, and EARX all have the same 110 MB/s max sustained xfer rate. I couldn't find a number for the EACS.

 

As for the N40L (and not performance-related), you might consider backing up all non-replaceable bits (photos, home vids, documents) there also. Since it is so compact and self-contained, it is ideal for a quick one-handed grap-and-go, if catastrophe is imminent (fire, Sandy, N Japan, etc). A foot of steel cable, a 4-inch length of broomstick, and that "security" hole top-right-rear; get it?

 

[BobPhoenix]

Thanks. FYI, according to WD spec sheets, the 1TB EADS, EARS, and EARX all have the same 110 MB/s max sustained xfer rate. I couldn't find a number for the EACS.

 

As for the N40L (and not performance-related), you might consider backing up all non-replaceable bits (photos, home vids, documents) there also. Since it is so compact and self-contained, it is ideal for a quick one-handed grap-and-go, if catastrophe is imminent (fire, Sandy, N Japan, etc). A foot of steel cable, a 4-inch length of broomstick, and that "security" hole top-right-rear; get it?

No pictures to worry about but I do have tax returns and other personal info on the box and on my WHS VM.  Unfortunately the N40L is located in basement and back in corner so if I ever change my other PCs to rack style cages I may move the N40L upstairs in Living room to make it more disaster friendly.  Although in the US midwest a basement is disaster friendly where tornadoes are concerned so maybe not.

 

I've flashed my N40L to a hacked bios (NOT Russian version) that allows AHCI on ports 5&6.  I could swear that when booting the drives would list from bios screen as "...AHCI: Sata hard drive" rather than "...AHCI: IDE hard drive" that they are now.  Is that how yours show up?

[UhClem]

... I may move the N40L upstairs in Living room to make it more disaster friendly.  Although in the US midwest a basement is disaster friendly where tornadoes are concerned so maybe not.

But, for disaster planning, you need a worst-case mindset. Ie, what about fire? [Yes, basement is better than attic, but ...]

I've flashed my N40L to a hacked bios (NOT Russian version) that allows AHCI on ports 5&6.  I could swear that when booting the drives would list from bios screen as "...AHCI: Sata hard drive" rather than "...AHCI: IDE hard drive" that they are now.  Is that how yours show up?

I might have the same BIOS, but my old eyes aren't quick enough for that first screenful. It doesn't matter, though--I don't care what they're "called", as long as they behave right. And I do get hot-swap (via trayless rack in optical slot) and ~250MB/s (SSD taped just below). [Ever heard this old saying?-"I don't care what you call me, just don't call me late for dinner." ]

 

[BobPhoenix]

... I may move the N40L upstairs in Living room to make it more disaster friendly.  Although in the US midwest a basement is disaster friendly where tornadoes are concerned so maybe not.

But, for disaster planning, you need a worst-case mindset. Ie, what about fire? [Yes, basement is better than attic, but ...]

True which is why I was considering a move.

I've flashed my N40L to a hacked bios (NOT Russian version) that allows AHCI on ports 5&6.  I could swear that when booting the drives would list from bios screen as "...AHCI: Sata hard drive" rather than "...AHCI: IDE hard drive" that they are now.  Is that how yours show up?

I might have the same BIOS, but my old eyes aren't quick enough for that first screenful. It doesn't matter, though--I don't care what they're "called", as long as they behave right. And I do get hot-swap (via trayless rack in optical slot) and ~250MB/s (SSD taped just below). [Ever heard this old saying?-"I don't care what you call me, just don't call me late for dinner." ]

Yes.  I don't really care what they are called either but I wanted to make sure it wasn't an indication of a mis-configured bios and maybe why writes to my cache drive start out on an empty drive at 70-90MB/s but quickly fall (before the 10GB media file finishes) to the 30-40MB/s range.  The cache drive is a 250GB 7200 so the slower writes to cache drive can't even be blamed on "Green" drives.  When I had my standalone unRAID setup (X7SBE and Celeron 140) with a cache drive I would get 70-90MBs writes most of the time to the cache drive instead of the 30-40MB with the N40L.  I guess I will also try a faster "sending PC" (from SSD on sending PC) and reduce the plugins back to nothing on N40L and see if that helps.  I guess I can setup the same drives on my X7SBE/Celeron 140 setup and just make sure my memory isn't failing me too.

[UhClem]

Regarding the write performance of your cache drive, and still avoiding how the BIOS labels it:

 

2 preamble notes--

1) the 250GB 7200 rpm actually has slower max transfer rate than your WD Greenies [100  (my measurement) vs 110 (WD spec)]

2) the 70-90 dropping to 30-40 >>might<< be explained by ineffectiveness of the new BIOS. The initial 70-90 could be the 1Gb/s Enet limit while data is being written into the system's buffer cache, but as the buffer cache is written to the actual drive, the measured/observed speed drops to (a possibly crippled) 30-40.

 

Rather than mess around with other data sources, etc., try the fiollowing (on the N40L shell prompt):

dd if=/dev/zero of=Cache/Barfo bs=256k count=2048 oflag=direct

(where Cache is the mount-point of your cache-drive's root [i don't know what unRAID calls this])

[Note the transfer rate and remove Barfo (512MB).]

 

That will give you a very good idea of how fast you can put new data on your cache-drive's filesystem. We eliminate the network/data-source component by using a fast, and local, source (/dev/zero); we eliminate the system's buffer cache by using dd's oflag=direct option.

