Controller Card Input

[TODDLT]

So the first question is do you really see a difference between SATA II and SATA III ports in an unraid server?  My MB has 6 SATA III and 2 SATA II ports.  I've been avoiding using the SATA II's as they are obviously slower, but would I actually see the difference given the reading / writing speed limitations over a network?  What about for a parity check?

 

So here is the bigger picture:   I currently use 16 ports in my case (12 spinners, 2 SSD's and 2 eSATA's) and thought that is as far as I would ever need in this case.  Well, I now need 18 to add two more SSD's (1 for a cache pool and a 2nd SSD for the array).  One of the eSATA ports is for pre-clears and the other will shortly connect to an external NTFS outside the array drive for running backups.

 

I currently use a Supermicro AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 card and a simple PCI-E controller with 4 ports.  The PCI-E card (Product Link) has 4 ports but I've only every used two and believe throughput on a PCI-E 2.0x1 would limit speed if all 4 were used.  Please confirm if this is correct?  That setup gives me:

8 ports on the SAS2LP

2 ports PCI-e card

6 ports off the MB.  

 

I need two more and in my current hardware config the only available ports are the two SATA II ports on the MB and the two unused ports on the PCI-e 2.0 card.  If both of those are bad ideas, then does anyone have a suggestion on a not to expensive 4 port expansion card with SATA III ports?  I was going to suggest the AOC-SASLP-MV8 but in writing this thread realized it also has SATA II ports so there would be no point.  If SATA II is OK then I can just use the ports on my MB.

 

Attached are the available slots on my MB. Only one of the PCIe 3.0 x 16's is used for SAS2LP and the PCIe 2.0 is used for the current controller but that could go away if I get a new one.

 

 

Thanks for any thoughts / advice!

 

 

[JorgeB]

18 minutes ago, TODDLT said:

So the first question is do you really see a difference between SATA II and SATA III ports in an unraid server?

 

No for HDDs, yes for SSDs.

 

18 minutes ago, TODDLT said:

I've only every used two and believe throughput on a PCI-E 2.0x1 would limit speed if all 4 were used.  Please confirm if this is correct?

 

It can be a bottleneck with just 2 disks, total usable bandwidth will be about 200MB/s, a single modern disk is capable of 200MB/s+ on the starting sectors, so it would be a bottleneck during parity check with ALL modern disks and no other bottlenecks.

[TODDLT]

12 minutes ago, johnnie.black said:

 

No for HDDs, yes for SSDs.

 

 

It can be a bottleneck with just 2 disks, total usable bandwidth will be about 200MB/s, a single modern disk is capable of 200MB/s+ on the starting sectors, so it would be a bottleneck during parity check with ALL modern disks and no other bottlenecks.

 

At the moment, the PCI-E 2.0 x1 card is only running the eSATA ports for pre-clears.  However, this will change with one of those ports running nightly or weekly backups to an eSATA connected NTFS external drive.  Does a pre-clear actually have much throughput? Do you think this card would continue to work well with that dual use (backups and pre-clears) possibly using two ports simultaniously?

 

If so, then it sounds like I can migrate two spinners to the SATA II ports and add the two new SSD's to SATA III ports on the MB and not cause any slow downs.

 

Maybe I can avoid having to buy another controller.  Thoughts? 

[JorgeB]

1 minute ago, TODDLT said:

Does a pre-clear actually have much throughput?

 

Depends on the disks, but like I said modern disks can do 200MB/s+.

 

2 minutes ago, TODDLT said:

Do you think this card would continue to work well with that dual use (backups and pre-clears) possibly using two ports simultaniously?

 

Again depends on the bandwidth needed, max will be about 200MB/s, still decent for that use, avoid doing both at the same when possible, but unless the backup takes hours it won't matter much.

[SSD]

@TODDLT

 

Its a little confusing the interplay between the PCIe spec (1.x, 2.0, 3.0), and the number of lanes (x1, x4, x8, x16)

 

Each PCIe spec is 2x faster than the previous. And the lanes multiply the bandwidth associated with the PCIe spec.

 

The bus and the card negotiate a "spec" to be the lower of the two. So a slot that is PCIe 2.0 and a card that is PCIe 1.0, will run a PCIe 1.x speeds.

 

If you have a PCie 2.0 x1 slot, and a PCIe 2.0 SATA x1 Controller, you'd be able to achieve about 200MB/sec per drive (total of 400 MB/sec). One drive would have the full 400 MB/sec.

 

Running 2 drives each at 200 MB/sec per drive is not a significant degradation in performance for a spinning disk. But even one fast SSD would be faster than the full 400 MB/sec provided, so I would not recommend that.

