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sata driver compataility Q

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  sata driver compataility Q gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2023-09-15 21:30 +0200
    Re: sata driver compataility Q David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> - 2023-09-15 23:40 +0200
      Re: sata driver compataility Q gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2023-09-16 00:10 +0200
        Re: sata driver compataility Q David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> - 2023-09-16 02:20 +0200
          Re: sata driver compataility Q gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2023-09-16 04:40 +0200
            Re: sata driver compataility Q David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> - 2023-09-17 01:50 +0200
              Re: sata driver compataility Q gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2023-09-17 12:30 +0200
                Re: sata driver compataility Q "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2023-09-17 22:10 +0200
                Re: sata driver compataility Q David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> - 2023-09-18 00:00 +0200
                  Re: sata driver compataility Q gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2023-09-18 03:20 +0200
                    Re: sata driver compataility Q David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> - 2023-09-18 09:40 +0200

#261695 — sata driver compataility Q

Greetings all;

I've just ordered some stuff to rebuild or expand my Raid setup.
This 16 port sata-III pci-e card:
<https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09L184W57?smid=A2H818KAC5I4D1&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp&th=1>
along with a bigger drive cage, cables and such and some gigastone 2T 
drives to make a raid big enough to run amanda. And maybe put a new card 
in front of my 2T /home raid10.

The card claims linux compatibility.

Can anyone advise me on the gotcha's of such a 16 port beast?

Thanks all.

Cheers, Gene Heskett.
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
  - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/>

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#261699

On 9/15/23 12:28, gene heskett wrote:
> Greetings all;
> 
> I've just ordered some stuff to rebuild or expand my Raid setup.
> This 16 port sata-III pci-e card:
> <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09L184W57?smid=A2H818KAC5I4D1&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp&th=1>
> along with a bigger drive cage, cables and such and some gigastone 2T 
> drives to make a raid big enough to run amanda. And maybe put a new card 
> in front of my 2T /home raid10.
> 
> The card claims linux compatibility.
> 
> Can anyone advise me on the gotcha's of such a 16 port beast?
> 
> Thanks all.
> 
> Cheers, Gene Heskett.


Searching Amazon for "gigastone 2T", I see:

 
https://www.amazon.com/Gigastone-Internal-Compatible-Desktop-Laptop/dp/B0BN5978X1

     540 MB per second


PCIe 3.0 x1 is rated for 985 MB/s.

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pcie


So, the PCIe 3.0 x1 connector is going to be a bottleneck when accessing 
more than one SSD.


I suggest that you pick an HBA with a wider PCIe connector -- PCIe 3.0 
x8 (7.88 GB/s) is a reasonable match for sixteen SSD's (8.64 GB/s). 
PCIe 3.0 x16 would eliminate the PCIe bottleneck.


Is everything going into one chassis?  Have you considered an external 
drive chassis?


Make sure your power supply(s) are adequate to the task.


David

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#261703

On 9/15/23 17:35, David Christensen wrote:
> On 9/15/23 12:28, gene heskett wrote:
>> Greetings all;
>>
>> I've just ordered some stuff to rebuild or expand my Raid setup.
>> This 16 port sata-III pci-e card:
>> <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09L184W57?smid=A2H818KAC5I4D1&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp&th=1>
>> along with a bigger drive cage, cables and such and some gigastone 2T 
>> drives to make a raid big enough to run amanda. And maybe put a new 
>> card in front of my 2T /home raid10.
>>
>> The card claims linux compatibility.
>>
>> Can anyone advise me on the gotcha's of such a 16 port beast?
>>
>> Thanks all.
>>
>> Cheers, Gene Heskett.
> 
> 
> Searching Amazon for "gigastone 2T", I see:
> 
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/Gigastone-Internal-Compatible-Desktop-Laptop/dp/B0BN5978X1
> 
>      540 MB per second
> 
> 
> PCIe 3.0 x1 is rated for 985 MB/s.
> 
>      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pcie
> 
> 
> So, the PCIe 3.0 x1 connector is going to be a bottleneck when accessing 
> more than one SSD.
> 
> 
> I suggest that you pick an HBA with a wider PCIe connector -- PCIe 3.0 
> x8 (7.88 GB/s) is a reasonable match for sixteen SSD's (8.64 GB/s). PCIe 
> 3.0 x16 would eliminate the PCIe bottleneck.
> 
> 
> Is everything going into one chassis?  Have you considered an external 
> drive chassis?
Got one of those coming too. Small possibility it will fit it the bottom 
of this huge and old tiger direct tower.  Because the radiator for the 6 
core i5 is too tall, it hasn't had a side cover on it in years. If not, 
theres a 3 3.5" cage at the bottom of the stack I can stuff  with 2 
SSD's per bay slot. A hidey place, front cover is solid, but cooling 
might be a problem. If worse comes to worse I could shoe-goo a 120x15 to 
the side of the cage.
> 
> 
> Make sure your power supply(s) are adequate to the task.

