Re: Looking for FOSS supported PCIe x4 SATA 6 Gb/s HBA with 4 or 8 ports

[Andrei POPESCU]

On Mi, 12 feb 20, 23:39:20, deloptes wrote:
> Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> 
> > Could you please elaborate or provide a reference for this?
> > 
> > While my 3TB WD Red doesn't appear to have problems with my current
> > usage, I'd like to be prepared.
> 
> Google "western digital wd red 4tb issues" or "western digital wd red 3tb
> issues"

A quick DDG doesn't reveal anything particularly worrying about the 3TB 
drives. Mine has been running 1,5 year with no apparent issues.

Kind regards,
Andrei
-- 
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser


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Re: Looking for FOSS supported PCIe x4 SATA 6 Gb/s HBA with 4 or 8 ports

[deloptes]

David Christensen wrote:

> Lately, I have been buying 3 TB Seagate Constellation ES.2.  One pair
> has close to 1 year of 24x7 use.  No problems thus far.

1y is not a measure. What counts is 4+ at least.

Re: Looking for FOSS supported PCIe x4 SATA 6 Gb/s HBA with 4 or 8 ports

[deloptes]

Andrei POPESCU wrote:

> Could you please elaborate or provide a reference for this?
> 
> While my 3TB WD Red doesn't appear to have problems with my current
> usage, I'd like to be prepared.

Google "western digital wd red 4tb issues" or "western digital wd red 3tb
issues"

As drives were getting cheaper I was considering buying those 3 or 4TB, but
found many reports that they were more often failing than the 2TB disks.

I think I'll buy another pair of WD Red 2TB disks to replace the Green 1TB
because the speed factor is obvious.

Re: Looking for FOSS supported PCIe x4 SATA 6 Gb/s HBA with 4 or 8 ports

[David Christensen]

On 2020-02-11 14:04, deloptes wrote:

I stick to 2TB, because the WG RED >2TB are having issues.


Lately, I have been buying 3 TB Seagate Constellation ES.2.  One pair 
has close to 1 year of 24x7 use.  No problems thus far.



David

Re: Looking for FOSS supported PCIe x4 SATA 6 Gb/s HBA with 4 or 8 ports

[David Christensen]

On 2020-02-11 07:21, Steve McIntyre wrote:

delop...@gmail.com wrote:

08:00.0 SCSI storage controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS1068E
PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS (rev 08)

https://wiki.pdl.cmu.edu/pub/OpenCloud/CloudManuals/SCG_LSISAS1068E_PB_040407.pdf


That particular model is limited on supported disk sizes, to 2T IIRC -
I bought one from ebay and it was no use at all.


Thanks for the warning.



My own choice for more SATA/SAS ports is a Highpoint RocketRAID 2720 -
8 ports on a PCIe 2.0 x8 connector. Supported out of the box using the
mvsas mainline driver.


Okay.


David

Re: Looking for FOSS supported PCIe x4 SATA 6 Gb/s HBA with 4 or 8 ports

[David Christensen]

Looking at Wikipedia, PCI Express link performance table:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express#History_and_revisions


I believe 2.5 GT/s produces 2.5 Gb/s under PCIe version 1.0.  So, the Syba
specification is correct in this case.


They apparently conflated "GT/sec" and "Gb/sec" (uhh, "conflated" might
be the wrong word).  2.5 GT / sec with an 8/10 encoding scheme, while
"yes" 2.5 gbit worth of data is being transmitted, results in only 2000
mbit (2.0 gbit) of usable data.  The other 500 mbit being eaten by the
overhead.



2000 Mb/s / (8 b/B) = 250 MB/s


which matches the Wikipedia throughput value.



But yeah, I guess this isn't anything more than sidebar to your initial
question :|.  I'll have to dig up what cards I've used in the past (been
a long time since I've had a desktop ... last two PCs have been
laptops).


Okay.


David

Re: Looking for FOSS supported PCIe x4 SATA 6 Gb/s HBA with 4 or 8 ports

[Andrei POPESCU]

On Ma, 11 feb 20, 23:04:47, deloptes wrote:
> 
> I don't know. I stick to 2TB, because the WG RED >2TB are having issues.

Could you please elaborate or provide a reference for this?

While my 3TB WD Red doesn't appear to have problems with my current 
usage, I'd like to be prepared.

