[gentoo-user] Any recommendations for PCI-X SATA cards?

[gentoo-user] Any recommendations for PCI-X SATA cards?

[felix]

I need to get a PCI-X SATA card.  Two drives is fine, or 8, even tho I can't fit 8 drives in the box.  This is for bulk storage, so I don't mind if it can only handle 100 Mhz or even less.  My mainboard can't go over 133 Mhz.  They are 64 bit 3.3v slots.

One thing I don't want is RAID; I will be using LVM to roll my own.  But if a RAID card can handle dissimilar drives in a non-RAID fashion, that's fine by me.

Running ~amd64.

-- 
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     Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
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I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o

Re: [gentoo-user] Any recommendations for PCI-X SATA cards?

[Michael Mol]

On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 4:33 PM,  <felix@crowfix.com> wrote:
> I need to get a PCI-X SATA card.  Two drives is fine, or 8, even tho I can't fit 8 drives in the box.  This is for bulk storage, so I don't mind if it can only handle 100 Mhz or even less.  My mainboard can't go over 133 Mhz.  They are 64 bit 3.3v slots.
>
> One thing I don't want is RAID; I will be using LVM to roll my own.  But if a RAID card can handle dissimilar drives in a non-RAID fashion, that's fine by me.
>
> Running ~amd64.

I have a couple "MV88SX6081 8-port SATA II PCI-X Controller" devices I
picked up from Newegg a couple years back. They work beautifully.

They were marked as RAID cards, but it's software raid, and I only
wanted them as AHCI SATA controllers anyhow. As it happens, they work
in PCI slots as well as PCI-X slots.


-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] Any recommendations for PCI-X SATA cards?

[felix]

On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 06:05:30PM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
> I have a couple "MV88SX6081 8-port SATA II PCI-X Controller" devices I
> picked up from Newegg a couple years back. They work beautifully.
> 
> They were marked as RAID cards, but it's software raid, and I only
> wanted them as AHCI SATA controllers anyhow. As it happens, they work
> in PCI slots as well as PCI-X slots.

Hmmm ... that's one I bookmarked, but I am curious how they claim 8
port when it only has three connectors?  Newegg's pictures aren't
clear enough for me to figure that out.  Is it two on the back and
three doublt-ports on the front?  How well do they work?  I suppose
must be good enough to recommend it :-)  Do you actually have 8 drives
connected to one?

-- 
            ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
     Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
  GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o

Re: [gentoo-user] Any recommendations for PCI-X SATA cards?

[Michael Mol]

On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 6:20 PM,  <felix@crowfix.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 06:05:30PM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
>> I have a couple "MV88SX6081 8-port SATA II PCI-X Controller" devices I
>> picked up from Newegg a couple years back. They work beautifully.
>>
>> They were marked as RAID cards, but it's software raid, and I only
>> wanted them as AHCI SATA controllers anyhow. As it happens, they work
>> in PCI slots as well as PCI-X slots.
>
> Hmmm ... that's one I bookmarked, but I am curious how they claim 8
> port when it only has three connectors?  Newegg's pictures aren't
> clear enough for me to figure that out.  Is it two on the back and
> three doublt-ports on the front?  How well do they work?  I suppose
> must be good enough to recommend it :-)  Do you actually have 8 drives
> connected to one?

There are 8 ports, but I'm only currently using three. Here's a pic:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28208534@N07/7428312264/

(The big passive heat sink is on the NVidia GeForce 210 in the system.
Neither component has had heat issues in this configuration)

There are three modules on one side of the PCB. Each module has two
SATA ports. There are two modules on the flip side that each have only
one SATA port. So, that's 3x2+2, or 8.

The reason I'm only using 3? This system doesn't have PCI-X, only PCIe
and PCI. So I want as much as reasonable plugged into the mainboard's
SATA ports.

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] Any recommendations for PCI-X SATA cards?

[felix]

On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 06:32:30PM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:

> There are three modules on one side of the PCB. Each module has two
> SATA ports. There are two modules on the flip side that each have only
> one SATA port. So, that's 3x2+2, or 8.

How easy is it to connect to cables in one of the doubles?

My tower is pretty full, but some of that is 3 SCSI drives, and I may
at some point change all three to a single SSD drive and put in two
more 4T drives.

> The reason I'm only using 3? This system doesn't have PCI-X, only PCIe
> and PCI. So I want as much as reasonable plugged into the mainboard's
> SATA ports.

Why not use the PCIe slots for SATA to get more speed?  I suppose you
could just want bulk where speed is not essential, or they could be full....

-- 
            ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
     Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
  GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o

Re: [gentoo-user] Any recommendations for PCI-X SATA cards?

[Michael Mol]

On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 6:48 PM,  <felix@crowfix.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 06:32:30PM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
>
>> There are three modules on one side of the PCB. Each module has two
>> SATA ports. There are two modules on the flip side that each have only
>> one SATA port. So, that's 3x2+2, or 8.
>
> How easy is it to connect to cables in one of the doubles?

Um, pretty easy? Same as how difficult it might be to plug one into
your motherboard.

>
> My tower is pretty full, but some of that is 3 SCSI drives, and I may
> at some point change all three to a single SSD drive and put in two
> more 4T drives.

Sure.

>
>> The reason I'm only using 3? This system doesn't have PCI-X, only PCIe
>> and PCI. So I want as much as reasonable plugged into the mainboard's
>> SATA ports.
>
> Why not use the PCIe slots for SATA to get more speed?  I suppose you
> could just want bulk where speed is not essential, or they could be full....

