USB/Motherboard question

[Nightowl805]

I am in the process of building my server. I have a Fractal Define R5 case. It has 2 USB 2.0 and 2 USB 3.0 ports on top of the case. For wiring it as a USB 2.0 cable 4 pin and and USB 3.0 cable that I don't recognize. The 3.0 cable fits onto the motherboard (Supermicro X10SRA-f) I do not see a slot on the motherboard for the 4 pin USB 2.0 cable. Is there a chance that the cable I don't recognize will actually work for both the 3.0 and 2.0 USB ports. The case manual isn't clear about it. I wouldn't worry too much about it as it will sit in a closet but I read the Freenas doesn't like USB 3.0 very much.

If that unrecognized cable that plugs into the 3.0 USB spot on the motherboard doesn't also support USB 2.0, Is there an expensive internal PCI card that has both 4 internal SATA 3 ports with a USB 4 pin header??

Thanks as usual

 

[marbus90]

There is no SATA card which is usable for FreeNAS. Only SAS addon cards are usable.

4pins for usb2 are standard and are supporting a single usb2 plug. it plugs onto the 9pin usb2 header onboard.

 

[Nightowl805]

Thank you for your answer. As usual I rushed through the facts. I did not know about the SAS card vs regular PCI SATA card. My motherboard does not seem to have a 9 pin USB 2.0 header just a front panel USB 3.0 header:(

 

[Bidule0hm]

The USB 3.0 header on the MB should have the USB 2.0 signals too (it's the case on the X10SL7-F anyway) so look in the R5 manual to see if it has the right cabling (it should, I would be very surprised otherwise) :)

 

[Nightowl805]

Yeah, I have looked at the Fractal Design Design R5 manual. Its just not very clear. There are definitly two sets of cables for the USB 3.0 and 2.0 connections. Its just not clear if the 3.0 cable will control both of the headers

 

[marbus90]

oh, I've just checked. that is a workstation board and usb3 only. also there is only 1 usb3 header onboard.

 

[Nightowl805]

So you don't believe that cable also powers the 2.0 slots? Will an internal USB PCI card work? Do you know why a PCI SATA card won't work for my extra SATA needs? I just need it for the boot SSD's and CDROM (Yeah, its laying around and I thought why not, Maybe there is a VM I can create to rip my old DVD's and take advantage of the Xeon lol) I am looking at the hardware section of the new 9.3 manual and it looks like there are a ton of controllers listed.

http://www.freebsd.org/releases/9.3R/hardware.html#DISK

 

[Nightowl805]

BTW, thanks for taking the time.

 

[marbus90]

You can just disable any usb3 features and use the ports as usb2.

Only SATA/SAS chipsets working well with FreeNAS are LSI 9207, 9211, 9220, IBM M1015 (flashed to 9211 IT modeversion P16) and the Intel AHCI onboard SATA. Especially Marvell controllers are quite bad.

 

[Bidule0hm]

@marbus90: but you said the MB header is USB 3.0 only?

@OP: you know what? just try to connect the USB 3.0 connector and use it as USB 2.0, if it works it's great, if not there is no risks to fry something so no worries ;)

 

[marbus90]

@Bidule0hm: basically what you said in the next line. ;)