From Intel 8th gen to Intel 12th/13th/14th gen in DSM 6.2.3

[ed_co]

Hello guys,

 

I need your help.

I was using a xpenology build since fall of 2018 and was working AMAZING!!
The configuration was:
- Asrock H370M-ITX/ac (6 SATA, 2 x NIC: i211V and i219V)
- i3 8700
- 32Gb DDR4 RAM
- SATA card SYBA SI-MPE40125 4 SATA ports -with Marvell 88SE9215 controller-, installed via M.2 e-key to mini pic-e adapter. So with the 6 ports of the motherboard have a total of 10 SATA ports.
- 5x8Tb disks
- Using Jun's loader 1.04b 918+ BAREMETAL (with extra.lzma for the second NIC) with DSM 6.2.3

 

I was completely in love with the build, I thought it was almost perfect for my needs (well, never had enough space ).
I was always updating until I couldn't do it more in DSM 6.2.3. It was working so well, that even that I was tempted numerous of times to update to DSM 7 (but I was not confident enough), I kept locked to DSM 6.2.3 because I was not sure if there was anything I could do better with DSM 7, at least for my needs, and I wanted to wait until I buy new disks in summer, to do an update to DSM 7.2.

 

It was working rock solid almost 24/7 for almost 5.5 years!!

 

Sadly, a couple of weeks ago, the motherboard died (with no explanation), and there was no way to find a motherboard to replace it, at least in this form factor.

 

So I had to find a replacement board (with obviously a new processor) to match the needs (and seriously there are really few possibilities, the world shortage is huge, at least in mini-ITX boards), thinking I would be able to make it work straight away with my build with few changes in the config, so I found the following:
- Asrock H610M-ITX/AC (4 SATA, 1 x NIC: i219V)
- i3 12100

- Same 32GB DDR4 RAM
Using the mentioned SYBA card in the M.2 port, still have 8 SATA ports, and is fine for my needs even losing 2 ports, as have just 5 disks. I can see the disks in the EFI BIOS, so are being recognised, which is great as was one of my fears.

 

So, I changed the grub.cfg of the USB with the Jun's loader of the previous configuration, and modified:
- The mac address of my NIC, I got the mac address of the new board via USB with Ubuntu LTS (NOTE ABOUT MAC ADDRESSES IN THE PREVIOUS BUILD: "strangely" I was using in the previous build a "well known" mac addresses with a serial number that you can find in the forum, and it was working beautifully even with transcoding, and I don't think I was using the real mac addresses of the board!! Don't remember seriously... unless I changed the NIC mac addresses permanently to these ones, which I am not sure if it is even possible).
- The SataPortMap configuration to 44 (means first 4 ports of 1st controller and first 4 ports of 2nd controller), instead the previous 64

 

As the previous build was using the extra.lzma for the i219V, I chose this motherboard because it had the same NIC, and I thought it would work straight away.

 

So I booted the computer with the USB, and I am not not able to run the previous DSM installation nor able to find any Synology device with the web or the Synology assistant. Not sure if I have to use the reinstall option of the Jun's loader because of the new configuration (or is just if you want to install again DSM), and just used it with the default option of the loader (the first BAREMETAL one). I have the feeling that maybe the NIC is not being recognised and I don't understand why.

 

Being headless I don't see any message when connected to my monitor via DisplayPort about if the loader is having any problem. Not sure what to do nor debug.

 

Don't remember if I changed any BIOS settings in the past that maybe could matter. Just changed the hot plug of the SATA and few things more...

 

Obviously, as I want to recover all the disks and see that everything is correct, I would like to avoid installing the DSM 7 for now (as I don't want to risk the existent disks and I have no other backups), and would love to first having DSM 6.2.3 working, and not have any problem afterwards to updated. But now I just want to see everything is correct and the DSM 6.2.3.

 

Can anyone help me with that? I am very desperate and I don't know what more to do.

Find attached the grub.cfg just in case there is any error.

 

Thank you very much.

grub.cfg

Edited April 9 by ed_co

[dj_nsk]

I would advise you to try update to DSM 7.2.1 right away. Just before that, check if everything will work:

• do not connect your working disks yet, use some temporary SATA disk (you can try without it, but then you will not be able to fully launch the DSM)
• write one of the modern automated bootloaders (for example, Arc Loader) to a new USB flash drive
• start, configure the configuration, try to run the DSM
• if something doesn't work, try different settings, addons and modules, patches
• when everything works out, delete the temporary disk, connect the workers and run DCM with the same configuration. 
• you will be asked to migrate - agree to save the settings. Some packages will be updated, and some (incompatible with DSM 7) will be deleted. But this is the lesser of evils. The data on the disks (files) must be saved.