 

A PCIe 1.1 slot is only half the bandwidth. A single spinnning drive would be fine, but 2 would be too slow IMO. No way would I hook up an SSD.

 

A PCIe 2.0 x1 card is a bit hard to find. I found some Marvell chip versions (which can cause other problems and I would not heartily recommend). Don't know that you'd find one suitable. I believe @johnnie.black's comments above were based on a 1.x controller card, which would limit your 2.0 slot to 1.x speed.

 

(#ssdindex - PCIe Speed)

[JorgeB]

10 minutes ago, bjp999 said:

I believe @johnnie.black's comments above were based on a 1.x controller card, which would limit your 2.0 slot to 1.x speed.

 

You right, I got confused , where I said 200MB/s it should have been 400MB/s, so perfectly fine for 2 disks at the same time.

[TODDLT]

49 minutes ago, bjp999 said:

@TODDLT

 

 

A PCIe 2.0 x1 card is a bit hard to find. I found some Marvell chip versions (which can cause other problems and I would not heartily recommend). Don't know that you'd find one suitable. I believe @johnnie.black's comments above were based on a 1.x controller card, which would limit your 2.0 slot to 1.x speed.

 

The card in question, which I actually already own is this:  https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124064

This is a PCIe 2.0 x 1 card, and it does have a Marvell chipset.  It is installed in the boards PCIe 2.0 x 1 slot.   It's only been used for preclears, but if there are issues with this chipset and/or card, maybe I need to replace it anyway before using it to run backups on?  What are the concerns?

Edited July 12, 2017 by TODDLT

[SSD]

@johnnie.black black may be better able to explain.

 

The problems seemed related to hardware passthrough in VMs, and seemed to affect some motherboards / users and not others. There were several workarounds (BIOS update and adding something on the flash / syslinux.cfg file related to IOMMU). These were successful in resolving the issues for many but not all. I am not affected so have no practical experience.

 

I expect using it for preclears would be safe. And if you had issues, they would become apparent.

 

Brian

[JorgeB]

 

[TODDLT]

2 hours ago, johnnie.black said:

 

 

Thanks,

 

So my SAS2LP-MV8 uses a Marvell 9480 chipset.  The list on this thread calls out the 9485 but not the 9480.  My Sybia card does use the 9215 chip which is on the list.  

However it seems that if you have this issue, the connected drives drop out and mine never have that I am aware of. 

 

So as long as the drives say visible I shouldn't' worry?   I can't imagine the risk for pre-clears is an issue, but again, I want to start using the eSATA ports for a backup drive, and that would be more important to data integrity.

 

I think I'm back to looking for a 4 port SATA III controller card.

[TODDLT]

What about this card?  There are some deals on open box / used.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIACSJ57H3911&cm_re=AOC-SAS2LP-H8IR-_-9SIACSJ57H3911-_-Product

It looks like a true RAID card, but would it function as a basic controller card?   I've seen this as low as $55 used working condition.  It doesn't use a Marvell chipset.  Broadcom 2108

[JorgeB]

LSI 2108 won't work, look for one with the 2008 chipset.

[SSD]

Here is a good unRAID controller.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-Logic-SAS9201-8i-6GB-PCIe-Express-2-0-RAID-Card-Low-Profile/322587889486?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D44757%26meid%3D42f21c65b6de4d41b2e8c9b1c0789f8c%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D282419019791

[TODDLT]

On 7/12/2017 at 6:36 PM, bjp999 said:

Here is a good unRAID controller.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-Logic-SAS9201-8i-6GB-PCIe-Express-2-0-RAID-Card-Low-Profile/322587889486?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D44757%26meid%3D42f21c65b6de4d41b2e8c9b1c0789f8c%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D282419019791

 

Thanks for that.   I actually just started looking at the LSI's.  How difficult are the firmware upgrades to do to get it in IT mode?  I saw the thread here, and it doesn't look like too big a deal.  

 

What about this one?

 

9211-4I

 

I only need 4 drives so it would cover it.  

 

thanks

[JorgeB]

Flashing a LSI controller from RAID to IT mode is very simple, like a bios update, crossflashing a clone to LSI IT can be more complicated, e.g. Dell or IBM to LSI.

 

9211-4i will work fine, just keep in mind that there are 8 ports models available for little more, if you're sure 4 ports are enough for the future go with it.

 

 

[TODDLT]

2 minutes ago, johnnie.black said:

Flashing a LSI controller from RAID to IT mode is very simple, like a bios update, crossflashing a clone to LSI IT can be more complicated, e.g. Dell or IBM to LSI.

 

9211-4i will work fine, just keep in mind that there are 8 ports models available for little less, if you're sure 4 ports are enough for the future go with it.

 

thanks i'll go for the best deal i can find of the 4I and 8I's...  