400 watter, presently runs dead cold. 5V line rated at 16A, probably not 
using half that now.
> 
> David
> 
> .

Cheers, Gene Heskett.
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
  - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/>

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#261705

On 9/15/23 15:04, gene heskett wrote:
> On 9/15/23 17:35, David Christensen wrote:
>> On 9/15/23 12:28, gene heskett wrote:
>>> Greetings all;
>>>
>>> I've just ordered some stuff to rebuild or expand my Raid setup.
>>> This 16 port sata-III pci-e card:
>>> <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09L184W57?smid=A2H818KAC5I4D1&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp&th=1>
>>> along with a bigger drive cage, cables and such and some gigastone 2T 
>>> drives to make a raid big enough to run amanda. And maybe put a new 
>>> card in front of my 2T /home raid10.

>> Is everything going into one chassis?  Have you considered an external 
>> drive chassis?

> Got one of those coming too. Small possibility it will fit it the bottom 
> of this huge and old tiger direct tower.  Because the radiator for the 6 
> core i5 is too tall, it hasn't had a side cover on it in years. If not, 
> theres a 3 3.5" cage at the bottom of the stack I can stuff  with 2 
> SSD's per bay slot. A hidey place, front cover is solid, but cooling 
> might be a problem. If worse comes to worse I could shoe-goo a 120x15 to 
> the side of the cage.


This is what I meant:

     https://www.pc-pitstop.com/16-bay-25inch-sas-sata-jbod-tower


David

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#261709

On 9/15/23 20:12, David Christensen wrote:
> On 9/15/23 15:04, gene heskett wrote:
>> On 9/15/23 17:35, David Christensen wrote:
>>> On 9/15/23 12:28, gene heskett wrote:
>>>> Greetings all;
>>>>
>>>> I've just ordered some stuff to rebuild or expand my Raid setup.
>>>> This 16 port sata-III pci-e card:
>>>> <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09L184W57?smid=A2H818KAC5I4D1&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp&th=1>
>>>> along with a bigger drive cage, cables and such and some gigastone 
>>>> 2T drives to make a raid big enough to run amanda. And maybe put a 
>>>> new card in front of my 2T /home raid10.
> 
>>> Is everything going into one chassis?  Have you considered an 
>>> external drive chassis?
> 
>> Got one of those coming too. Small possibility it will fit it the 
>> bottom of this huge and old tiger direct tower.  Because the radiator 
>> for the 6 core i5 is too tall, it hasn't had a side cover on it in 
>> years. If not, theres a 3 3.5" cage at the bottom of the stack I can 
>> stuff  with 2 SSD's per bay slot. A hidey place, front cover is solid, 
>> but cooling might be a problem. If worse comes to worse I could 
>> shoe-goo a 120x15 to the side of the cage.
> 
> 
> This is what I meant:
> 
>      https://www.pc-pitstop.com/16-bay-25inch-sas-sata-jbod-tower
> 
> 
> David
Call me cheap, my choice is diy assembly, SS stampings you put together, 
all drive brackets and a dozen cables and a 5 drive power splitter, $30.
Less than 5% of the price of that nice looking box.
> 
> .