Notes:

Hardware transcoding will not work on the 12th generation processor.

Use the DS920+ - it is suitable for most household needs and allows you to forget about the SataPortMap.

[ed_co]

After reading a lot, I think that I am totally wrong assuming that the extra.lzma would work with my system. I was expecting it would, because the same NICs were shared in both rigs (and was the only reason to use the extra.lzma), but I guess much more drivers should be compatible with my rig in order to make it work.
I was thinking about my new processor i3 12100 has a UHD 730 graphics, maybe this could make it fail entirely at boot, along with other things. Or do you think guys, that the graphics processor does not have anything do do with having problems at booting but just when transcoding and nothing more...

 

Can anyone let me know what could be the next step to proceed and make my new system to work?

 

It should be great to have documented a reference of an updated current build from an old system, as it would help others too.

 

Thanks guys

Edited April 9 by ed_co

[ed_co]

15 hours ago, dj_nsk said:

I would advise you to try update to DSM 7.2.1 right away. Just before that, check if everything will work:

• do not connect your working disks yet, use some temporary SATA disk (you can try without it, but then you will not be able to fully launch the DSM)
• write one of the modern automated bootloaders (for example, Arc Loader) to a new USB flash drive
• start, configure the configuration, try to run the DSM
• if something doesn't work, try different settings, addons and modules, patches
• when everything works out, delete the temporary disk, connect the workers and run DCM with the same configuration. 
• you will be asked to migrate - agree to save the settings. Some packages will be updated, and some (incompatible with DSM 7) will be deleted. But this is the lesser of evils. The data on the disks (files) must be saved.

Notes:

Hardware transcoding will not work on the 12th generation processor.

Use the DS920+ - it is suitable for most household needs and allows you to forget about the SataPortMap.

 

First of all, thanks for the reply!!

 

Is there any guide for Arc Loader? It does not look that there is a guide here in the forums...

 

Talking about the Arc Loader, what is the procedure to follow when you want to update to a new version? AFAIK, with DSM 7+ (which didn't happen with Jun's loader) you have to recreate the USB again to be able to load DSM, right? Please, what is your step by step procedure to follow. Thanks

Edited April 10 by ed_co

[dj_nsk]

5 часов назад, ed_co сказал:

Is there any guide for Arc Loader? It does not look that there is a guide here in the forums...

It's very simple to install:

• Download latest Build (You need the arc-*.img.zip), unzip and write it to a new USB stick (use Rufus for example)

• start your comp with this USB stick, select DSM model and version. You can simply answer all other questions by answering "ok" to begin with 

• after the launch, connect to DSM using Synology Assistant (confirm the migration with data retention when you run it with working disks)

• in the simplest case, this will be enough. In more complex cases, you will need to figure out the addons, modules, settings

When using the test disk, study the Arc menu - you will find a lot of interesting things there. Read the WiKi

5 часов назад, ed_co сказал:

Talking about the Arc Loader, what is the procedure to follow when you want to update to a new version? AFAIK, with DSM 7+ (which didn't happen with Jun's loader) you have to recreate the USB again to be able to load DSM, right?

Updating versions in Arc is also easy. "You can Update to every new Version of DSM until the Buildnumber will not change, without Loader Update"

You can update the Arc version directly from its menu (without replacing the flash drive)

 

Edited April 11 by dj_nsk

[IG-88]

23 hours ago, ed_co said:

Is there any guide for Arc Loader?

https://github.com/AuxXxilium/AuxXxilium/wiki

https://auxxxilium.tech/redpill/

and he also has a lot of stuff on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@AuxXxiliumTech

 

[ed_co]

Have it partially working with the drivers 0.13.9 for 6.2.3 918+, just need to see what is happening to my second controller as I am getting disks disconnected after a while when are connected to this second controller mini pcie via m.2 e key adapter.

Not sure why is happening, but I am very happy to see it working in a way...

[IG-88]

20 hours ago, ed_co said:

while when are connected to this second controller mini pcie via m.2 e key adapter.

