DS3617xs DSM 6.2.3-25426 + Jun's v1.02b not starting with Dell Perc H310 in IT Mode (LSI9211-8i IT P20 or P19)

[sapientior]

Hello there,

 

after weeks of not getting my custom baremetal to start with an HBA controller, I decided to ask you guys directly.

 

My system:

Mainboard: AsRock x58 Xtreme6
CPU: Intel Core i7 920 (4x 2.66GHz)

RAM: 12GB DDR3 (1066MHz)

HDDs: 4x 3TB WD Red (2x2 as RAID1) + 4x 8TB Seagate Ironwolf (RAID10)

HBA-Controller: Dell Perc H310 flashed to LSI9211-8i IT mode with FW P20

 

OS: DS3617xs DSM 6.2.3-25426 + Jun's v1.02b

 

The System was running fine for a long time and I did not have any issues updating to the latest DSM versions.

The Mainboard has 12 SATA-Ports, which is why I used it in the first place. Unfortunately 6 of them are only SATAII (3Gb/s). So I decided to take a HBA controller and expand the capability to connect more SATA3 Disks. The flashed H310 was working fine in another system running Ubuntu-Server, so it definitely works.

When plugging it into the NAS, it boots up and also the "shell" screen is visible on direct ouput but DSM is not starting up. Also none of the disks are accessed.

When I remove the controller, everything works as noting ever happened.

I also updated the FW on the controller from P19 to P20 but same things happened... I also tried covering PCIe Pins B5 and B6... nothing changed. Using a FreeDOS bootstick I can access and read the stuff from the controller using sas2flash.exe and megarec

The Disks show up in BIOS, so everything seems to work.

 

Could you give me some hints, how to get everything running with the controller? Does anybody use an flashed H310 and how did you get it to work?

 

Many Thanks in advance

[IG-88]

6 hours ago, sapientior said:

CPU: Intel Core i7 920 (4x 2.66GHz)

130W TDP, hope you live in a cooler region

 

6 hours ago, sapientior said:

OS: DS3617xs DSM 6.2.3-25426 + Jun's v1.02b

i guess its loader 1.03b as 1.02b would only work for dsm 6.1

3617 is the better choice for lsi sas hba's as it comes from synology with newer drivers then 3615

 

6 hours ago, sapientior said:

The Mainboard has 12 SATA-Ports,

3615/17 have a build in limit of 12 disks, if you dont disable the onboard sata the disks on the hba will be above the 12 disk limit (the 12 ports count even without a disk connected) and wont be used in dsm

if you disable all the onboard sata or maybe keep max 4 ports (usually its per controller, disabling just one port of a controller usually does not work, its disabling or enabling the whole controller) on then your disks on the hba should work

 

i'm not so sure you will see any increase in performance (that can be "seen") unless you use ssd's, normal hdd's hardly get more then 300MB/s (the cache of the disks can do more but its usually the disks that limits the speed)

 

your 6G sata pors ore no better as they are only connected to pcie 2.0 as Intel X58 only supports pcie 2.0

 

https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/X58 Extreme6/index.asp

- 2 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s connectors by Marvell SE9128, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1 and JBOD), NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug functions
- 4 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s connectors by Marvell SE9120, support NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug functions (SATA3_6 connector is shared with eSATA3 port)

 

https://www.marvell.com/products/system-solutions/sata-controllers/pcie-2-sata-controllers.html

88SE9128 (PCIe 2.0 x1 to 2 6Gb/s SATA ports)

88SE9120 (PCIe 2.0 x1 to 2 6Gb/s SATA ports)

 

so it might be 2 x 88se9120 and 1 x 88se9128 with 3 pcie lanes and 500MByte/s per lane

so every sata port has just 250MB/s, not better then the SATA II ports with 3G - basically there are all bad in the same way and not suited for ssd's

you should check the disks performance before and after hba use, you can't control the hdd's cache when connected to the hba

[sapientior]

Many Thanks for this detailed answer!

 

23 hours ago, IG-88 said:

130W TDP, hope you live in a cooler region

Yeah... The whole System draws 115W at idle but no problem... Thermals are fine. Disks never went above 42°C at full load over long time.

 

23 hours ago, IG-88 said:

i guess its loader 1.03b as 1.02b would only work for dsm 6.1

3617 is the better choice for lsi sas hba's as it comes from synology with newer drivers then 3615

it is the 3617xs ... but yes, with 1.03b loader, sorry.

 

 

23 hours ago, IG-88 said:

3615/17 have a build in limit of 12 disks

The Homepage says: "Scalability Up to 36 drives with DX1215" so I thought, I could go also for more drives....

 

But when the limit is 12, that's the answer.

 

[IG-88]

37 minutes ago, sapientior said:

But when the limit is 12, that's the answer.

when modding the config file manually you can have 24 drives, but these is lost on bigger updates and needs to be re-done after the update

 

40 minutes ago, sapientior said:

Scalability Up to 36 drives with DX1215

the base config is 12 and the extension units are handled differently in dsm