I didn't have non-GPU PCIe slots when I bought the cards, and I don't
have a PCIe SATA controller. When I bought the cards, I did happen to
have a prescott-based dual-xeon system with a couple PCI-X slots I
wanted to take advantage of. It only took a couple days' having that
machine powered up before I realized I didn't need that powerful of an
electric space heater in my apartment...

The one thing I'd really like to change over what I've got...I'd like
to have the correct-length SATA cables, rather than having plenty of
SATA cables all of worst-case length.

Well, the other thing I'd like to change is use hot-swap bays instead
of the semi-fixed bays I've got. Then I wouldn't need to move cables
around if I need to remove drives. (That got to be a problem earlier
this week.) But that's not the fault of the controller.


-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] Any recommendations for PCI-X SATA cards?

[felix]

On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 07:00:01PM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
> > How easy is it to connect to cables in one of the doubles?
..............................two.......

Botched that one!  Well, doesn't matter; I ordered one, and it is what
it is.  I reckon it must be possible, and I don't think I can get that
many drives in the tower.

I did look at another card which has two SATA connectors inside and
two eSata, but I think USB 3 will be better, if I can find a good
PCI-X USB 3 card.  But that's for later, I don't need it yet.

Thanks.

-- 
            ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
     Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
  GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o

Re: [gentoo-user] Any recommendations for PCI-X SATA cards?

[Michael Mol]

On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 7:13 PM,  <felix@crowfix.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 07:00:01PM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
>> > How easy is it to connect to cables in one of the doubles?
> ..............................two.......
>
> Botched that one!  Well, doesn't matter; I ordered one, and it is what
> it is.  I reckon it must be possible, and I don't think I can get that
> many drives in the tower.
>
> I did look at another card which has two SATA connectors inside and
> two eSata, but I think USB 3 will be better, if I can find a good
> PCI-X USB 3 card.  But that's for later, I don't need it yet.
>
> Thanks.

Any time. :)

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] Any recommendations for PCI-X SATA cards?

[Alyf]

On 24/06/12 00:20, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 06:05:30PM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
>> I have a couple "MV88SX6081 8-port SATA II PCI-X Controller" devices I
>> picked up from Newegg a couple years back. They work beautifully.

I second the recommendation. Don't know about the specific model sold on
newegg, but these are generally easy to find used for a good price on ebay:

http://www.alyf.net/pictures/E%27%20arrivato%20babbo%20natale/pics/STP85650.jpg

I have a couple of them in a storage server running linux; the driver is
stable and they work well with hotplug backplanes.

The Marvell chip itself, although not very common as a stand-alone
device, was used as the SATA front-end in a lot of high-end RAID cards
(e.g. Areca 1280, 3ware 3550,...)

I can also confirm that these cards work with port multipliers in FIS
mode, although hotplug sometimes breaks when using PMPs.

andrea

Re: [gentoo-user] Any recommendations for PCI-X SATA cards?

[felix]

On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 06:05:30PM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:

> I have a couple "MV88SX6081 8-port SATA II PCI-X Controller" devices I
> picked up from Newegg a couple years back. They work beautifully.

It came, I installed it, it shows a BIOS page on reboot, and lspci
knows about it.  However, the two drives on it are unrecognized.

Does this require some specific kernel options or modules or firmware?

-- 
            ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
     Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
  GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o

Re: [gentoo-user] Any recommendations for PCI-X SATA cards?

[felix]

On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 09:57:20AM -0700, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 06:05:30PM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
> 
> > I have a couple "MV88SX6081 8-port SATA II PCI-X Controller" devices I
> > picked up from Newegg a couple years back. They work beautifully.
> 
> It came, I installed it, it shows a BIOS page on reboot, and lspci
> knows about it.  However, the two drives on it are unrecognized.
> 
> Does this require some specific kernel options or modules or firmware?

Aiieee!  For some reason, my kernel has every SATA driver configured EXCEPT sata_mv.

I'll report back in a while ....

-- 
            ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
     Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
  GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o

Re: [gentoo-user] Any recommendations for PCI-X SATA cards?

[Paul Hartman]

On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 12:45 PM,  <felix@crowfix.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 09:57:20AM -0700, felix@crowfix.com wrote:
>> On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 06:05:30PM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
>>
>> > I have a couple "MV88SX6081 8-port SATA II PCI-X Controller" devices I
>> > picked up from Newegg a couple years back. They work beautifully.
>>
>> It came, I installed it, it shows a BIOS page on reboot, and lspci
>> knows about it.  However, the two drives on it are unrecognized.
>>
>> Does this require some specific kernel options or modules or firmware?
>
> Aiieee!  For some reason, my kernel has every SATA driver configured EXCEPT sata_mv.
>
> I'll report back in a while ....

You should be able to put it in AHCI mode somewhere in the
BIOS/settings and be able to use the ahci driver instead. I have this
similar chipset and use ahci driver with no problems:

SATA controller [0106]: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88SE9128 PCIe
SATA 6 Gb/s RAID controller [1b4b:9128] (rev 11)

Re: [gentoo-user] Any recommendations for PCI-X SATA cards?

[felix]

On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 10:45:27AM -0700, felix@crowfix.com wrote:

> Aiieee!  For some reason, my kernel has every SATA driver configured EXCEPT sata_mv.
> 
> I'll report back in a while ....

That did it.  I now have 8TB of new drive to play with.  Thanks for the card recommendation and all the patience :-)

-- 
            ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
     Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
  GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o