Kind regards,
Andrei
-- 
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser


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Re: Looking for FOSS supported PCIe x4 SATA 6 Gb/s HBA with 4 or 8 ports

[deloptes]

Steve McIntyre wrote:

>>I have this one for may be 7y already.
>>
>>08:00.0 SCSI storage controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS1068E
>>PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS (rev 08)
>>
>>https://wiki.pdl.cmu.edu/pub/OpenCloud/CloudManuals/SCG_LSISAS1068E_PB_040407.pdf
>>
>>It is 3Gb/s - don't know about the newer ones, but this one is working
>>perfectly well for all those years 24/7.
> 
> That particular model is limited on supported disk sizes, to 2T IIRC -
> I bought one from ebay and it was no use at all.
> 

I don't know. I stick to 2TB, because the WG RED >2TB are having issues.

> My own choice for more SATA/SAS ports is a Highpoint RocketRAID 2720 -
> 8 ports on a PCIe 2.0 x8 connector. Supported out of the box using the
> mvsas mainline driver.

I doubt that my demand will reach that point, having 6x2TB + 2x1TB drives in
RAID which makes around 7TB. I have still a lot of free space and another 4
empty slots to fill.

Re: Looking for FOSS supported PCIe x4 SATA 6 Gb/s HBA with 4 or 8 ports

[Steve McIntyre]

delop...@gmail.com wrote:
>> My research thus far:
>> 
>> 1.  LSI products are popular, but:
>> 
>>  a.  Most seem to be PCIe x8.
>> 
>>  b.  STFW I see more than a few posts complaining about changing
>> firmware from RAID to non-RAID, buggy firmware releases, and/or
>> motherboard BIOS/UEFI incompatibilities with the flash tools.

Yup. The story here is a major pain, in my experience. Add in the
massive list of unclear vendor-branded cards and it's not something I
could recommend,

>I have this one for may be 7y already.
>
>08:00.0 SCSI storage controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS1068E
>PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS (rev 08)
>
>https://wiki.pdl.cmu.edu/pub/OpenCloud/CloudManuals/SCG_LSISAS1068E_PB_040407.pdf
>
>It is 3Gb/s - don't know about the newer ones, but this one is working
>perfectly well for all those years 24/7.

That particular model is limited on supported disk sizes, to 2T IIRC -
I bought one from ebay and it was no use at all.

My own choice for more SATA/SAS ports is a Highpoint RocketRAID 2720 -
8 ports on a PCIe 2.0 x8 connector. Supported out of the box using the
mvsas mainline driver.

-- 
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.st...@einval.com
  Armed with "Valor": "Centurion" represents quality of Discipline,
  Honor, Integrity and Loyalty. Now you don't have to be a Caesar to
  concord the digital world while feeling safe and proud.

Re: Looking for FOSS supported PCIe x4 SATA 6 Gb/s HBA with 4 or 8 ports

[Dan Purgert]

On Feb 10, 2020, David Christensen wrote:
> On 2020-02-10 13:55, Dan Purgert wrote:
>> On Feb 10, 2020, David Christensen wrote:
>>> [...]
>>> It has the following expansion slots:
>>> 
>>> - One PCI Express 2.0 x16 add-in card connector
>>> - One PCI Express 2.0 x4 add-in card connector
>>> - One PCI Express 2.0 x1 add-in card connector
>>> 
>>>  a.  While migrating backup data, I recently saw a Syba PCIe x1 two
>>>  port SATA II 3 Gb/s HBA model SD-SA2PEX-2IR throttling under
>>>  sustained load -- it ran at 80-100 MB/s for 4-5 minutes, then at
>>>  ~7 MB/s for two hours. Unacceptable.
>> 
>> That controller makes no sense -- I think someone made a typo somewhere
>> on the specs (says it's a 2.5 Gb/sec PCIe x1 interface -- maybe they
>> meant it's PCIe 1.0 compliant, at 2.5 "gigatransfers" per second).
> 
> I assume you are referring to the Syba product page:
> 
> http://www.sybausa.com/index.php?route=product/product_id=172=SD-SA2PEX-2IR

That, and the SIL PCIe controller chip's datasheet.
> 
> 
> Looking at Wikipedia, PCI Express link performance table:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express#History_and_revisions
> 
> 
> I believe 2.5 GT/s produces 2.5 Gb/s under PCIe version 1.0.  So, the Syba
> specification is correct in this case.

