ASRock C2550D4I and using the Marvell SE9230 and SE9172 ports

[rosabox]

I'm in the process of building my first NAS.

Hardware:
Silverstone DS380 case (Noctua NF-F12 PWM fans)
ASRock C2550D4I mobo (all the latest BIOSes and firmwares 2.30; 00.27.00; 1063)
2x Crucial CT2KIT102472BD160B ECC RAM (32GB total)
ZALMAN ZM350-FX PSU

For the start I'll be using 8 older HDDs (5x Samsung HD154UI, 2x Samsung HD203WI, 1x Hitachi 5K3000) and an older Crucial M4 64 GB SSD for the FreeNAS system.
I plan to upgrade the drives to bigger ones during a year or so - one by one (probably Toshiba X300 6TB) - tight budget
I'm thinking of installing an SATA and Power Combo Extension Cable - it should make exchanging the drives easier.

I'm not really decided which SATA ports to use for the HDDs and the SSD.

6 drives go to the intel ports, that's for sure because I think the Marvell ports aren't capable of staggered spin up, which I plan to use.

I've read that the Marvell SE9230 has problems, when there are more than 2 drives connected to it and that the problem is maybe solved with the latest firmware (1063). I'll test it out, when burn in is finished.

Now comes the question:

a) connect the 2 remaining drives to the Marvell SE9230 and the SSD + the SATA and Power Combo Extension Cable to the Marvell SE9172

or

b) the other way around - connect the 2 remaining drives to the Marvell SE9172 and the SSD +
the SATA and Power Combo Extension Cable to the Marvell SE9230?

 

[fta]

I have the C2750D4I, which is very similar. I use all 12 SATA ports with no problems. Just make sure you update all of the firmwares on the board.

 

[rosabox]

That means I can choose a) or b) (or any other combination) and it doesn't matter
That's good news.

I already did, for the C2550D4I the BIOS has lower version number but the same date:
BIOS 2.30 vs 2.90 (3/23/2016)
BMC 00.27.00
Marvell SE9230 M9230_1063

Thank you very much

 

[nojohnny101]

I also have the C2550D4I and used 10 SATA ports at one time with no problem. You should be fine. ASRock support is great if you have a problem, don't hesitate to contact them.

 

[rosabox]

OK

I have another question - I noticed I have this message: "FRB2/Hang in POST Failure - Asserted" in the IPMI Event Log after very reboot.
What does it mean a do you have it too?

I'm in the burn in process now and so far the system is rock stable.
I've ran Memtest86+, Prime95 and Advanced Clustering Breakin for 24 hours each.
I had two problems but both were problems of the software:
1) Memtest86+ when SMP is activated (F2) locks or fails at Step #7 but it's a bug of Memtest, the SMP option is experimental
2) Breakin - after 14 hour the "failid" test failed (it's a test of the locator LED) but: "You can safely ignore that error though as we believe there is a bug in breakin that causes that error if breakin is run long enough."
So the last thing, which bugs me is the "FRB2/Hang in POST Failure"
And I hope there will be no problems during the HDDs tests