 

[BobPhoenix]

Regarding the write performance of your cache drive, and still avoiding how the BIOS labels it:

 

2 preamble notes--

1) the 250GB 7200 rpm actually has slower max transfer rate than your WD Greenies [100  (my measurement) vs 110 (WD spec)]

2) the 70-90 dropping to 30-40 >>might<< be explained by ineffectiveness of the new BIOS. The initial 70-90 could be the 1Gb/s Enet limit while data is being written into the system's buffer cache, but as the buffer cache is written to the actual drive, the measured/observed speed drops to (a possibly crippled) 30-40.

 

Rather than mess around with other data sources, etc., try the fiollowing (on the N40L shell prompt):

dd if=/dev/zero of=Cache/Barfo bs=256k count=2048 oflag=direct

(where Cache is the mount-point of your cache-drive's root [i don't know what unRAID calls this])

[Note the transfer rate and remove Barfo (512MB).]

 

That will give you a very good idea of how fast you can put new data on your cache-drive's filesystem. We eliminate the network/data-source component by using a fast, and local, source (/dev/zero); we eliminate the system's buffer cache by using dd's oflag=direct option.

That might explain it then - may just use another green drive since I have a 1.5TB available.  Liked the N40L 250GB one because it was thinner than the standard half height drive so I could put it at the top of the N40L case on my double twin without worrying about it being to close to the top of the case for good air flow.

 

Here is what I got:

/mnt/cache# dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/cache/Barfo bs=256k count=2048 oflag=direct
2048+0 records in
2048+0 records out
536870912 bytes (537 MB) copied, 33.5751 s, 16.0 MB/s

Which looks very slow to my untrained eye.

 

Edit:  You know now that I think about it the drive was probably spun down and had to spin up before the dd command wrote the bytes out.  I will have to try it again.  Well didn't really make much difference with drive spun up: 536870912 bytes (537 MB) copied, 29.1593 s, 18.4 MB/s

 

Edit2: WOW that Seagate 250GB is truly abysmal.  The 1.5TB EADS stats: 536870912 bytes (537 MB) copied, 8.49754 s, 63.2 MB/s 3.5 times faster.  I didn't realize platter density would make that much difference.

[UhClem]

But, I'll bet you did not do the test on the EADS while it was connected to sata5 or sata6. The whole point of this exercise was, as result of your skepticism/concern wrt the BIOS update, to test whether you 1) had successfully done the update, and 2) had correctly established the new settings so that sata5 & sata6 really did get full SATA/AHCI citizenship (vs. the default bare minimum for an optical drive)

 

Good luck. (I'm done )

 

PS that 250GB drive probably makes a better cache drive than a barely "faster" Green, because the 250 has much faster seeks.

 

[BobPhoenix]

But, I'll bet you did not do the test on the EADS while it was connected to sata5 or sata6. The whole point of this exercise was, as result of your skepticism/concern wrt the BIOS update, to test whether you 1) had successfully done the update, and 2) had correctly established the new settings so that sata5 & sata6 really did get full SATA/AHCI citizenship (vs. the default bare minimum for an optical drive)

 

Good luck. (I'm done )

 

PS that 250GB drive probably makes a better cache drive than a barely "faster" Green, because the 250 has much faster seeks.

Correct.  It was connected to the 620A as was the 250GB drive when I ran your test.  The only reason I got on this track was my apparent hallucination when I though it originally booted with a bios display showing "Sata hard drive" instead of "IDE hard drive".  When you didn't say anything that led me to believe I had my bios configured wrong I figured I was mistaken about the bios setup.  I ran the test's because you expressed interest in it and I was curious as well.  Didn't mean to waste your time - sorry about that.

 

FYI here was the complete testing history on my N40L.  Tried connecting all 6 drives to the built in connections when I got my Sata to eSata cable but only got 5 drives showing up the eSata drive (cache) never showed up.  It may be a bad cable or possibly a bad port on the N40L don't know yet - I suspect the cable.  So plugged in a SASLP-MV8 and connected drives 5 and 6 to it and ran that way for a while. I then noticed the writes being slower when writing to the cache drive than what I got with other unRAID systems.  So I swapped to ALL 6 drives being on the SASLP-MV8 and speeds were slightly improved but didn't have time to do extensive testing just noticed writes to cache went up 1-3 MB/s.  Got the 620A and put it in the N40L and connected drives 5 & 6 to it and the 4 internal back to regular connector also at the same time started this thread jack - sorry about that.

 

Actually I think the green drive is better than the 250GB drive it is 3.5 times faster so I am keeping it as my cache.

[UhClem]

Correct.  It was connected to the 620A as was the 250GB drive when I ran your test.  The only reason I got on this track was ...

FYI here was the complete testing history on my N40L ...

Ah-Hah! Thanks for clearing that up for me. I now see where your inference and my assumption diverged.

 

With this new info/understanding, it's almost a certainty that >>your<< 250GB drive is defective/crippled. If you are still within the 1-year warranty, HP will replace it. You would probably want to be able to produce/document the problem without introducing foreign hardware--ie, just with the HP-N40L-250GBdrive, and by using one of the 4 internal bays/slots so you don't have to mention anything about "hacked BIOS" . PM me if you want some assistance with that.

 

I have two of the N40L/250GB. And, I am solid on Unix, and disk drives, and performance tuning/optimization (Gates, and many others, will vouch for me) so try to believe this: if you had/have a properly working VB0250EAVER drive (this one's model#), it will make a dandy cache drive (as long as 250GB is sufficient for you). Even moreso in your set-up, for the reasons you've stated, regarding the DoubleTwin and cooling/clearances. Plus, you will then have that extra/large WD Green available, for data (or a spare), here (N40L) or elsewhere.

 

I just ran a more complete test on one of my 250s, and it has a max sustained xfer rate of 113 MB/s, and a minimum of 77 MB/s (at inner "zone").