They apparently conflated "GT/sec" and "Gb/sec" (uhh, "conflated" might
be the wrong word).  2.5 GT / sec with an 8/10 encoding scheme, while
"yes" 2.5 gbit worth of data is being transmitted, results in only 2000
mbit (2.0 gbit) of usable data.  The other 500 mbit being eaten by the
overhead.

> 
> 
>> As I recall, PCIe 1.0 was in the neighborhood of 200MB/sec sustained for
>> a x1 slot;
> 
> Wikipedia indicates 250 MB/s throughput.

I was close :)

> 
> 
>> couple that with a slowish (or damaged) drive, or a
>> RAM-starved system, and a 7MB/sec transfer isn't exactly outside the
>> realm of possibilities.  Granted, age of the card could also be a
>> factor.
> 
> When I connected the drive to a motherboard SATA port, the transfer
> maintained 80-100 MB/s for the entire duration.  That eliminates the
> drive, the cable, and the RAM.  I concluded the HBA was to blame.  In
> hindsight, it may have been a loose connection.  It's not my computer,
> so I will have to wait for an opportunity for further
> troubleshooting.

Yep, certainly does point to either a loose connection, or a failing
SATA controller then.

But yeah, I guess this isn't anything more than sidebar to your initial
question :|.  I'll have to dig up what cards I've used in the past (been
a long time since I've had a desktop ... last two PCs have been
laptops).

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Re: Looking for FOSS supported PCIe x4 SATA 6 Gb/s HBA with 4 or 8 ports

[Dan Ritter]

deloptes wrote: 
> David Christensen wrote:
> 
> > Thanks for the data point.
> > 
> > 
> > Did you have to do anything with firmware?
> 
> not at all - driver in the kernel is mature - but again it is 3Gb/s per
> port. 
> 
> Honestly I must look inside the server as I do not remember how it is
> connected. I have 12 disk bay. It could be I have 2 of these controllers or
> a kind of extention.
> I open the cage once a year to clean up dust.

I can confirm that LSI controllers, including the 2008 and 3008,
work in an entirely boring fashion under Debian, and have for at
least the last three versions of Stable.


-dsr-

Re: Looking for FOSS supported PCIe x4 SATA 6 Gb/s HBA with 4 or 8 ports

[deloptes]

David Christensen wrote:

> Thanks for the data point.
> 
> 
> Did you have to do anything with firmware?

not at all - driver in the kernel is mature - but again it is 3Gb/s per
port. 

Honestly I must look inside the server as I do not remember how it is
connected. I have 12 disk bay. It could be I have 2 of these controllers or
a kind of extention.
I open the cage once a year to clean up dust.

Re: Looking for FOSS supported PCIe x4 SATA 6 Gb/s HBA with 4 or 8 ports

[Felix Miata]

David Christensen composed on 2020-02-10 16:41 (UTC-0800):

> I am using another Syba SD-SA2PEX-2IR card in one of my computers with a 
> pair of Seagate ST31500341AS 1.5 TB drives.  I used Seagate SeaTools 
> Bootable to erase both.  The erase seemed to proceed okay.  One drive 
> was visibly faster than the other.  However, both jobs finished with 
> "100.00% FAIL".  I am now using FreeBSD and hexdump to verify that the 
> drives are indeed full of zeros.  iostat reports ~98 MB/s for one drive 
> and ~121 MB/s for the other.

I shelved my ST31500341AS several years ago. It doesn't seem to be of
much use now:

