Apologies for the LONG post, but I wanted to ensure I provided the most detail I could!
DISCLAIMER: I'm very green when it comes to Linux, so when replying, I humbly ask you to be as detailed as possible... please don't assume I know what may even be basic Linux knowledge. That said, I can follow instructions fairly well and I am not technically inept... I know my way around PC components and hardware rather well.
I previously had an OpenMediaVault Home NAS setup (using an OLD old PC) with 7 x 3TB drives and wanted to switch over to Xpenology. So I bought 4 x 10TB new HDD's with the intention of adding them to my 7 x 3TB drives (which have been wiped) to create a new 11 HDD setup by repurposing my 'newer' old PC into the new Xpenology box. Here are the tech specs:
CPU: Intel i7-2600K
MOBO: MSI P67A-GD65 (MS-7681 V2.0)
RAM: 16GB
NIC: Intel EXPI9301CT
HDD's: 4 x HGST Ultrastar 3TB + 3 x WD RED 3TB + 4 x Seagate Barracuda Pro 10TB
Originally, when this was being used as my PC, I was using the motheboard's onboard SATA ports, but I only had an OS/Boot SSD and a single 2TB drive for storage (both in AHCI mode). There are 8 onboard SATA ports in total... 6 controlled by the Intel P67 chipset (2 ports are SATA-600 and 4 ports are SATA-300), and an extra 2 SATA-600 ports controlled by a Marvell 88SE9128 chipset. This particular mobo has a history of problems with the implementation of the 2 Marvell 88SE9128 ports, so I had them disabled in the BIOS and have never used them.
Using a single old spare 500GB HDD as a test mule, I successfully installed DSM 6.2.2-24922 Update 3 without a hitch booting from a USB stick. GREAT... that was easy... now to install the "real" drives!
My original plan was to use the 6 onboard Intel SATA ports, then expand using SATA expansion cards. So I plugged in 6 drives to the Intel ports and powered on the system... NOTHING. The boot process would hang before reaching GRUB. Through lengthy trial and error, I determined whenever a drive was plugged into any of the 4 SATA-300 ports, the system would not boot to GRUB; but 2 HDD's plugged into the 2 SATA-600 ports would boot to DSM fine.
Then I thought about the other 2 Marvell 88SE9128 SATA-600 ports, so I enabled them (in AHCI mode in the BIOS) and plugged in another 2 HDD's... success! With 4 HDD's (2 in Intel's SATA-600 ports, and 2 in Marvell's SATA-600 ports), the system would boot to DSM with no problems.
Now I needed 7 more ports, but I didn't want to get into the LSI/SAS route, so after some research in these forums, I decided to order 2 of these cards based on the Marvell 88SE9215 chipsets:
SATA CARD 1 & 2: Ubit SA3014 4 Port SATA III (PCIe 2.0 x1) (Marvell 88SE9215)
When they arrived, I installed them one at a time... connected up 4 HDD's to Card #1, installed, booted up and... success! 8 HDD's now visible in Storage Manager in DSM! Shutdown and connected the final 3 HDD's to Card #2, inserted and powered up... booted into DSM fine... but when I checked in Storage Manager, the first 8 HDD's were still there, but the final 3 drives were not visible!
I then began the process of trial and error again, plugging and unplugging all manner of drive configuration, but no matter what I tried, I could not get the final 3 drives to show up in DSM.
I then thought perhaps Card #2 was faulty, so I unplugged Card #1 and booted... the 3 drives appeared in DSM!
Shutdown, reinserted Card #1, booted... the 4 HDD's connected to Card #1 were back, but the 3 drives connected to Card #2 were not visible again... HOWEVER, Storage Manager was showing 5 Slots Available.
I scrounged the forums again and found expansion cards with the Marvell 88SE9235 chipset were highly recommended... so I ordered one of these:
SATA CARD 3: IOCrest SI-PEX40062 4 Port SATA III (PCIe 2.0 x2) (Marvell 88SE9235)
When it arrived, I connected it up and booted... the system would not boot to GRUB.
Then I thought there might be some issue with the onboard ports, and seeing as I now had 3 expansion cards totaling 12 ports, I disabled ALL the onboard ports (including the eSATA ones) in the bios and connected all 11 drives to the 3 expansion cards (4 x 3TB to Card #1... 4 x 3TB to Card #2... and 4 x 10TB's to Card #3). Booted up and made it to DSM... except Storage Manage was now only showing the 8 HDD's connected to Card #1 & Card #3:
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However, the Overview shows 8 Drives, and 4 Unused Slots:
I thought it was strange why it would recognize the slots available, but not see the drives attached. So I shutdown and unplugged Card #1 to see what would happen... sure enough, DSM booted fine, but now Overview was showing 4 Unused Drives and 8 Available Slots! By removing/relocating the expansion cards and their connected HDD's in various configurations, my conclusion/guess is the 4 Available Slots pictured above (with all 3 expansion cards installed) are actually NOT the slots from Card 2, but somehow, DSM is still identifying the 4 slots on the motherboard even though I disabled them in the BIOS.
I then read in these forums about the SataPortMap values and tried some different configurations that way, but no combination of numbers would change how DSM saw the connected drives and slots... it always remains the same by fully recognizing all 8 HDD's connected to Card #1 and Card #3, but will not recognize the second Marvell 88SE9215 card while the first one is installed... all while still showing 4 Slots Available.
So this is where I am now and have decided to bring my issue to these forums for help rather than bumble my way through with growing frustration at every point of failure...lol...
Ideally, I'd like to use the 3 expansion cards alone and bypass the motherboard altogether, but I'm not picky... I just want DSM to recognize 12 ports so I can connect all my HDD's.
Any and all help would be greatly appreciated... again, apologies for the lengthy post, but hopefully it was thorough enough to paint the back-story.
THANK YOU IN ADVANCE TO ALL!