[SSD]

The 9201 does not require a flash.

[TODDLT]

8 hours ago, bjp999 said:

The 9201 does not require a flash.

 

didn't catch the number difference.

 

What is the difference between a 9201 and 9211?   Newegg/Amazon only have a 9211.  You see the 9201 on Ebay.

Is the 9201 a PCIe v2.0 x8 card?  

[SSD]

They are basically the same. But the 9201 is a pure HBA, not a RAID card. No flashing necessary (although can be flashed to latest version if desired). The 9211 is a RAID card that needs to be flashed into IT mode to make it work as an HBA in unRAID.

 

Both are PCIe 2.0 x8 cards.

[TODDLT]

36 minutes ago, bjp999 said:

They are basically the same. But the 9201 is a pure HBA, not a RAID card. No flashing necessary (although can be flashed to latest version if desired). The 9211 is a RAID card that needs to be flashed into IT mode to make it work as an HBA in unRAID.

 

Both are PCIe 2.0 x8 cards.

 

Perfect 9201 it is.  thanks for that.

 

I don't supposed you know if this is the correct screw spacing for a full height bracket on a 9201 card?  All of the 9201's I see come low profile.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Standard-Long-Bracket-Dell-Boardcom-PCI-E-Gigabit-Network-Adapter-R900/322180272734?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649

[SSD]

Sorry, don't know.

 

I have the 9201-16i which is a full height card. Works great! Not sure why so pricey, but I needed the 16 ports on the single card and bit the bullet. The 9201-16e is cheap as dirt. If you feel like routing the cables from outside the case inside, it is a heck of a deal! But I like the locking mechanism on the SFF-8088 much better than SFF-8087, which always seems to be trouble to get to lock into place. The 8088's are better!

[TODDLT]

 

1 hour ago, bjp999 said:

Sorry, don't know.

 

I have the 9201-16i which is a full height card. Works great! Not sure why so pricey, but I needed the 16 ports on the single card and bit the bullet. The 9201-16e is cheap as dirt. If you feel like routing the cables from outside the case inside, it is a heck of a deal! But I like the locking mechanism on the SFF-8088 much better than SFF-8087, which always seems to be trouble to get to lock into place. The 8088's are better!

 

I do not want to run cables on the outside of the case back in.  That being said:

 

I only need 4 ports and would need a whole new case if I ever needed more than that.  

Therefore the 9211-4i works fine.

However, the 9201-8i for the same money and not needing a flash makes a lot more sense and has capacity if at some point I do get a new case and need it.  

 

I can find a listing on Newegg for the 9211 and it has a 8087 style port.  I can't find the full specs on the 9201 anywhere so how did you find what it has?   What card comes with the 8088?  I haven't actually used one of those before.

 

For whatever reason I can't find a full height bracket that specifically calls out the 9201 card as compatible but the best I can tell, it seems the only real difference between a bracket without external port openings, is whether it is a half height or full height.  The only difference in a full height bracket therefore is the screw spacing being for a half height card or a full height card.  

 

The other thing I notice is the half height brackets all seem to have a screw hole on one side of the card and full heights on the other.  There are lots of listings for these brackets each for different manuf and model cards, but they all seem to be identical like it's a standard.  The brackets pictured below are advertised for the 9211 so i'm guessing they work on the 9201?  Are the cards "handed" in terms of where the locking screw goes or is that just a full vs half height case structure item?

 

Thanks for any part of this you may be able to help with.

 

 

[SSD]

The SFF-8088 connectors are only used on external SAS ports. You are fine with the 9201-8i and the 8087 cables.

[cherritaker]

On 14/07/2017 at 0:43 PM, bjp999 said:

Sorry, don't know.

 

I have the 9201-16i which is a full height card. Works great! Not sure why so pricey, but I needed the 16 ports on the single card and bit the bullet. The 9201-16e is cheap as dirt. If you feel like routing the cables from outside the case inside, it is a heck of a deal! But I like the locking mechanism on the SFF-8088 much better than SFF-8087, which always seems to be trouble to get to lock into place. The 8088's are better!

I had a question on your card I'm planning on buying the same 9201-16i but on ebay they have a few. Some range from 179 to close to 300. And some say oem is there a specific one I should be looking for? I know a few companies make off brand ones. Any input would be appreciated as I want to get the correct one. I was specifically looking at this one because its brand new and pretty low on price and don't need it right away so I can wait for shipping from HK. 

Look at this on eBay http://www.ebay.com/itm/131994736826

Edited July 25, 2017 by cherritaker
Add link

[SSD]

The one I got was the oem from Hong Kong, very similar / exactly like this one. Looking at the link you sent, I see another seller that is selling several for $161.50 from China. That's the cheapest I've ever seen. I'd go with that one.