# inxi -SMPDxx
System:Host: ab250 Kernel: 4.19.0-6-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 
8.3.0 Desktop: Trinity R14.0.8 tk: Qt 3.5.0
   wm: Twin dm: startx Distro: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)
Machine:   Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: PRIME B250M-C v: Rev X.0x serial: 
171013077301155 UEFI: American Megatrends
   v: 1608 date: 10/21/2019
Drives:Local Storage: total: 1.48 TiB used: 43.82 GiB (2.9%)
   ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: ZTC model: PCIEG3-128G size: 119.24 GiB 
speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: 979021901256
   ID-2: /dev/sda vendor: Seagate model: ST31500341AS size: 1.36 TiB 
speed: 3.0 Gb/s serial: 9VS4Q5FQ temp: 43 C
Partition: ID-1: / size: 7.69 GiB used: 3.95 GiB (51.3%) fs: ext4 dev: 
/dev/nvme0n1p10
   ID-2: /home size: 6.14 GiB used: 498.9 MiB (7.9%) fs: ext4 dev: 
/dev/nvme0n1p5
   ID-3: swap-1 size: 1.71 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: 
/dev/nvme0n1p2
# hdparm -t /dev/nvme0n1
/dev/nvme0n1:
 HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(identify) failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device
 Timing buffered disk reads: 3264 MB in  3.00 seconds = 1087.62 MB/sec
# hdparm -t /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
 Timing buffered disk reads: read(2097152) returned 1060864 bytes
# iostat -d /dev/sda /dev/nvme0n1
Linux 4.19.0-6-amd64 (ab250)02/10/2020  _x86_64_(4 CPU)
Device tpskB_read/skB_wrtn/skB_readkB_wrtn
nvme0n1  17.61  2170.4060.503758956 104782
sda   0.6428.89 0.00  50032  0

smartctl -x for my Seagate is @
http://fm.no-ip.com/Tmp/Hardware/Disk/azbox1500-smartctlx-st31500341as.txt

These have my removal from service record:
http://fm.no-ip.com/Tmp/Hardware/Disk/azbox1500-201104-ddrescue.txt
http://fm.no-ip.com/Tmp/Hardware/Disk/azbox1500-201104p2-ddr.txt

ISTR finding a dismal reliability record for the model on the web somewhere.
Good luck if you plan to keep your slower one in service. :p
-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools is religion, not science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

Re: Looking for FOSS supported PCIe x4 SATA 6 Gb/s HBA with 4 or 8 ports

[David Christensen]

On 2020-02-10 14:28, deloptes wrote:

I have this one for may be 7y already.

08:00.0 SCSI storage controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS1068E
PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS (rev 08)

https://wiki.pdl.cmu.edu/pub/OpenCloud/CloudManuals/SCG_LSISAS1068E_PB_040407.pdf

It is 3Gb/s - don't know about the newer ones, but this one is working
perfectly well for all those years 24/7.



Thanks for the data point.


Did you have to do anything with firmware?


David

Re: Looking for FOSS supported PCIe x4 SATA 6 Gb/s HBA with 4 or 8 ports

[David Christensen]

On 2020-02-10 13:55, Dan Purgert wrote:

On Feb 10, 2020, David Christensen wrote:

[...]
It has the following expansion slots:

- One PCI Express 2.0 x16 add-in card connector
- One PCI Express 2.0 x4 add-in card connector
- One PCI Express 2.0 x1 add-in card connector

 a.  While migrating backup data, I recently saw a Syba PCIe x1 two
 port SATA II 3 Gb/s HBA model SD-SA2PEX-2IR throttling under
 sustained load -- it ran at 80-100 MB/s for 4-5 minutes, then at
 ~7 MB/s for two hours. Unacceptable.


That controller makes no sense -- I think someone made a typo somewhere
on the specs (says it's a 2.5 Gb/sec PCIe x1 interface -- maybe they
meant it's PCIe 1.0 compliant, at 2.5 "gigatransfers" per second).


I assume you are referring to the Syba product page:

http://www.sybausa.com/index.php?route=product/product_id=172=SD-SA2PEX-2IR


Looking at Wikipedia, PCI Express link performance table:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express#History_and_revisions


I believe 2.5 GT/s produces 2.5 Gb/s under PCIe version 1.0.  So, the 
Syba specification is correct in this case.




As I recall, PCIe 1.0 was in the neighborhood of 200MB/sec sustained for
a x1 slot; 


Wikipedia indicates 250 MB/s throughput.



couple that with a slowish (or damaged) drive, or a
RAM-starved system, and a 7MB/sec transfer isn't exactly outside the
realm of possibilities.  Granted, age of the card could also be a
factor.


When I connected the drive to a motherboard SATA port, the transfer 
maintained 80-100 MB/s for the entire duration.  That eliminates the 
drive, the cable, and the RAM.  I concluded the HBA was to blame.  In 
hindsight, it may have been a loose connection.  It's not my computer, 
so I will have to wait for an opportunity for further troubleshooting.



