SYBA SI-PEX40071 8 SATA port controller


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Good evening to all,

I have unRAID 6.3.2 installed on my little server with 1 4TB WD RED for parity and another one for data.

I bought and installed the SYBA SI-PEX40071.

In the HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY list i read that "works straight out of the box" and has the Marvell 88SE9705 on board.

Now i connected  another WD RED 4TB to check if all is OK.

The card regularly sees the new HD and i can see also the temp like the other WD RED.

Now i'll proceed with preclear and then i'll link it to the array.

The only strange thing i noticed is if i go in TOOLS -- SYSTEM DEVICES unRAID tells me:

SATA controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88SE9235 PCIe 2.0 x2 4-port SATA 6 Gb/s Controller (rev 11)

But it was not to be 88SE9705?

 

The card i bought is this: https://www.amazon.it/SYBA-SI-PEX40071-scheda-interfaccia-adattatore/dp/B00ESFEI2E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1489514297&sr=8-1&keywords=si+pex40071

Now i wonder: everything will work just as well?

 

THX in advance and excuse me for my poor english :-)

 

Zippi.

 

 

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5 minutes ago, johnnie.black said:

I believe the 88SE9705 is a port multiplier, there should be one on that controller connected to two of the 88SE9235 ports, giving you the 8 ports.

Could be so, in fact on the package says that is a DUAL CHIP CARD and if i observe it i can see 2 chip under the cooling system......

I'm a little happier now, thank you very much!

I'll try it in the next weekend and i'll be back to tell you if is all OK!

Thanks again :-)

Zippi.

 

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Since you've identified that there are two chips under the heat-sink, I believe johnnie.black is correct with a minor correction. The 9235 is the actual SATA controller chip, and the 9705 is a port-multiplier chip. On that, I do agree. But the 9705 is on one of the 9235's 4 ports, (port-)multiplying out to 5 SATA drive connections, with the other 3 (of the 9235's ports) each providing a (direct/native) SATA drive connection. [5 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 8]

 

Here's the not-so-good news. Being a PCIe x2 v2 chip the 9235 is only capable of a maximum throughput of 720-780 MiB/sec [I have a 9230-based card and have measured this; the 9230 & 9235 are "non-identical twins"]. Once you put more than, for example, 5 of those WD Red 4TB drives on this controller, the speed of unRAID parity checks and rebuilds will be limited by this card.

 

Alternatively, if your PCIe x4 slot [since I've never heard of an actual PCIe x2 (electrical) slot] is physically x8 or x16, and there's room for it, you could use any one of the many LSI-9211 8-port cards (popular, common, and [in the US at least] inexpensive (< $100 used/surplus)). Then, at x4, [even though not able to perform up to its full x8 potential] you will be able to sustain a maximum throughput of 1400+ MiB/sec.

[Edit: (added on 23Mar2017)]

Following some productive, and enlightening, testing [Thank you, Zippi], I hereby retract my skeptical/pessimistic opinions/prognostications regarding the reliability prospects for combining the 9235/30/20 & the 9705/15 in a Port Multiplication set-up. I've left my original comments below (between the XXXXX's), as an example of "speaking too soon". Anyone interested in this subject, should be sure to read through this thread to the end.

 

Note, however, that the favorable results achieved should only be associated with the specific combination of the 92xx and the 97x5. A 92xx in combination with any other PM chip is very likely to be painful. And, the 97x5 in combination with any other (supposedly) PM-capable controller may also end badly. Caveat utilitor.

 

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

(More not-so-good news ...) Even if you can live with the performance sacrifice of the PEX40071, reports/reviews from users indicate (to me) a potential for issues/problems once you are using more than 1 of the 5 "multiplied" ports. While I found mention (here) of unRAID user using the 40071, there was no mention of performance or how many ports.

 

This mating of host controllers and port multipliers is best left to OEMs and system integrators who have full control of the hardware/software environment, and are committed to supporting their customers. As an example, it looks like the current Backblaze pods use 3 9235-based cards, each connected to 3 9715 multipliers, with 5 drives on each 9715 [3 x 3 x 5 = 45 drives; 9715 is same as 9705, but adds temp & fan goodies], but you can bet they're NOT running unmodified sata ("ata/ahci") drivers.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 

-- UhClem

 

Edited by UhClem
Live and learn.
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First thanx to all!

