So I have taken the dive in to virtualization. I will be replacing my current Windows Server 2012+FlexRAID, and two other boxes all in to one.

 

Picked up an ASROCK C226 WS, which has the C226 Chipset, using it with a Xeon e31245v3.

 

The motherboard has 6 on board SATA ports based off of C226, and 4 SATA ports bases off of two separate Marvell 88SE9172 chips.

 

I was able to successfully install XenServer to my Intel 520 SSD, put on one of the 6 C226 SATA ports. I was also able to get unRAID to boot, and pass on a USB controller and both Marvell 88SE9172 chips. BUT, unRAID could not see any hard drive I plugged in to the Marvell ports.

 

So, I decided to try installing the SSD on the Marvell ports, and passing along the C226 ports. No dice, could not get XenServer to install when the SSD was on the Marvell SATA ports, it would not see any drives.

 

 

Then, decided to go the XEN/Ubuntu route. I can install Ubunti 12.04 and 12.10 to the Intel SSD when on the Marvell SATA ports. But, after configuring and rebooting to Xen, I get a crash while its listing through the PCI devices.

 

Repeat the steps, but install the SSD to the C226 SATA ports, and it reboots to Xen just fine.

 

 

So, it appears these 88SE9172 Marvell sata chips are not supported by Xen 4.1/4.2 or XenServer.

 

 

Any suggestions? I would really like to boot Datastores from the Marvell ports, and pass all 6 C226 SATA ports on to unRaid. If no suggestions for utilizing the Marvell SATA ports, can anyone suggest a PCI SATA card? 6 drives should be plenty for me.

 

 

Plan is to boot unRaid, Windows 7 with graphics card passed through for Plex bitstream/HD video, possibly a couple of Linux VM's for webserver and tinkering.

IBM M1015 or Dell PERC H310 flashed to IT mode is what you should be looking at.

Will take 8 drives and has 3TB+ support.

 

Alot of people have been using these for a while so they a quite proven.

You can usualy pick them up on Ebay for under $100 in the US.

Bit harder to obtain in Europe just like pretty much everything, but not impossible.

Awesome, thanks for the reply.

 

Are the cards you mentioned better/worse/similar to Supermicro SAS-AOC-SASLP-MV8?

 

I can pick one of the Supermicro up for 70bucks off a local guy on CL near me....

Supported by VMware / Xen out of the box.

2 x extra ports.

SATA 6gb/s vs 3gb/s

PCI-e 8x vs 4x so has far more bandwith avalible so you wont saturate the card and get slow downs.

 

There just much better cards 

Supported by VMware / Xen out of the box.

2 x extra ports.

SATA 6gb/s vs 3gb/s

PCI-e 8x vs 4x so has far more bandwith avalible so you wont saturate the card and get slow downs.

 

There just much better cards 

 

Snagged an M1015 and a couple of forward breakout cables. Thanks for the advice, should be in tomorrow so I can get my unraid going this weekend!

 

Completed Xenserver installation(second round) last night, got a Windows VM up with an HD6450 passed through and working well so far.

Just remember you need to flash the card to IT mode first.

You can find instructions in this most excelent post:

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12767.0

Just remember you need to flash the card to IT mode first.

You can find instructions in this most excelent post:

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12767.0

 

Excellent, thanks for the link. Will be diving in to it tonight.

You can also click on the M1015/X9SCM flashing tools link in my sig, which will take you to a consolidated version of that post.  I've made available an archive containing all the latest flashing tools and firmware etc, so you can hit the ground running.  It's just been updated with the latest P17 firmware.

 

All credit to the post above (as I gave credit in my post), as that's where most of the knowledge comes from.

You can also click on the M1015/X9SCM flashing tools link in my sig, which will take you to a consolidated version of that post.  I've made available an archive containing all the latest flashing tools and firmware etc, so you can hit the ground running.  It's just been updated with the latest P17 firmware.

 

All credit to the post above (as I gave credit in my post), as that's where most of the knowledge comes from.

 

Ahh, thanks so much for the info! Can't wait to get this guy up and running.... Though not looking forward to migrating the 8+TB of data I have haha...