I am using another Syba SD-SA2PEX-2IR card in one of my computers with a 
pair of Seagate ST31500341AS 1.5 TB drives.  I used Seagate SeaTools 
Bootable to erase both.  The erase seemed to proceed okay.  One drive 
was visibly faster than the other.  However, both jobs finished with 
"100.00% FAIL".  I am now using FreeBSD and hexdump to verify that the 
drives are indeed full of zeros.  iostat reports ~98 MB/s for one drive 
and ~121 MB/s for the other.



When verification finishes in 4+ hours, maybe I'll do more 
troubleshooting.  Or, maybe I'll just proceed with the job I was 
supposed to be doing right now but cannot because I bought the wrong 
product.



That said, Seagate SeaTools is built with Tiny Core Linux.  I previously 
had a StarTech PEXSAT32 two port SATA III 6 Gb/s PCIe 2.0 x1 HBA in the 
above computer.  Tiny Core complained loudly during boot, and the drives 
did not appear in the app.  So, whatever StarTech did, Tiny Core did not 
(or vice versa).  I have put in a technical support request with both 
StarTech and Seagate.



These are exactly the kinds of problems I want to avoid in a new HBA 
purchase.  I want to plug it in, connect a bunch of drives, and have 
everything "just work".



David

Re: Looking for FOSS supported PCIe x4 SATA 6 Gb/s HBA with 4 or 8 ports

[deloptes]

> My research thus far:
> 
> 1.  LSI products are popular, but:
> 
>  a.  Most seem to be PCIe x8.
> 
>  b.  STFW I see more than a few posts complaining about changing
> firmware from RAID to non-RAID, buggy firmware releases, and/or
> motherboard BIOS/UEFI incompatibilities with the flash tools.
> 

I have this one for may be 7y already.

08:00.0 SCSI storage controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS1068E
PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS (rev 08)

https://wiki.pdl.cmu.edu/pub/OpenCloud/CloudManuals/SCG_LSISAS1068E_PB_040407.pdf

It is 3Gb/s - don't know about the newer ones, but this one is working
perfectly well for all those years 24/7.

regards

Re: Looking for FOSS supported PCIe x4 SATA 6 Gb/s HBA with 4 or 8 ports

[Felix Miata]

David Christensen composed on 2020-02-10 13:23 (UTC-0800):

> Comments? 

Have you considered incorporating newer (nvme) technology? e.g.


Whether compatible with the Q67 chipset I don't know, but it would be a shame if
not. OTOH, that it requires an X16 slot might imply X4 cannot provide enough
bandwidth for 4 M.2 nvme sticks, but maybe X4 would be good enough for 4 M.2 
SATA
sticks. Limiting to X4 seems to limit M.2 nvme stick count to 2, and thus maybe
why you're finding only X8 hosts.
-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools is religion, not science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

Re: Looking for FOSS supported PCIe x4 SATA 6 Gb/s HBA with 4 or 8 ports

[Dan Purgert]

On Feb 10, 2020, David Christensen wrote:
> [...]
> It has the following expansion slots:
> 
> - One PCI Express 2.0 x16 add-in card connector
> - One PCI Express 2.0 x4 add-in card connector
> - One PCI Express 2.0 x1 add-in card connector
> 
> a.  While migrating backup data, I recently saw a Syba PCIe x1 two
> port SATA II 3 Gb/s HBA model SD-SA2PEX-2IR throttling under
> sustained load -- it ran at 80-100 MB/s for 4-5 minutes, then at
> ~7 MB/s for two hours. Unacceptable.

That controller makes no sense -- I think someone made a typo somewhere
on the specs (says it's a 2.5 Gb/sec PCIe x1 interface -- maybe they
meant it's PCIe 1.0 compliant, at 2.5 "gigatransfers" per second).

As I recall, PCIe 1.0 was in the neighborhood of 200MB/sec sustained for
a x1 slot; couple that with a slowish (or damaged) drive, or a
RAM-starved system, and a 7MB/sec transfer isn't exactly outside the
realm of possibilities.  Granted, age of the card could also be a
factor.


-- 
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|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O| PGP: 05CA 9A50 3F2E 1335 4DC5  4AEE 8E11 DDF3 1279 A281


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