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DSM 6.1 with Marvell 88SE9235 only showing 4 disks


verlaanac

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HI All,

 

I'm trying to get my 6.1 install to work with my 5 drives in R5 with a Marvell 88se9235 8 port controller, however I can only see 4 drives now.

 

As I remembered from previous releases I would need to update syslinux.cfg, but can't seem to locate it anymore.

 

Any tips on how to get this to work properly?

 

THanks!

A

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according to documentation i88se9235 is a four port controller, if your card has 8 ports and you only see 4 then its probably a card with a additional multiplexer where the fourth port i used with a 5 port miltiplexer and as synology blocks multiplexer that are not branded synology you will only see the 1st port of the multiplexer so it still 4 ports

http://www.marvell.com/documents/xnzfwfktuicdpjakssrh/

 

88SM9705 multiplexer

http://www.marvell.com/documents/bbwogcndockcbnxejvpu/

 

i wrote about it in driver requests a few days ago but it got deleted by the mod for offtopic

sorry but i dont like to do the same work more often so for short its a no go and thats it

 

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13 hours ago, IG-88 said:

i wrote about it in driver requests a few days ago but it got deleted by the mod for offtopic

sorry but i dont like to do the same work more often so for short its a no go and thats it

 

Because it was in fact off-topic. After second thought, those posts have been moved to the newly created topic below. Please note, I also don't like having to repeat the same thing over many times. This said, we all thank you @IG-88 (at least I do) for your continuous and valuable contribution to the community. :91_thumbsup:

If you all don't mind, I am locking this topic as it is redundant with the one I posted above. This will avoid people having to answer twice. You can continue the discussion over there. Thank you.

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Hi IG-88,

 

Indeed, only the first 4 ports are seen by DSM, I think this must indeed be the issue.

 

I've booted a standard Linux distro, works fine, also booted a freenas distro, works properly. Windows requires additional drives, but works fine after.

 

When I use it in my ESX machine, the controller is also specified as a 4 port controller.

 

Hopefully one of our Dev's here can think of a way to make this work, or I'll be shopping for a new card anytime soon...

 

Thanks!!

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2 hours ago, verlaanac said:

Hi IG-88,

 

Indeed, only the first 4 ports are seen by DSM, I think this must indeed be the issue.

 

I've booted a standard Linux distro, works fine, also booted a freenas distro, works properly. Windows requires additional drives, but works fine after.

 

When I use it in my ESX machine, the controller is also specified as a 4 port controller.

 

Hopefully one of our Dev's here can think of a way to make this work, or I'll be shopping for a new card anytime soon...

 

Thanks!!

I think your fastest route to a larger array would be to find a cheap compatible  8 way marvell or lsi sas/sata card on ebay, or if your mobo has multiple pci slots, a 4 port card to add to the existing.

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follow the link @Polanskiman gave you, in this thread i also explained that there is not much hope for enabling multiplexer and also gave suggestions for alternative controllers with real 8 ports

 

keep in mind 8 port controllers are by  far off mainstream so there is not that much choice for low prices as for 4port controllers

Edited by IG-88
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Hi Guys,

 

So, I've bought a used model in IT mode from the web, popped it in and works like a charm.

 

Only issue is that everytime I reboot, it no longer detects the card. Is that something any of you ever experienced?

 

When I do a cold start (so wait some 10-20 sec) all works fine again...

 

Thanks!

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Found a way to make it work!

 

Set the PCI speed to Gen2 fixed made sure the controller boots up on warmstarts!

 

Another Question to you guys:

image.thumb.png.570ed5c0aba07b0abf6afa62ec40601e.png

 

Any chance I can hide disk1 (VM VMDK drive) and the pesky 'empty disk slot' ?

It must be a light autism, but if possible, I'd like my drives to show up as disk 1-5 for now ;)

 

Thanks!

 

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you could try using a usb flash drive and passing it to the vm instead of using a virtual controller with a image file?

in this case the vm works more like a baremetal installation, where the usb is hidden and the passtrough sas 8 port controller would be the only storage device in the vm

if its worth it for just cosmetic reasons? depends on you point of view

(never tried this, i'm using baremetal and virtualbox for xpenology)

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I've been running like that on previous setups when moving to VM on 6.0, but with a new card, I decided to set it up entirely on VM without passing through the USB thumb drive.

I'll ponder a little to see if I find this worth changing from the vmdk to a USB drive, but might live with the cosmetic defect ;)

 

All in all, it's running smooth now, however I see one deviation in disk health status:

 

image.png

 

Any thoughts what could cause this to be in errror? I've configured SMART during initial install again, so the service should run...

 

THx

 

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23 hours ago, verlaanac said:

I've been running like that on previous setups when moving to VM on 6.0, but with a new card, I decided to set it up entirely on VM without passing through the USB thumb drive.

I'll ponder a little to see if I find this worth changing from the vmdk to a USB drive, but might live with the cosmetic defect ;)

 

All in all, it's running smooth now, however I see one deviation in disk health status:

 

Any thoughts what could cause this to be in errror? I've configured SMART during initial install again, so the service should run...

 

THx

 

I think it is normal. Have a read:

 

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Hi Polanskiman,

 

It sounds like they are debating an issue where they are using RDM, which is exaclty what I wanted to avoid, I'm actually using FPT (so full passthrough of PCI device).

 

This should enable the VM to have direct access to the PCI HW address, leaving it completely out of the ESX setup (you can't see it in storage overview / adapters as FPT is set as active).

 

It's basically why I moved to a separate controller (my mainboard has 6 SATA connectors, so using in baremetal, I would not have taken this route).

 

as you can see from the SSH output, I can actually read the smartctl data in DSM when logged on.

(by the way, my 10 port sata controller in FPT gave me proper SMART data back in DSM, sadly it was an unreliable one, so needed to change...)

 

Regards!

 

Edited by verlaanac
add previous card info
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