Yes UhClem it should be like you said about 5 + 1 + 1 + 1 ports.

Yes Fireball3 i could return this card and choose another one but this is my first fun experiment with unRAID and everything revolves around it!

I have a little cheap motherboard mini-ITX with 1 slot PCI-e 16x ( electrically 4x ) and i don't even know if i'll use all ports so this card for now would be fine.

Soon ( after a few months ) i'll buy a more "serious" motherboard with real 8x and 16x PCIe slots and so i'll buy a more "serious" SATA card.

I would like this but i don't know if "it works out  of the box": http://www.kalea-informatique.com/mag/fr/product-8714648.htm

Does anyone has already tried it?

 

Zippi.

 

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I don't speak french but from what I understand the card might work with unRAID.

No guarantee it does though!
 

Quote

 

Les ports SATA sont bootables et supportent aussi bien les disques durs que les lecteurs optiques

le chipset 88SE9215 ne supporte pas le montage en grappe RAID materiel, les 16 disques seront montés indépendamment.

 

 

But this card faces the same bandwidth bottleneck as the 8-port card.

PCIe 2.0 x4 is not enough.

 

In addition to that, there is chatter about problems with Marvell controllers and virtualization.

You need to search forum for more info.

Edited by Fireball3
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3 hours ago, Fireball3 said:

I don't speak french but from what I understand the card might work with unRAID.

No guarantee it does though!
 

 

But this card faces the same bandwidth bottleneck as the 8-port card.

PCIe 2.0 x4 is not enough.

 

In addition to that, there is chatter about problems with Marvell controllers and virtualization.

You need to search forum for more info.

OK, thanx a lot!

 

Zippi.

 

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I use unRAID 6.3.2

I connected  my SSD cache disk to this controller and all is OK but in the syslog of this disk i obtain this:

Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xfea10000 port 0xfea10280 irq 25
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10.15: Port Multiplier 1.2, 0x1b4b:0x9705 r160, 5 ports, feat 0x1/0x1f
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10.00: hard resetting link
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10.00: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 330)
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10.01: hard resetting link
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10.01: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 330)
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10.02: hard resetting link
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10.02: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 330)
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10.03: hard resetting link
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10.03: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 330)
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10.04: hard resetting link
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10.04: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 330)
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10.01: ATA-8: KINGSTON SH103S3120G, 50026B72470A3531, 541ABBF0, max UDMA/133
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10.01: 234441648 sectors, multi 1: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32), AA
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10.01: configured for UDMA/133
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10: EH complete
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: sd 11:1:0:0: [sdf] 234441648 512-byte logical blocks: (120 GB/112 GiB)
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: sd 11:1:0:0: [sdf] Write Protect is off
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: sd 11:1:0:0: [sdf] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: sd 11:1:0:0: [sdf] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: sdf: sdf1
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: sd 11:1:0:0: [sdf] Attached SCSI removable disk
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: BTRFS: device fsid 8ad8b132-3357-4b74-bbf3-c4a8886e102b devid 1 transid 130 /dev/sdf1
Mar 19 22:41:09 Ghotam emhttp: KINGSTON_SH103S3120G_50026B72470A3531 (sdf) 117220792
Mar 19 22:41:09 Ghotam emhttp: import 30 cache device: sdf
Mar 19 22:42:01 Ghotam emhttp: KINGSTON_SH103S3120G_50026B72470A3531 (sdf) 117220792
Mar 19 22:42:01 Ghotam emhttp: import 30 cache device: sdf
Mar 19 22:42:27 Ghotam emhttp: KINGSTON_SH103S3120G_50026B72470A3531 (sdf) 117220792
Mar 19 22:42:27 Ghotam emhttp: import 30 cache device: sdf
Mar 19 22:42:43 Ghotam emhttp: KINGSTON_SH103S3120G_50026B72470A3531 (sdf) 117220792
Mar 19 22:42:43 Ghotam emhttp: import 30 cache device: sdf
Mar 19 22:42:47 Ghotam emhttp: KINGSTON_SH103S3120G_50026B72470A3531 (sdf) 117220792
Mar 19 22:42:47 Ghotam emhttp: import 30 cache device: sdf
Mar 19 22:43:01 Ghotam emhttp: KINGSTON_SH103S3120G_50026B72470A3531 (sdf) 117220792
Mar 19 22:43:01 Ghotam emhttp: import 30 cache device: sdf
Mar 19 22:43:42 Ghotam emhttp: KINGSTON_SH103S3120G_50026B72470A3531 (sdf) 117220792
Mar 19 22:43:42 Ghotam emhttp: import 30 cache device: sdf
Mar 19 22:43:47 Ghotam kernel: BTRFS info (device sdf1): disk space caching is enabled
Mar 19 22:43:47 Ghotam kernel: BTRFS info (device sdf1): has skinny extents
Mar 19 22:43:47 Ghotam kernel: BTRFS info (device sdf1): detected SSD devices, enabling SSD mode