Not sure why is happening, but I am very happy to see it working in a way...

i had a (cheap) jmb585 m.2 and it never worked stable, i also had concerns about flimsy pcb (might crack or parts get damaged when pressing to hard like inserting cables when already mounted in m.2, also the force 5 or 6 sata cables to that flimsy thin board can be a problem, that needs some adjustment too to not run into problems when working inside the system after placing the m.2 adapter), had more success with m.2 cable based adapter that terminated in a pcie 4x slot but also there was no universal solution as one with a slightly longer cable did not work stable with one specific controller, i ended up only using this m.2 contraptions for 10G nic) or not at all)  and did spread the needed sata ports over the pcie 4x and 1x slots of the m-atx board i use (pcie 1x slot with jmb582) - a few bugs more for the controllers is better then a shredded btrfs volume (that is often hopeless beyond repair in a situation like this - learned that the hard way, but i also do backups of my nas ...)

most normal housings cant have more then 12-14 3.5" hdd's and that often can be achieved with a m-atx or atx board and more ahci adapters for small money (like 6 x onboard, 5-6 sata by one jmb585 or asm1166 in a 4x slot and one or two 2port adapters in 1x slots  - the 16x slot or one 4x slot might already be used for a 10G nic in my scenarios, if a 16x and and a 4x slot is free then two 2x/4x cards can add 10-12 sata disks to the 6 sata onboard ...)

 

 

 

[ed_co]

21 hours ago, ed_co said:

...my second controller as I am getting disks disconnected after a while when are connected to this second controller mini pcie via m.2 e key adapter.

Not sure why is happening, but I am very happy to see it working in a way...

I don't want to count the chickens before they hatch, but I end up updating the BIOS from 8.04 to 10.01 and looks like the problem disappeared...

[ed_co]

7 hours ago, IG-88 said:

i had a (cheap) jmb585 m.2 and it never worked stable, i also had concerns about flimsy pcb (might crack or parts get damaged when pressing to hard like inserting cables when already mounted in m.2, also the force 5 or 6 sata cables to that flimsy thin board can be a problem, that needs some adjustment too to not run into problems when working inside the system after placing the m.2 adapter), had more success with m.2 cable based adapter that terminated in a pcie 4x slot but also there was no universal solution as one with a slightly longer cable did not work stable with one specific controller, i ended up only using this m.2 contraptions for 10G nic) or not at all)  and did spread the needed sata ports over the pcie 4x and 1x slots of the m-atx board i use (pcie 1x slot with jmb582) - a few bugs more for the controllers is better then a shredded btrfs volume (that is often hopeless beyond repair in a situation like this - learned that the hard way, but i also do backups of my nas ...)

most normal housings cant have more then 12-14 3.5" hdd's and that often can be achieved with a m-atx or atx board and more ahci adapters for small money (like 6 x onboard, 5-6 sata by one jmb585 or asm1166 in a 4x slot and one or two 2port adapters in 1x slots  - the 16x slot or one 4x slot might already be used for a 10G nic in my scenarios, if a 16x and and a 4x slot is free then two 2x/4x cards can add 10-12 sata disks to the 6 sata onboard ...)

 

 

 

My mini pci-board is not that flimsy (https://www.sybausa.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=945), although I use it along the M.2 e-key -removing the onboard m.2 wifi card- adapter (similar or same to this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/123814040736)... but as I said in my previous post, after a bios update looks like works perfectly fine like before (fingers crossed!!).

I am about to receive an asm1166 6x sata in m.2 M key board that I bought when the previous board was failing... (via Amazon).

If you have a link of a better suggestion just let me know. The problem is that my motherboard is a mini ITX and has few expansion ports (Asrock H610M-ITX/ac).

But please, send me your link suggestions, if you have.

Thanks

[ed_co]

On 4/13/2024 at 8:43 PM, ed_co said:

My mini pci-board is not that flimsy (https://www.sybausa.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=945), although I use it along the M.2 e-key -removing the onboard m.2 wifi card- adapter (similar or same to this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/123814040736)... but as I said in my previous post, after a bios update looks like works perfectly fine like before (fingers crossed!!).

Since the BIOS update never failed anymore. Haven't tested the asm1166, cause didn't need it.

All looks is working as before with the previous mobo/cpu. I consider it a success, except I am still in 6.2.3 with its pros and cons...

 

Will try to find a safe way to update to 7.2.1 with ARK, still nothing out there...