8-port SATA/SAS controller with 3TB+ support

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faugusztin

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Mar 9, 2008
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Hi,

i am looking for a SATA/SAS controller with following feature set :
- 8 ports minimum
- all ports must be directly accessible for the OS - i don't want to run my drives in RAID
- 3TB+ support
- Linux drivers

Right now i use Intel SASUC8I, which has a 2TB drive limitation, thus cannot be used for future upgrades.

I did look around and found two acceptable options so far :
- IBM ServeRAID M1015/LSI SAS9220-8i - can be bought from eBay, nowhere to be found at local shops, price around 120-170€
- HighPoint RocketRAID 2720 - not sure about the non-RAID functionality. Price should be 165€.

Any other ideas ? For now i look towards the RocketRAID 2720 if it can provide access to separate drives because i would get warranty at local shop.
 
M1015 it is then... I will try to ask local distributors if they can get it (some have the part listed, but none has it in stock), if not, then it seems i will have to get one from eBay.
 
The real joy of the M1015 is the low price it can be bought for online through the likes of eBay etc. Buying it new through a retailer/wholesaler seems to defeat the purpose.
 
Does the M1015 write to the MBR or anything of the sort? If I have a mdadm raid set that was built on the M1015, could I then move it to another box utilizing the onboard ports and be ok?
 
longblock454 said:
Does the M1015 write to the MBR or anything of the sort? If I have a mdadm raid set that was built on the M1015, could I then move it to another box utilizing the onboard ports and be ok?
Click to expand...

No, unless you configure the drives into a raid-array, in which case it writes LSI raid headers.

If you run it with the stock firmware it appears as an LSI 9240-8i. With the 9240-8i any drives that are not configured into a raid array are treated as plain old pass through disks (single drive JBODs).

Alternatively, you can flash this card with LSI 9211-8i "IT" mode firmware. This option has a bit more OS comparability and treats all drives as straight pass through.
 
PANiCnz said:
The real joy of the M1015 is the low price it can be bought for online through the likes of eBay etc. Buying it new through a retailer/wholesaler seems to defeat the purpose.
Click to expand...

Well, that is the part of the fun - i asked a local distributor and price is 113€ with 1 year warranty. The cheapest one on eBay if i don't want to pay VAT and import tax from foreign countries (=buying it only from UK or EU) is 80€+20€ shipping, and that makes the local 113€ price with a warranty acceptable. The only downside of ordering it from a local shop is the 2 week delivery time because they don't have it in stock, but otherwise i am pretty sure i will order this card then. Still cheaper than the same LSI card for 200€+
 
PigLover said:
No, unless you configure the drives into a raid-array, in which case it writes LSI raid headers.

If you run it with the stock firmware it appears as an LSI 9240-8i. With the 9240-8i any drives that are not configured into a raid array are treated as plain old pass through disks (single drive JBODs).

Alternatively, you can flash this card with LSI 9211-8i "IT" mode firmware. This option has a bit more OS comparability and treats all drives as straight pass through.
Click to expand...

Excellent, thanks for the reply.
 
With 3TB Greens , they do. I do not own 4TB , so I really don't know.
Actually I have both of these cards (IBM M1015 and Supernicro AOC-SASLP-MV8) in my server installed, IBM is a bit faster, not much, but it also takes ages to boot (perhaps cause it's been flashed with Bios as well, which is not necessary)
 
fleggett said:
Does the SASLP Supermicro Marvell card support 3TB+ drives with the latest BIOS? I have two of them in a JBOD setup and am seriously looking at buying a few 3TB WD Greens. What about the new 4TB models?

I'm referring to this model:

http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-SASLP-MV8.cfm

- Fred
Click to expand...

Pretty sure they do. I know even the old PCI-X marvell supermicro card:

AOC-SAT2-MV8
http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/aoc-sat2-mv8.cfm

Supports 3TB+ drives.
 
Have you initialized the drive using GPT partition?
The card is working in a PCI bus, cause it's Pci-e X4.
 
Extra-Titanian said:
I've got one of those SuperMicro cards and can't get it to recognize the full 3TB of any of the drives, it's only recognizing 2TB. Probably because I have it installed in a regular PCI slot, so at best, check your hardware before picking one of these up. :(
Click to expand...

Interesting... Maybe its a difference in firmware on the controller? Have you tried updating it? I seriously doubt PCI-X vs a 32-bit PCI slot would make any difference in what size disk you could use with it.

I When i first got my 30x3TB seagate drives I tested 15 of them in a chassis that used two of these controllers in it and it had no problems detecting the full 3TB on the drives. I don't remember what the BIOS said but the linux kernel worked fine. I actually still have the kernel output from when I tested it:

Code: 
[    2.779592] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    2.779693] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    3.021554] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdc] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    3.022627] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdc] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    3.244520] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdd] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    3.246523] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdd] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    3.502481] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    3.506480] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    2.272686] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdf] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    2.276666] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdf] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    3.912418] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdg] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    3.913492] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdg] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    4.134386] sd 10:0:0:0: [sdh] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    4.135463] sd 10:0:0:0: [sdh] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    4.361350] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdi] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    4.365349] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdi] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    3.314510] sd 12:0:0:0: [sdj] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    3.318526] sd 12:0:0:0: [sdj] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    5.316205] sd 13:0:0:0: [sdk] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    5.320205] sd 13:0:0:0: [sdk] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    5.433187] sd 14:0:0:0: [sdl] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    5.437186] sd 14:0:0:0: [sdl] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    4.021402] sd 15:0:0:0: [sdm] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    4.026401] sd 15:0:0:0: [sdm] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    5.852124] sd 16:0:0:0: [sdn] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    5.853203] sd 16:0:0:0: [sdn] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    6.113084] sd 17:0:0:0: [sdo] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    6.117085] sd 17:0:0:0: [sdo] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    4.626310] sd 18:0:0:0: [sdp] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)
[    4.630309] sd 18:0:0:0: [sdp] 5860533168 512-byte hardware sectors (3000593 MB)