Practically  yellow warning of "hard resetting link" on all the ports but no red errors and the speed is OK not degraded.
Is it normal or is an issue?
I try to change port and SATA cables but with no difference......
Thanx in advance.
 
Zippi.
 
Edited by Zippi
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You run in a problem of Marvell controller, pls stop use that add-on card. This occur during writing and not all disk band/model will suffer.

HDD SMART will reflect "UDMA ERROR" and this counter (199) would not reset. In fact, performance will degraded !!!!

 

I face this problem with 9215 chip, but don't know why my another unRAID server use 9215 never got problem. ( May be the firmware different in ROM chip ).

 

This make my new disk's SMART got error count >:(>:( ..... Take care on your SSD.

Edited by Benson
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49 minutes ago, Zippi said:
Practically  yellow warning of "hard resetting link" on all the ports but no red errors and the speed is OK not degraded.
Is it normal or is an issue?

 

In this case, the yellow is a false positive, nothing wrong, although it's a little odd.  Some devices need a kick to initialize them, a hard reset to start them up.

 

You won't see any speed degradation with only one drive attached.

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2 hours ago, Zippi said:
Practically  yellow warning of "hard resetting link" on all the ports but no red errors and the speed is OK not degraded.
Is it normal or is an issue?

Everything's cool.

2 hours ago, Zippi said:

Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10.15: Port Multiplier 1.2, 0x1b4b:0x9705 r160, 5 ports, feat 0x1/0x1f
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10.00: hard resetting link
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10.00: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 330)
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10.01: hard resetting link
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10.01: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 330)
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10.02: hard resetting link
Mar 19 22:40:59 Ghotam kernel: ata10.02: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 330)

Here's the deal:

The first line (ending in SControl 300) is the solid connection (ie, link up 6.0 Gbps) from the multiplied (remember my earlier post?) Sata port on the 9235 to the single upstream port on the 9705. The 2nd line is the 9705 actually identifying itself. The 3rd line is the 9705 initializing its first (of 5, downstream) Sata ports; perfectly normal. The 4th line is the 9705 reporting that that link is down (because nothing is connected to it. The 5th line is the 9705 initializing its second Sata port. 5th line is the 9705 reporting that it has a solid (and full speed [6Gbps]) connection to a Sata drive on that 2nd (of 5) Sata port. The next pair of lines are the same explanation as lines 3 & 4 (except relating to the 9705's 3rd port).  And same for the next two pair in your post for the 4th & 5th empty ports. Then, in your post the typical successful report for the device (SSD) itself.

 

Now, I want you to do something for me. OK?

 

Just to be safe, shutdown the system. Connect at least two, and preferably three, of your WD Red's to the new card. Do it this way please: Connect one Red to the port that is a "partner" of the SSD's port, and the other two Reds to the partnered pair of ports adjoining that first pair. Now, reboot.

 

Verify that all looks cool in this new syslog (based on the concepts in my above explanation). If not, post the snippet from the new syslog. But if all is OK, make note of the 4 device names assigned to the SSD and the 3 Reds (on a piece of paper). Download the attached (below) script (dskt.txt) to your current directory. Then:

mv dskt.txt dskt

chmod 755 dskt

./dskt X a b c d   (that is a capital-X followed by the 4 letters [on paper] [e.g. sda => a, etc.]

./dskt a b c d    (similarly)

 

Please reply with the two 4-line outputs ... and we will all learn something.

 

Thank you.

 

--UhClem

 

PS Note that the script only reads from the disks; worry not.

 

dskt.txt

Edited by UhClem
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@UhClem

thanx for the reply, when i'll return from job this evening i'll try......

I'll try one step at a time because i'm a newbie and i would not make a mess! :-)

Where i've to put the dskt.txt file? In the usb root of unraid?

