MoBo (ASRock C2550D4I) specific RAID setup question

[C. Callaway]

MoBo: ASRock C2550D4I
Hard Drives: (5x) Seagate 4TB NAS HDD SATA 6Gb/s

Being new to raid setups (I am planning on using a raid 5 config), I am a bit confused on which of the SATA controllers on the MoBo I should connect the hard drives to. This is what is listed:

• 2 x SATA3 6.0Gbps, 4 x SATA2 3.0Gbps by C2550
• 4 x SATA3 6.0Gbps by Marvell SE9230, 2 x SATA3 6.0Gbps by Marvell SE9172

I am assuming that I need to focus on the SATA3 ones as the hard drives are 6 Gb/s. If I plug the drives to any of the SATA3 controllers, will I be OK, or do I need to take something else into consideration.? Any input highly appreciated.

CC

 

[marbus90]

The Marvell ports are currently slow to unstable to the point of pool unavailability and are slower than Intel 3Gbps ports.

 

[Ericloewe]

The Marvell ports are currently slow to unstable to the point of pool unavailability and are slower than Intel 3Gbps ports.

I'm not sure they're that slow these days, but they definitely were a few years ago.

 

[HoneyBadger]

We've got several reports from users of the Marvell ports of drives dropping. Don't use them, use only the Intel provided ports.

Also strongly consider RAIDZ2 with drives of that size.

 

[marbus90]

I'm not sure they're that slow these days, but they definitely were a few years ago.

The 2port controller uses a PCIe x1 link, the 4port a x2 link. Avoton platforms only have PCIe 2.0 -> 250MB/s theoretical PCIe bandwidth per SATA port (or 2.5Gbps in SATA terms).

 

[Ericloewe]

The 2port controller uses a PCIe x1 link, the 4port a x2 link. Avoton platforms only have PCIe 2.0 -> 250MB/s theoretical PCIe bandwidth per SATA port (or 2.5Gbps in SATA terms).

So Intel SATA 3Gb/s is *still* faster, some five years later.