I even had the machine booting off its mdadm raid6 array (39 TB usable for 15x3TB in raid6):

Code: 
sabayonx86-64 ~ # parted /dev/md0
GNU Parted 1.8.8
Using /dev/md0
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) p
Model: Unknown (unknown)
Disk /dev/md0: 39.0TB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name  Flags
 1      17.4kB  30.0GB  30.0GB
 2      30.0GB  39.0TB  39.0TB


Now performance I am sure was way better as they were in a mobo with PCI-X support. I got ~280 MB/sec write (with mdadm_raid5 using 100% cpu on a 1.86 Ghz core 2 duo style xeon) and ~750 megabytes/sec read on the array (like 3% cpu while reading).

I really do think that the bios date on it was not 2005 though. Very odd. I checked supermicro's site and it has a question with windows server and >2 TB drives and they say the card does not support drives > 2 TB but I know I did this on linux. Like I said still have the output...
 
I could have sworn that people said that it was working with 3TB drives before I got it. Maybe it is windows, but I don't see how the OS would have any control over something happening pre-startup. The firmware I used was right from supermicro's website, maybe there's an updated version somewhere. When you had a pair of them installed, were they in a PCI-X slot? Maybe the slot difference does matter. :(

From inside windows Disk Manager, only 2048GB visible on each.
http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a177/ExtraTitanian/?action=view&current=F.jpg
 
Last edited:
Extra-Titanian said:
Problem solved I think. Downloaded the drivers for a different card with the same raid chip from:
http://www.sonnettech.com/support/kb/kb.php?cat=342&expand=_a3&action=b150#b150

Installed them, rebooted and now Disk Manager is showing each drive at 2794.52 GB, which sounds about right, then just had to convert to GPT and now it's all good. So the card works, but the drivers from Supermico suck. :D
Click to expand...

Awesome. I actually just verified this myself as well. Sorry for the poor pictures...

During POST it indeed said 2 TB but when linux loads it used 3 TB without any issue:



 
Old thread, but thought I'd chime in for informational purposes.
Been running several SAT2-MV8 cards in Win7x64 with 4TB drives (mostly Hitachi, a few WD Reds) using the Sonnet Tempo x64 driver. Absolutely no issues.

I did have to remove the OPROM chip to get it to work correctly. Wouldn't boot up with it in.
 
WhoBeDaPlaya said:
I did have to remove the OPROM chip to get it to work correctly. Wouldn't boot up with it in.
Click to expand...

Do you mind giving a bit more details about removing the OPROM chip? Is it a chip on the card? Why it needs to be removed? Any more info? I am having troubles with booting from an mdadm RAID array made of two 3TB drives attached to Supermicro SAT2-MV8.
 
WhoBeDaPlaya said:
Old thread, but thought I'd chime in for informational purposes.
Been running several SAT2-MV8 cards in Win7x64 with 4TB drives (mostly Hitachi, a few WD Reds) using the Sonnet Tempo x64 driver. Absolutely no issues.

I did have to remove the OPROM chip to get it to work correctly. Wouldn't boot up with it in.
Click to expand...
When you say it wouldn't boot up, do you mean it won't boot from a drive connected to the controller, or do you mean the system hangs if a 2TB+ drive is connected at all?

I'm thinking of using an AOC-SAT2-MV8 in my server, but the boot drive will be connected to the motherboard, not the Supermicro card.
 
Nerva72 said:
When you say it wouldn't boot up, do you mean it won't boot from a drive connected to the controller, or do you mean the system hangs if a 2TB+ drive is connected at all?
I'm thinking of using an AOC-SAT2-MV8 in my server, but the boot drive will be connected to the motherboard, not the Supermicro card.
Click to expand...
Sorry, should have been clearer. Never actually attempted booting from the SAT2-MV8.
What I meant was that Win7 would just sit there and not boot with the ROM plugged it (believe I was using 2TB drives at the time).

It is now running a ton of Hitachi He8 8TB drives just fine :)
 
Thanks. So you got it to boot by physically removing the OPROM chip? I'm looking at the PDF manual's diagram of the card -- is the OPROM chip the same as what the manual calls the "BIOS chip"?

Also, you said you used the "Sonnet Tempo x64 driver". I'm looking at the Sonnet website -- is the model you're referring to the Sonnet Tempo-X (e)SATA 4+4? I see there's one driver available on the website for Windows Vista that the inf describes as version 4.2.0.0.

You're running the He8 drives under Windows 7 x64 with the Sonnet driver?
 
Yessir, that's the chip.
That sounds like the right driver. I have "vista_sata420.zip" in my installation folder.

Also, yup, no issues with > 2TB drives on Win7x64. I've run HGST 4TB, WD Red/Green 4TB, Toshiba 5TB and now HGST 8TBs without issues.
 
Did you just yank the chip with a pair of needle-nose pliers?

I went ahead and bought a AOC-SAT2-MV8 and forgot to pull the chip before installing it yesterday. There are only 1TB and 2TB drives currently hooked up to it, so it sees them on startup and boots fine. I installed the Tempo-X driver, and rebooted. Windows correctly reports the sizes of both the 1TB and 2TB drives, but Stablebit Scanner says the 1TB drives have 1.81TB capacity just like the 2TB drives, and thinks the extra space is due to bad sectors on the 1TB drives.
 
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