AOC-SASLP-MV8 only seeing 4 drives

[molesza]

I have just upgraded from a desktop pc to a Supermicro server. I have no previous experience with setting up server grade hardware. So I'm learning here.

 

Specs are

 

Mobo - X9DRi-LN4F+

Backplane - BPN-SAS2-836EL

 

The server came with a SAS controller that did not support passing through the drives so I took that out and put in my AOC-SASLP-MV8 which I had connected to my previous PC with a 4 port SATA breakout cable.

 

It is my understanding the backplane expander should allow me to run al 16 drives off of the AOC-SASLP-MV8. Unfortunately I cant plug in more that 4 drives in the expander as the AOC-SASLP-MV8 will randomly choose 4 drives and nothing more. Where am I going wrong?

 

My system currently has 10 drives.

 

4 running off the expander and plugged into the MV8

6 running off the SATA ports on the MOBO and lying outside the case plugged into a seperate power supply. Obviously this is not ideal!

 

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can get this MV8 to recognize all 10 of my drives?

 

Thank you for taking the time to read.

[miniwalks]

FYI
The MV8’s are not recommended for use in UnRaid


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[molesza]

2 minutes ago, miniwalks said:

FYI
The MV8’s are not recommended for use in UnRaid


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Looking round the forums it would seem that a lot of people are successfully using the MV8s.

 

I have just tried flashing the device to latest firmware and still have the same problem. Will pick up 4 drives no problem but add a 5th and it will randomly address 4 drives.

 

 

[miniwalks]

Again,
Marvell based cards are not recommended for use in UnRaid, most people like myself with large arrays use LSI based cards.

As I’m not intimately familiar with the MV8, I’ll bow out of this thread


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[molesza]

9 minutes ago, miniwalks said:

Again,
Marvell based cards are not recommended for use in UnRaid, most people like myself with large arrays use LSI based cards.

As I’m not intimately familiar with the MV8, I’ll bow out of this thread


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I appreciate that. Hope I don't have to go the LSI route as I have already invested a fair bit of cash in this build. Thanks for your input and take care.

[SSD]

The Marvell based cards are problematic, especially if using when CPU with vt-d and vt-x enabled. They were popular at one time, but not with recent versions of unRaid.

 

They can cause drives to drop offline, and also corrupt data.

 

Look at something like an LSI SAS9201-8i. $50 on eBay and work very well with no flashing.

[JorgeB]

Like others already mentioned the SASLP is not recommend, mainly for using a Marvell controller but also because it has very limited bandwidth, but IIRC I tested it with an Intel expander and it correctly detected the drives, though I don't remember how many drives I connected, more than 4 for sure.

 

 

[molesza]

4 minutes ago, SSD said:

The Marvell based cards are problematic, especially if using when CPU with vt-d and vt-x enabled. They were popular at one time, but not with recent versions of unRaid.

 

They can cause drives to drop offline, and also corrupt data.

 

Look at something like an LSI SAS9201-8i. $50 on eBay and work very well with no flashing.

 

Thank you. I will look into that.

 

I do also have a AOC-SAS2LP-H8IR card which i took out in the beginning because it is a raid card. It is a LSI SAS2108 chipset. Is it possible to flash this card with an IT mode firmware?

 

[AiRLAC]

http://www.sasexpanders.com/faq/

 

Quote

Will my SATA controller card work with SAS Expanders?

Unfortunately, no. You must have a SAS controller card that supports expanders.

 

Will my SAS controller card work with SAS Expanders?

Not all SAS controllers work with SAS expanders. It is important to check the specs on your controller. You'll know your card supports expanders if the specs say it supports 128 or 256 devices, or some number of devices you can't achieve by way of the one or two connectors on the controller card. The good news is most SAS controllers do support SAS expanders. The ones that don't might be some low cost offerings by certain manufacturers.