Kouwell, Marvell, or what kind of PCIe SATA controller

[HolyK]

What kind of PCIe SATA controller should i choose?

Hi all,

I'm working on my new NAS build (last one "died" because of the crazy prices due to Thailand flood). I will post complete build later, but now i'd like to ask you for one advice regarding to PCIe SATA controller.

The thing is, that i can "cover" 6 discs (RAIDZ2) via usual on-board SATA ports, but i need to connect one more disc (UFS FS). I don't want to invest a lot of money into some LSI controller, so my question is what kind of low-cost SATA controller should i choose. Basically, if i will scratch all of the not-so-good pieces, i will end with Kouwell or Marvell:

Kouwell Dual Channel Serial ATA 6Gb/s (SATA 3) PCI Express (x1) Card (Also have Marvell chipset, please see edit bellow)
AXAGO PCES-S1 PCIe - This is an czech brand, but it has Marvell 88SE9128 chipset.

Which one should i choose? I mean, is there driver included in BSD? Or have anyone some experience with them? Or do you recommend another solution/chipset for this need with price under $50 ?
Thanks for any advice :]

Holy

EDIT: I know that PCIe 1x have max theoretical throughput 500MB/s, but since there will be only one disk with UFS FS assigned for Transmission client (so the RAIDZ2 can "sleep" over night), this is not an issue :]
EDIT2: LOL, that Kouwell is using also the Marvell 88SE912x chipset , i thought that they have their own chipset So let say this dilemma is solved :D

• [SATA] Marvell 88SE9128 or 88SE9125 or 88SE9120, 6Gbps, PCIe (gen2) x1 [150-175MB/s/port]
  Availability: $25 $35. HighPoint HBA based on this chip: Rocket 620. LyCOM HBA based on this chip: PE-115. Koutech HBA based on this chip: PESA230. This is the only 2-port chip on the market with no bottleneck caused by the PCIe link at Max_Payload_Size=128. Pretty surprising that it is being sold for such a low price.
  • Linux support: ahci
  • Solaris support: not supported [Update 2010-09-21: Despite being AHCI-compliant, this series of chips seems unsupported by Solaris according to reader comments, see below.]
  • FreeBSD support: ahci

Source - Zorinaq's blog - a VERY nice article about SATA/SAS Controllers for ZFS with information about the throughput and driver support !

 

[TheSmoker]

That controller is ok. I have this one: http://delock.de/produkte/F_322_SATA---eSATA_89302/merkmale.html and it works just fine with 1HDD and 1SSD connected to it.
As a variant there is also: http://delock.de/produkte/F_322_SATA---eSATA_89270/merkmale.html which uses the same chipset.
Just let the controller "unconfigured" and FreeBSD will see the disks as AHCI.
Good luck!

 

[HolyK]

Thanks for the confirmation :)

 

[DJABE]

Hello.
I'm also looking for a cheap storage expansion card.
I got into Marvell 9128 SATA 6Gb/s Chipset PCIe x1 card, funny it is made by MSI in a nice box and it is way too much cheap to be true:

MSI Star-SATA6 Card (604-4256-020)

• SATA 6Gb/s ports x 2 (Internal)
• PCI Express x1 (Compatible with PCI Express x4/ x8 / x16 slots)
• Marvell 9128 SATA 6Gb/s Chipset

Indeed, the fact that this 912x Marvell chipset is supported on BSD is just great.
I'll buy two pieces of these tomorrow :)

I attached image of the box and the card itself. Odd thing is that I cannot find more info on this part number or model, even not on MSI official site! The only card listed on their site is: http://www.msi.com/product/mb/Star-USB3-SATA6.html which is 'more advanced' as it has 2 USB 3.0 ports on the back...

 

[HolyK]

Just be very careful about the following bug. More info are in the "URL" link at the bottom.

Marvell 88SE9128 corrupts data on 2TB+ HDD by recording secondary GPT in the center of the HDD on reboot. You can check your drives this command, which checks the GPT signature on the HDD. It is better to check after a reboot.
for sdn in /dev/sd? ; do echo -n $sdn -
sn=$[`blockdev --getsize $sdn`-1]
[ $sn -lt $[1<<32] ] && echo small && continue
sn=$[$sn%(1<<32)]
st=`dd if=$sdn bs=1b count=1 skip=$sn 2>/dev/null| head -c 8`
[ 'EFI PART' = "$st" ] && echo bad && continue; echo ok ; done

William, (URL) - 08-10-’13 09:34

 

[DJABE]

Uh-oh.... not again issues with external SATA cards! xD
Thanks!

