Motherboard VS M1015 connected SATA hdds

[petr]

Hello,

In my latest build, I've got 2xM1015 flashed to IT firmware to provide JBOD functionality. At this moment, I am using only 3 out of the 4 available channels.

My question is - is there any benefit to connect all of my HDDs to the M1015 cards VS having 4 of them connected to my motherboard (SuperMicro X9SCM-F), and the rest to the cards? Or is it / should be EXACTLY the same?

I've read somewhere here that some MOBO connectors do not handle hotswap properly and take more time time to detect failed HDD / HDD that dropped off an array, and I am wondering if this is still the case when using server-class motherboards.

Summary of my config:

• 10x SATA hdds connected to M1015 cards
• 4x SATA hdds connected to motherboard connectors

All of the disks are JBOD - no hardware/softraid is running on any of them. I've tested moving them back and forth between the M1015 and motherboard and to me it all seems exactly the same.. but I would like an expert to weight in here!

 

[Ericloewe]

Well, if you connect 6 to the motherboard and 8 to the M1015, you can spare yourself the 10W the second M1015 uses.
If you connect all drives to the M1015s, you may conceivably get something similar with the PCH (but note this is just speculation). Intel SATA is trouble-free, except with port replicators (but those are an edge case that's problematic anyway). If you're currently using SATA 3Gb/s on the motherboard, you'd also get a speed boost for data that's cached by the drive (essentially irrelevant).

 

[petr]

Well, if you connect 6 to the motherboard and 8 to the M1015, you can spare yourself the 10W the second M1015 uses.
If you connect all drives to the M1015s, you may conceivably get something similar with the PCH (but note this is just speculation). Intel SATA is trouble-free, except with port replicators (but those are an edge case that's problematic anyway). If you're currently using SATA 3Gb/s on the motherboard, you'd also get a speed boost for data that's cached by the drive (essentially irrelevant).

Thanks! Pardon my ignorance - what is PCH and is it doing in this context?

 

[Ericloewe]

Thanks! Pardon my ignorance - what is PCH and is it doing in this context?

The Platform Controller Hub is what Intel calls the chip that now does all chipset functions not absorbed into the CPU - SATA, USB, extra PCI-e and a few system tasks.

 

[mjws00]

The pch is the platform controller hub (chipset). Just a quick and accurate way of denoting the on board sata ports in this case.

 

[petr]

The Platform Controller Hub is what Intel calls the chip that now does all chipset functions not absorbed into the CPU - SATA, USB, extra PCI-e and a few system tasks.

Ok, this is the one I thought it would be from my Google search :). I still do not understand this sentence though:

If you connect all drives to the M1015s, you may conceivably get something similar with the PCH (but note this is just speculation).

Could you please elaborate?

 

[Ericloewe]

Ok, this is the one I thought it would be from my Google search :). I still do not understand this sentence though:



Could you please elaborate?

Well, the PCH has one to two SATA controllers. Depending on how the internal power management is done, not having SATA devices attached could possibly save some power - I'd expect this to be less than the M1015's 10W.