Cyberjock Mentioned in Linus Tech Tips video

[DrKK]

This is a pretty nice video at Linus Tech Tips, showing a fairly sick build with FreeNAS.
@cyberjock is mentioned at 6:40, approximately.

Now, I haven't watched the video carefully, but it *LOOKS LIKE* he's actually using(??) the Marvel controllers on that board in FreeNAS? I thought that was impossible.

 

[Ste]

He mentioned using an old drive for the boot disk. But if he's got 8 seagate drives and the 4 ssd drives, I'm wondering where he hooked up the boot drive ...

Yes, he's using all the ports - and that thing is basically a souped-up FreeNAS Mini (which also uses the Marvel controllers).

 

[xcom]

He mentioned using an old drive for the boot disk. But if he's got 8 seagate drives and the 4 ssd drives, I'm wondering where he hooked up the boot drive ...

Yes, he's using all the ports - and that thing is basically a souped-up FreeNAS Mini (which also uses the Marvel controllers).

I have the mini and mine is not setup to use the marvel controller.

 

[Ste]

Mine does. Two of the WD Reds are on one of the Marvell controllers, with the other two on the Intel controller. The SATA DOM boot drive along with the SSD L2ARC and SSD ZIL are on the other Marvell controller.

I'm running RAID10. The way this is configured, each of the two mirrors have one drive on the Intel controller and the other on the Marvell controller.

 

[xcom]

Mine does. Two of the WD Reds are on one of the Marvell controllers, with the other two on the Intel controller. The SATA DOM boot drive along with the SSD L2ARC and SSD ZIL are on the other Marvell controller.

I'm running RAID10. The way this is configured, each of the two mirrors have one drive on the Intel controller and the other on the Marvell controller.

Interesting.
I was told that the marvel controller has issues.

 

[cyberjock]

The Marvel controllers do have issues if you load them the right way. It's very hit-and-miss even reproducing problems. :/

 

[Ericloewe]

The Marvel controllers do have issues if you load them the right way. It's very hit-and-miss even reproducing problems. :/

Marvell SATA 3.0 in a nutshell.

When SATA 3.0 was new and only available via Marvell controllers, it was quickly determined that Intel's ICH10R SATA 2.0 ports were faster, in many cases, than Marvell's controllers.

You'd think that someone (besides Intel) would've made a good SATA 3.0 controller by now.

 

[DrKK]

This is all news to me.

I thought that the Marvel controllers were a total non-starter. i.e., that no reasonable driver existed, and that it was definitely a no-go for FreeBSD/FreeNAS, period. And that anyone using FreeBSD applicances (like us) should consider this 12 port mobo as a 6 port mobo as a result, with no fix in sight.

You're telling me, now, that the Marvel controllers work, but with issues for some people?

 

[Ericloewe]

This is all news to me.

I thought that the Marvel controllers were a total non-starter. i.e., that no reasonable driver existed, and that it was definitely a no-go for FreeBSD/FreeNAS, period. And that anyone using FreeBSD applicances (like us) should consider this 12 port mobo as a 6 port mobo as a result, with no fix in sight.

You're telling me, now, that the Marvel controllers work, but with issues for some people?

Yeah. IIRC, at least some early FreeNAS Minis shipped with the two Intel SATA 6Gb/s ports in use, with the rest being handled by the (one of the?) Marvell controllers.

 

[cyberjock]

@DrKK
Marvell support has always been slim-to-nonexistent for FreeBSD. There's always an exception here and there, but finding those exceptions (which can vary based on hardware revision of the controller) has been so difficult it's easier and safer to just assume none of them work.