Marvell Chipsets and PCIe SATA Controllers

[rfielder]

After doing a search here, it would appear that Marvell based PCIe SATA controller cards are not in favour.

Not sure I found anthing newer than 201, but there are obviously issues.

Should one generalize, and avoid all such add in cards? Or are there versions of Marvell chipsets that FreeBSD/FreeNAS are happy with?

What is the alternative to Marvell? Are there PCIe SATA controller cards that are reliable?

Please note that I am dealing with SATA only, non SAS drives.

This may see silly, since I don't have my first FrereNAS server built, but I am looking at parts to build a second NAS using consumer-level non-server parts. Kind of an exercise to see how cheap you can go, and as an excuse to use the eight 2Tb drives that will be pulled out of my old Windows Home Server v1.

Thanks in advance!

 

[jgreco]

SATA drives work fine on an SAS controller.

The quality of random PC hardware aimed for the consumer market, often sourced from a Shenzhen back alley somewhere, leaves lots to be desired. This includes both the legitimate hardware (Marvell/Realtek/etc) where the hardware has mostly-functional Windows drivers but often no documentation or support for FreeBSD driver authors, and also the back alley knockoffs that are invariably of lesser quality than the already doubtful PC grade hardware.

By way of comparison, server manufacturers are generally under support contract to their customers, and their customers aren't worried about lowest possible price, so there is no incentive to cheap out. LSI writes its own FreeBSD drivers. There are billions of problem-free aggregate run-hours on the LSI 2008 HBA's with IT firmware.

Why are you trying to avoid the obvious choice to use an SAS HBA?

 

[rfielder]

SATA drives work fine on an SAS controller.

That is far beyond my personal experience. I have never seen a SAS controller.

I do not understand you comments about back alleys. That seems ti have nothing to do with buying consumer grade hardware.

LSI writes its own FreeBSD drivers. There are billions of problem-free aggregate run-hours on the LSI 2008 HBA's with IT firmware.

That is useful - I will search for LSI hardware.

Why are you trying to avoid the obvious choice to use an SAS HBA?

What may be obvious to you need not be so to someone new to this area, who is asking for help.

 

[Redcoat]

@rfielder , please take a look at pages 12 and 13 and the links thereon in the guide at https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/ You probably glossed over them the first time you read them as their significance was likely not so apparent.

 

[PhiloEpisteme]

That is far beyond my personal experience. I have never seen a SAS controller.

It can certainly be overwhelming at first, I spent a LOT of time reading up on them etc. The great thing about SAS HBAs is that you can connect a SATA drive to a SAS HBA and it will just work! You don't have to install drivers etc. It is worth looking up the difference between a RAID controller and an HBA without RAID functionality. For uses with FreeNAS you want to avoid RAID cards or flash them to IT mode to allow the OS direct access to the disks without any RAID card in the middle.

SAS HBAs seem overwhelming at first but they can be had for very little money and with the correct cable they work just fine. If you need more ports a little more research and ~$40 more gets you an expander that can dramatically increase the number of drives you can run.

 

[rfielder]

Thank you, everyone, for making me look at a SAS card. I was very surprised that such a card could be inexpensive, only maybe $20 to $30 more than a SATA PCIe card.

LSI seems popular, but the cheapest one I see at Newegg.ca is from Supermicro.

 

[jgreco]

I do not understand you comments about back alleys. That seems ti have nothing to do with buying consumer grade hardware.

Well, it does.

The consumer electronics market is largely driven by price, which has resulted in most stuff being produced in Asia, where labor is cheap, environmental regulations are often lax, and other factors favor production of cheap hardware.

In particular, there is poor protection of intellectual property rights, and it is common to find one manufacturer cloning the product of another and undercutting on price. My favorite examples are FTDI and Prolific, makers of USB-to-serial chips that only cost pennies to produce. More serious would be the cloning of LSI HBA's (no handy link) or Intel ethernet cards. They will be happy to sell you legit-seeming gear at a bargain price.

In the networking world, we deal with Cisco knockoffs - their switches and big routing gear help to make the Internet work.

In the electronics world, we deal with stuff like the Capacitor Plague - which manufacturers such as Dell figure cost them $300 MILLION dollars.

The common theme here is that there are a lot of shady deals and unscrupulous and opportunistic manufacturers in Asia, particularly Shenzhen. I refer to this colloquially as Shenzhen back alley merchandise. (I will grudgingly concede that most of this probably doesn't happen in back alleys and is actually happening in the open.) Calling this stuff that is basically just my way of expressing frustration with a major problem in the industry.

To be clear, a lot of GOOD stuff comes from Shenzhen as well. You'd find Shenzhen and Asia in general hard to avoid. Foxconn over there make legitimate high quality products for any number of companies, including Apple, Sony, Dell, etc. It would be unfair to paint everything there with a wide brush, so that's why I refer to the bad stuff as "Shenzhen back alley" stuff.

What may be obvious to you need not be so to someone new to this area, who is asking for help.

Which is why I've spent almost a decade bringing the experience of someone who does this professionally to everyone else here on the forums. It seemed clear that you had done some modest searching and it puzzled me as to why you were avoiding the ubiquitous solution to your problem.

 

[PhiloEpisteme]

To be clear, a lot of GOOD stuff comes from Shenzhen as well. You'd find Shenzhen and Asia in general hard to avoid. Foxconn over there make legitimate high quality products for any number of companies, including Apple, Sony, Dell, etc. It would be unfair to paint everything there with a wide brush, so that's why I refer to the bad stuff as "Shenzhen back alley" stuff.

What may be obvious to you need not be so to someone new to this area, who is asking for help.

Which is why I've spent almost a decade bringing the experience of someone who does this professionally to everyone else here on the forums. It seemed clear that you had done some modest searching and it puzzled me as to why you were avoiding the ubiquitous solution to your problem.

Certainly lots of good examples and a point well made regarding buying legit products built for the intended purpose. I know a challenge for me when I started was to identify good information vs bad information and that made it harder for me to identify the common and suggested solution for some aspects of my build. What I found most useful was looking for examples of other folks' builds who were doing things similar to what I intended. There are a lot of helpful build examples in these forums. I can definitely sympathize with the obvious solutions not seeming so obvious at first even after a bit of research. With yet more time and research things start to fall into place a bit more.

Also, as an example of an HBA that you could use to power 8 drives with only two cables. I provide the link to the cables as an example and not to vouch for their quality. :shrug:

 

[CraigD]

After doing a search here, it would appear that Marvell based PCIe SATA controller cards are not in favour.

Not sure I found anthing newer than 201, but there are obviously issues.

Should one generalize, and avoid all such add in cards? Or are there versions of Marvell chipsets that FreeBSD/FreeNAS are happy with?

What is the alternative to Marvell? Are there PCIe SATA controller cards that are reliable?

Please note that I am dealing with SATA only, non SAS drives.

This may see silly, since I don't have my first FrereNAS server built, but I am looking at parts to build a second NAS using consumer-level non-server parts. Kind of an exercise to see how cheap you can go, and as an excuse to use the eight 2Tb drives that will be pulled out of my old Windows Home Server v1.

Thanks in advance!

The Marvell based cards are not in favour, and generally should be avoided, a HBA is a far better option

I did run this card without issue for a time but switched it out to avoid a rats nest of cables, and I needed more ports

If you already have one, I would use a marvel card with the Marvell 88SE9215 chipset, if not just buy an HBA and a couple of 8087 to 4 SATA cables

An SAS controller in IT mode (HBA) allows expansion

Have Fun