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Possible 'ideal' XPE MOBO


sbv3000

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Potentially a bargain. However they seem a little confused...

 

CPU listed as either...

 

M42S-6:HCM18NVR3:Onboard Intel Bay Trail–M J1800 Quad core Soc processors

(2M buffer,2GHZ-2.42 GHz)

 

Or...

 

M42S-7:HCM19NVR3:Onboard Intel Bay Trail–M J1900 dual core Soc processors

(1M buffer, 2.41GHZ-2.58 GHz)

 

When in fact it's the J1800 that is the dual core and the J1900 that is the quad.

 

And then they get more confused...

 

Socket Type:Onboard CPU Intel Intel Celeron C1037U

 

And then there's the LAN. The picture says 2* Intel LAN when the spec says 2*RTL 8111EL 1000 BaseT LAN.

 

It will be interesting to see what you actually get!

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Will this work fine with Xpenology? I think it´s a cheap option for only a file server.

 

If you will not virtualize, a J1900 would be enought...isn´t? As anyone tested some similar?

 

I've run XPenology on a J1800 board just fine. I think compatibility for this board will depend on the SATA controller chips they've used.

Edited by Guest
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the j1900 was on my list, but was discontinued/not in stock when I tried to order :sad:

 

J1900 has more cores, but the J1800 cores are clocked higher. I don't think you'll notice much difference unless you do something like transcode, in which case you should be buying a much faster CPU anyway.

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I've run XPenology on a J1800 board just fine. I think compatibility for this board will depend on the SATA controller chips they've used.

 

Totally agree! All depends on the SATA controller chips used. There are a few Marvell chips that don't play too well with the latest XPE builds. Very curious which chips these come with.

 

Official Product page

http://www.hcipctech.com/Home/ProductCo ... &english=2

 

I believe the 19NVR3 uses the quad-core J1900. OP linked to 18NVR3, which is the dual-core J1800 model.

 

At the price of over $150+shipping for the J1900 model, I'm not sure if this really is an ideal solution. Neither the J1800 or J1900 is particularly powerful processor. I think you can get more for your money elsewhere. By the time you max out the 13 SATA ports on your server, you might be concerned with faster processor, ECC memory, and possibly 10Gb Network.

 

However, if all you want is max number of SATA ports with low power consumption, this does seem like an option. Although I would say XPE may not be the most ideal OS if you're going after low power. Something like UnRAID would typically use less power, since it doesn't spin up all the drives.

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Thanks guys for the interesting feedback and thoughts.

I guess it depends on 'ideal' - if this board works, all 12 sata, dual gig lan etc then, for me, its I think its a close match to a real DS3615 overall. Comparing this to sourcing say a higher spec mobo, additional lan card, sata card etc and dealing with the compatability to emulate a 12 bay system I think its worth a punt. For what I would (and do) use XPE based systems for; file servers/backup jukeboxes using older drives/non transcoded streaming, it could be okay.

Its been dispatched so more in a couple of weeks when it arrives :smile:

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Thanks guys for the interesting feedback and thoughts.

I guess it depends on 'ideal' - if this board works, all 12 sata, dual gig lan etc then, for me, its I think its a close match to a real DS3615 overall. Comparing this to sourcing say a higher spec mobo, additional lan card, sata card etc and dealing with the compatability to emulate a 12 bay system I think its worth a punt. For what I would (and do) use XPE based systems for; file servers/backup jukeboxes using older drives/non transcoded streaming, it could be okay.

Its been dispatched so more in a couple of weeks when it arrives :smile:

 

 

Terrific. Please report back your findings.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey Guys

 

Ok, so this puppy has arrived and I fired it up without any changes to defaults.

 

So far;

 

Pros

 

The board worked!