What if I connect < 2TB drives? I.E. 320 GB WD Blue 2.5" from my Notebook, or exactly 2 TB sized Samsung HD204UI (real size ~1.90 TB).


P.S. the site on the link you posted has a new version I guess so I'm unable to find that article.

 

[HolyK]

Oh, the link is now fixed (probably a wrong copy&paste). Just be aware, it's "googletranslated" from russian.

I was using the Kouwell controller with 1TB drive and never faced any issue (until the whole disk just died) and i found that quote+link by coincidence. So i can not say for 100% that it is true what the guy is saying about the issues on 2TB++ drives. Since i replaced my MB by another one with enough ports i'm not using that controller anymore.

 

[DJABE]

HolyK, thanks.
I speak Russian a bit :)
That might be, and might not. Am I getting it correctly - that guy is using Linux, not BSD? Just like my case with that VIA 6421 SATA150 controller: most people out there have issues, but some don't. I couldn't get it work stable on Linux (both 2.6 and 3.x kernels). But somehow I managed to make it stable on FreeBSD 9.2 release (NAS4Free) with 1 SATA populated port/drive, AND also IDE populated drive/port at the same time (IDE port populated seems to be MANDATORY for this dump ass VIA chip!). Weird... but that's different story.

However, I'm buying Marvell based SATA6 cards tomorrow, I'll stick smaller drives onto them just to be sure etc. I can always test my new RED 3 TB drives with it... ofc without any real data on disk surface :)
Perhaps I can post results here then!

P.S. It would be very odd for such a bug since Marvell is a renowned manufacturer and this chip isn't that old, released in 2010!
Official product brief:
http://www.marvell.com/storage/system-solutions/assets/Marvell-88SE91XX-Product-Brief.pdf

Cheers!

 

[HolyK]

That guy mentioned that the OS does not matter and it's a controller bug, anyway like i said, i did not verified if the bug is "real thing" so it might be just some kind of individual issue ... And yes, Marvell was/is a one of the good choices so i am a bit skeptic that they have so problematic piece of chipsets...

If you will have a opportunity to test it it would be nice to give us some results confirming/invalidating that statement.

 

[cyberjock]

I've always considered Marvell to be crap. Lately there's tons of complaints about Samsung 840 SSDs to work with Marvell(they won't and they BSOD the machine on bootup). They seem to be one of those companies that is top dog from the bargain bin. They occasionally make acceptable parts, but they aren't premium hardware. /shrug

Go to newegg and check out the Samsung 840 EVO SSD reviews. The 1 egg reviews are dominated with "do not use with marvell chipsets". LOL

 

[DJABE]

@cyberjock:
I'm running brand new 840 EVO SSD in my PC (not NAS). So you're pointing out the following: if I'd stick it onto the PCI-E SATA expansion card with Marvell chip it would BSOD etc? I never needed this card for SSD anyway :)
Even server boards/server brand names such as Fujitsu ships with Marvell (Yukon?) chips for various components like NIC, RAID cards etc.

@HolyK: for sure, I just put my hands on my new little card :) Just don't expect results any time before w-end, since I got lots coding @work...
First impression it looks really nice and you can't imagine it's price tag - 4,65 US$ ! Chip is really Marvell SE9128 (boy it's tiny!). The card is made by MSI, full pack, driver CD (ofc Micro$oft only, alongside Marvell RAID Software etc..).

 

[cyberjock]

@cyberjock:
I'm running brand new 840 EVO SSD in my PC (not NAS). So you're pointing out the following: if I'd stick it onto the PCI-E SATA expansion card with Marvell chip it would BSOD etc? I never needed this card for SSD anyway :)
Even server boards/server brand names such as Fujitsu ships with Marvell (Yukon?) chips for various components like NIC, RAID cards etc.

According to the stuff I've read(I don't buy Samsung SSDs), it would trash your data and/or BSOD the machine. In any case, it's a situation where Samsung claims that Marvell isn't following some SATA standard, and Marvell says their stuff isn't broken and to talk to Samsung.