Thanx again for the patience.

 

Zippi.

 

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9 hours ago, Zippi said:

Where i've to put the dskt.txt file? In the usb root of unraid?

Yes, that will be fine for our testing purposes.

The installation & testing commands will instead be:

mv /dskt.txt /dskt

chmod 755 /dskt

/dskt X a b c d   (that is a capital-X followed by the 4 letters [on paper] [e.g. sda => a, etc.]

/dskt a b c d    (similarly)

 

[After we're all finished with testing, you should move /dskt elsewhere; it's not good to clutter root.]

9 hours ago, Zippi said:

not make a mess! :-)

 

This is a quick and painless procedure (like the dentist says ...)

 

--UhClem

 

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This is with 4 disks attached: 3 wd red and 1 SSD......

Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xfea10000 port 0xfea10280 irq 25
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.15: Port Multiplier 1.2, 0x1b4b:0x9705 r160, 5 ports, feat 0x1/0x1f
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.00: hard resetting link
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.00: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 330)
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.01: hard resetting link
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.01: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 330)
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.02: hard resetting link
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.02: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 330)
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.03: hard resetting link
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.03: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 330)
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.04: hard resetting link
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.04: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 330)
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.01: ATA-9: WDC WD40EFRX-68WT0N0, WD-WCC4E2100108, 80.00A80, max UDMA/133
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.01: 7814037168 sectors, multi 0: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32), AA
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.01: configured for UDMA/133
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.02: ATA-8: KINGSTON SH103S3120G, 50026B72470A3531, 541ABBF0, max UDMA/133
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.02: 234441648 sectors, multi 1: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32), AA
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.02: configured for UDMA/133
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.03: ATA-9: WDC WD40EFRX-68WT0N0, WD-WCC4E3SL5XH7, 82.00A82, max UDMA/133
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.03: 7814037168 sectors, multi 0: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32), AA
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.03: configured for UDMA/133
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.04: ATA-9: WDC WD40EFRX-68WT0N0, WD-WCC4E2NJ4RU7, 82.00A82, max UDMA/133
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.04: 7814037168 sectors, multi 0: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32), AA
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10.04: configured for UDMA/133
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10: EH complete
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: sd 11:2:0:0: [sdd] 234441648 512-byte logical blocks: (120 GB/112 GiB)
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: sd 11:2:0:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: sd 11:2:0:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: sd 11:2:0:0: [sdd] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: sdd: sdd1
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: sd 11:2:0:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI removable disk
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: BTRFS: device fsid 8ad8b132-3357-4b74-bbf3-c4a8886e102b devid 1 transid 132 /dev/sdd1
Mar 20 19:32:47 Ghotam emhttp: KINGSTON_SH103S3120G_50026B72470A3531 (sdd) 117220792
Mar 20 19:32:47 Ghotam emhttp: import 30 cache device: sdd
Mar 20 19:33:01 Ghotam emhttp: KINGSTON_SH103S3120G_50026B72470A3531 (sdd) 117220792
Mar 20 19:33:01 Ghotam emhttp: import 30 cache device: sdd
Mar 20 19:33:23 Ghotam emhttp: KINGSTON_SH103S3120G_50026B72470A3531 (sdd) 117220792
Mar 20 19:33:23 Ghotam emhttp: import 30 cache device: sdd
Mar 20 19:33:32 Ghotam kernel: BTRFS info (device sdd1): disk space caching is enabled
Mar 20 19:33:32 Ghotam kernel: BTRFS info (device sdd1): has skinny extents
Mar 20 19:33:32 Ghotam kernel: BTRFS info (device sdd1): detected SSD devices, enabling SSD mode

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2 hours ago, Zippi said:

This is with 4 disks attached: 3 wd red and 1 SSD......

Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xfea10000 port 0xfea10280 irq 25
Mar 20 19:32:36 Ghotam kernel: ata10: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)

 ....

Bono!  Excellent ...

--UhClem

 

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I do this:

mv /dskt.txt /dskt

chmod 755 /dskt

/dskt X a b c d   (that is a capital-X followed by the 4 letters [on paper] [e.g. sda => a, etc.]

/dskt a b c d    (similarly)

 

but returns: mv: cannot stat '/dskt.txt' : No such file or directory etc etc 

I copied dskt.txt file in the USB where unRAID is installed and i entered from the console via root user.......

 

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