Neat mid board USB sockets for XPE loader chip

XPE booted completely without errors

Both NICs detected

No BIOS reset issues

 

Cons

 

Only 8 HDD channels recognised in DSM

BIOS has limited options for configuring hardware

Documentation is sparse

 

So - off for some research into the HDD controllers (they are Intel I think from the drivers provided) and see if the other channels can be got working, and do some tests with Windows/Ubuntu to find out more

 

My conclusion - so far - happy with the result - even as an 8 drive unit would be more enough for basic DSM functions

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Excellent news. Can you SSH into DSM as root and run 'lspci -q' to enumerate your PCI devices? You should get something like the listing below... (obviously i'm running on ESXi, but you can see my Marvell SATA and Renasys USB3 adapter near the bottom that are passed through to DSM)

 

Tonka> lspci -q
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (rev 01)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP bridge (rev 01)
00:07.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 08)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 08)
00:07.7 System peripheral: VMware Virtual Machine Communication Interface (rev 10)
00:0f.0 VGA compatible controller: VMware SVGA II Adapter
00:11.0 PCI bridge: VMware PCI bridge (rev 02)
00:15.0 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:15.1 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:15.2 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:15.3 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:15.4 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:15.5 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:15.6 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:15.7 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:16.0 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:16.1 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:16.2 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:16.3 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:16.4 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:16.5 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:16.6 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:16.7 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:17.0 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:17.1 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:17.2 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:17.3 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:17.4 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:17.5 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:17.6 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:17.7 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:18.0 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:18.1 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:18.2 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:18.3 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:18.4 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:18.5 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:18.6 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
00:18.7 PCI bridge: VMware PCI Express Root Port (rev 01)
03:00.0 SATA controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Device 9215 (rev 11)
0b:00.0 USB controller: Renesas Technology Corp. uPD720202 USB 3.0 Host Controller (rev 02)
13:00.0 Ethernet controller: VMware VMXNET3 Ethernet Controller (rev 01)
1b:00.0 USB controller: VMware USB3 xHCI 0.96 Controller

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Thanks Berwhale

 

I'd already done some testing with Windows and a magnifying glass to look at the chips :smile: - plus having got XPE/DSM running ran a dmesg

 

The NICs are Intel i211 (the mac addresses show as 'technoscope' strangely, they must have bought them)

The HDD/SATA controllers - two are intel the third (from vendor PCI codes) is a Marvel 88se9215 (non raid 4 port controller)

 

Looking at dmesg (extract below) I can see that the Marvel controller is found as a PCI device, and that it might be seen as a port multiplier, but the attached drive (an old WD500) isnt being found

 

0.853707] pci 0000:01:00.0: [1b4b:9215] type 00 class 0x010601

 

0.855749] pci 0000:02:00.0: [1b4b:9215] type 00 class 0x010601

 

9.697842] ata10: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)

[ 10.728250] ata10.15: Port Multiplier 1.2, 0x1b4b:0x9705 r160, 1 ports, feat 0x1/0x1f

[ 10.758097] ahci 0000:02:00.0: FBS is enabled

[ 10.758167] ata10.00: hard resetting link

[ 11.063014] ata10.00: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 330)

[ 11.063089] ata10: EH complete

 

more anon

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Ok so this is the output of PCI enumeration, confirming what we thought

 

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series SoC Transaction Register (rev 0e)

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Graphics & Display (rev 0e)

00:13.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series SATA AHCI Controller (rev 0e)

00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx, Celeron N2000 Series USB xHCI (rev 0e)

00:1a.0 Encryption controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Trusted Execution Engine (rev 0e)

00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 0e)

00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev 0e)

00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev 0e)

00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev 0e)

00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series USB EHCI (rev 0e)

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Power Control Unit (rev 0e)

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series SMBus Controller (rev 0e)

01:00.0 SATA controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Device 9215 (rev 11)

02:00.0 SATA controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Device 9215 (rev 11)

03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I211 Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)

04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I211 Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)

 

And playing around more think I've established that ata10-14 are a port multiplier configuration

 

Interestingly found this linux/git information about the ahci controller resetting and detection code errors, so that could be the issue

 

http://git.meleeweb.net/linux.git/commi ... 44964f6517

 

however, I'm still happy with this as is and will probably use it with 6 drives in an upcoming project :smile:

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I did a port by port test and it appears that 1 and 2 (sata and msata) on the mobo are the intel, and work ok, 3-6 are channels 1-4 on Marvel controller 01 and work ok, 7-9 are channels 1-3 on Marvel 02 and work ok, 10-14 seem to be in the multiplier configuration and not showing up.

