SATA controller problem

[rlgs]

I'm putting together a new FreeNAS box with FreeNAS 8.0.3 p1 and an Asrock A75 Extreme6 motherboard. I chose the Asrock because it was inexpensive and has 8 on board SATA ports. However two of the ports are controlled by an Asmedia ASM1061 controller, and FreeNAS doesn't see the two drives on those ports. The other six ports use an AMD A75 FCH controller which works OK.

Is there anything I can do about this or do I need a new motherboard?
And if I do need a new one can anyone recommend a board with 8 SATA ports that doesn't cost a fortune?

 

[Trianian]

I don't have any experience with the AMD boards, but I've recently looked at a very wide range of Intel boards. I didn't find a single consumer-level board that offers 8 SATA ports that were all FreeNAS compatible.

FreeNAS seems to have good support for the SATA ports run by the AMD or Intel motherboard chipsets, but for Intel, this tops out at 6 ports (sometimes just 4). The extra SATA ports on these boards are often run by Marvell chips, or in your case, AsMedia.

Currently, there doesn't seem to be much support for those chipsets, but this should change. I recall reading that the newer releases of FreeBSD do support a number of these chipsets. So I suppose it's just a matter of time before FreeNAS supports them as well.

If you really need 8 ports today, I'd recommend you read the threads about PCI-E SATA cards. Unfortunately, the cards that are most highly recommended all seem to cost as much or more than your motherboard, even when purchased used on ebay.

 

[Trianian]

One further note, I could never confirm that FreeNAS supports the newer Marvell chipsets (eg. Marvell 88SE9172) that run the extra SATA ports on many Gigabyte and Asus boards, neither was I able to confirm that this newer Marvell chipset isn't supported.

So there may, possibly be some 8 SATA MBs out there that are supported by FreeNAS. If that chipset is supported (a big 'if') there are definitely options from Gigabyte, Asus, ASRock and others that would support 8 drives.

 

[rlgs]

Thanks for the reply Trianian. I can now confirm that the Asus P7H55-M/USB3 motherboard with a Marvell 9123 chipset works with FreeNAS 7, I haven't tried it with FreeNAS 8 but I guess it should work. The P7H55 board has 8 SATA ports and takes an Intel CPU. I don't know if the 9123 chipset is still in use on new boards but I'll have a look around and see what I can find. The P7H55 is still available from some sources anyway.

 

[CodeWarrior]

Is there any possibility of support for PCI or PCI express controllers? I imagine that if there is not yet support for third party chipset controllers on the motherboard, that there is little chance for add-in card controllers, but I have to ask.

 

[Trianian]

Actually there are quite a number of supported PCI / PCI-E SATA cards. I'm not in the market right now so I haven't researched them, but there are definitely threads here detailing which of the PCI-E (and PCI) controllers work with FreeNAS.

Most of the full-speed PCI-E cards are $70 and up, but there are some very inexpensive PCI SATA cards that definitely work - though not nearly at the speed of the PCI-E cards. I think monoprice sells a compatible PCI card for under $15.

 

[bertrem]

ASM1061 support

However two of the ports are controlled by an Asmedia ASM1061 controller, and FreeNAS doesn't see the two drives on those ports.

I had the same issue and couldn't find a conclusive answer online, so here's what I found (using FreeNAS 8.3.1 beta3):

It seems that ASM1061 is now supported with the following caveats:
1. If you're installing FreeNAS to a hard drive (even though they discourage it), you cannot install to a drive connected via the ASM1061 (though it seems that you can install from a (CDROM) drive connected to it).
2. If you're booting FreeNAS from a hard drive, you cannot boot from a drive connected via the ASM1061.
3. The ASM1061 controller must be set (in the BIOS) to AHCI mode. It will not work in legacy IDE mode.

Those caveats notwithstanding, you can use the ASM1061. I currently have a functional ZFS-Z2 volume that includes two disks attached to the ASM1061.

 

[screeny]

Hey,

I stupid question.
What if I can't setup AHCI in BIOS? My mboard GA-M55SLI-S4.