 

Either way I'm happy with this result

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  • 7 months later...
I've mailed the tech support for information

 

Did you get far with this ? I bought a bundle of their 6 HDD case with the motherboard. Problem is the SATA connector face front, which leave too little space for the SATA cables. Basically I'm trying to find a solution.

 

Tried to use port 10-13 but only 1 port is working.

 

Also, the board isn't working with the Jun or quicknick loader.

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Ok so this is the output of PCI enumeration, confirming what we thought

 

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series SoC Transaction Register (rev 0e)

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Graphics & Display (rev 0e)

00:13.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series SATA AHCI Controller (rev 0e)

00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx, Celeron N2000 Series USB xHCI (rev 0e)

00:1a.0 Encryption controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Trusted Execution Engine (rev 0e)

00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 0e)

00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev 0e)

00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev 0e)

00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev 0e)

00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series USB EHCI (rev 0e)

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Power Control Unit (rev 0e)

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series SMBus Controller (rev 0e)

01:00.0 SATA controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Device 9215 (rev 11)

02:00.0 SATA controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Device 9215 (rev 11)

03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I211 Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)

04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I211 Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)

 

And playing around more think I've established that ata10-14 are a port multiplier configuration

 

Interestingly found this linux/git information about the ahci controller resetting and detection code errors, so that could be the issue

 

http://git.meleeweb.net/linux.git/commi ... 44964f6517

 

however, I'm still happy with this as is and will probably use it with 6 drives in an upcoming project :smile:

 

I can 1 port out of the 4 port on group A.

I can only use 4 port out of the 8 port (1 each) on group B

And I can use port Group C , so total of only 6 ports. Could you tell me which are the ports working for you and how you got to 8 ports ?

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I've not tried the DSM 6 bootloader, staying with 5.2 at the moment on this setup

 

In my setup with 6 HDD I disabled the two SATA channels in the bios (so that Storage Manager starts with HDD 1 not 3) and I used 6 of the yellow sata ports which are the Marvel controllers. Four on controller 1 and two on controller 2 as from my tests and as posted earlier).

 

If you have limited space to plug in SATA cables, you could look for some 'left/right/up/down angled sata cables, this place in the UK has several options, ebay and amazon too

https://www.moddiy.com/categories/Cable ... ing&page=2

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I've not tried the DSM 6 bootloader, staying with 5.2 at the moment on this setup

 

In my setup with 6 HDD I disabled the two SATA channels in the bios (so that Storage Manager starts with HDD 1 not 3) and I used 6 of the yellow sata ports which are the Marvel controllers. Four on controller 1 and two on controller 2 as from my tests and as posted earlier).

 

If you have limited space to plug in SATA cables, you could look for some 'left/right/up/down angled sata cables, this place in the UK has several options, ebay and amazon too

https://www.moddiy.com/categories/Cable ... ing&page=2

 

Could you post a photo of your bios setup ? Where to enable the bios. Mine is shown as some sort of NVR (Network Video Recorder).

 

The bios setup on mine is weird and only show 2 channels. The bios can only boot from USB or HDD1 which is the standalone SATA in the middle. It doesn't see any of the other HDD when I select HDD Priority or Boot Sequence.

 

There is 4 SATA connector on the side, but only the 1st one is working in XPenology. The rest doesn't detect the HDD connected.

 

There is 8 SATA connector on the front, but only the bottom connector is working in XPenology. So that's a total of 4 SATA in front.

 

I fixed the problem with the limited space by using a SFX / SFF PSU. Also their chassis is pretty much a clone of a Fractal Node 304 at 65% of the price.

 

I have not test stability, but I'm happy with it so far... if I could get 8 SATA, that would be fantastic.

 

I

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Next time I reboot the unit I'll plug in a monitor and do some screens

Meantime, if you look at the spec page and scroll down to the board image and text

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/HCIPC-M ... 24109.html

 

on my version, the 8 yellow forward facing sata show up in dsm. the 4 on facing left dont show up. I found this by trial and error, you might need to do the same if the design has changed.

The on board sata should also work.

I recall that the 'yellow' sata ports (the marvel) dont appear in the bios anywhere, but I dont think this matters to boot order as you just need the usb

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