Cheers, Gene Heskett.
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
  - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/>

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#261726

On 9/15/23 19:37, gene heskett wrote:
> On 9/15/23 20:12, David Christensen wrote:
>> On 9/15/23 15:04, gene heskett wrote:
>>> On 9/15/23 17:35, David Christensen wrote:
>>>> On 9/15/23 12:28, gene heskett wrote:
>>>>> I've just ordered some stuff to rebuild or expand my Raid setup.
>>>>> This 16 port sata-III pci-e card:
>>>>> <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09L184W57?smid=A2H818KAC5I4D1&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp&th=1>
>>>>> along with a bigger drive cage, cables and such and some gigastone 
>>>>> 2T drives to make a raid big enough to run amanda. And maybe put a 
>>>>> new card in front of my 2T /home raid10.
>>>>
>>>> Is everything going into one chassis?  Have you considered an 
>>>> external drive chassis?
>>>
>>> Got one of those coming too. Small possibility it will fit it the 
>>> bottom of this huge and old tiger direct tower.  Because the radiator 
>>> for the 6 core i5 is too tall, it hasn't had a side cover on it in 
>>> years. If not, theres a 3 3.5" cage at the bottom of the stack I can 
>>> stuff  with 2 SSD's per bay slot. A hidey place, front cover is 
>>> solid, but cooling might be a problem. If worse comes to worse I 
>>> could shoe-goo a 120x15 to the side of the cage.
>>
>>
>> This is what I meant:
>>
>>      https://www.pc-pitstop.com/16-bay-25inch-sas-sata-jbod-tower
>
> Call me cheap, my choice is diy assembly, SS stampings you put together, 
> all drive brackets and a dozen cables and a 5 drive power splitter, $30.
> Less than 5% of the price of that nice looking box.


Fair enough.


Searching the mailing list archive, it appears that you have an Asus 
PRIME Z370-A II motherboard (?):

 
https://www.asus.com/motherboards-components/motherboards/prime/prime-z370-a-ii/


And, an Intel Core i5 processor (?).  Which model?


How many GB of OS and apps do you have?  Home directory?  Bulk data? 
Amanda backups?  VM's?  Other?


While researching this thread, I came across an HBA that may interest 
both of us:


     https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09L3GLCL9


4x the bandwidth (3.94 GB/s), 8 more SATA ports (24 total), and $42.31 
higher price ($117.30).  I would prefer this card for the bandwidth 
alone, and I never know when I might need those extra ports to 
temporarily connect a bunch of disks from other machines.


If your goal is maximum capacity at minimum cost, HDD's have larger 
capacity, lower bandwidth, and lower cost per TB than SSD's -- per bay, 
per drive, and per port.  Port multiplication makes sense with HDD's.


For file server and backup server roles, I use ZFS with HDD primary 
storage devices and full bandwidth HBA.  Read performance, write 
performance, and capacity utilization can be improved with ZFS 
compression, read performance can be improved with an SSD cache vdev 
(virtual device; e.g. partition), and write performance can be improved 
with SSD intent log vdev (mirror of partitions).  For the backup server 
role, capacity utilization can be improved with ZFS deduplication and an 
SSD dedup vdev (mirror of partitions).


Regardless of what you do with HBA's, I would connect the six SSD's to 
the six motherboard SATA III ports.


A fresh install of  Debian stable or old-stable should solve the storage 
I/O stuttering problems you are experiencing.  (That motherboard has 
dual M.2 ports.  Installing Debian onto an M.2 PCIE 3.0 x4 SSD would be 
very nice.)


David

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#261731

On 9/16/23 19:46, David Christensen wrote:
> On 9/15/23 19:37, gene heskett wrote:
>> On 9/15/23 20:12, David Christensen wrote:
>>> On 9/15/23 15:04, gene heskett wrote:
>>>> On 9/15/23 17:35, David Christensen wrote:
>>>>> On 9/15/23 12:28, gene heskett wrote:
>>>>>> I've just ordered some stuff to rebuild or expand my Raid setup.
>>>>>> This 16 port sata-III pci-e card:
>>>>>> <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09L184W57?smid=A2H818KAC5I4D1&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp&th=1>
>>>>>> along with a bigger drive cage, cables and such and some gigastone 
>>>>>> 2T drives to make a raid big enough to run amanda. And maybe put a 
>>>>>> new card in front of my 2T /home raid10.
>>>>>
>>>>> Is everything going into one chassis?  Have you considered an 
>>>>> external drive chassis?
>>>>
>>>> Got one of those coming too. Small possibility it will fit it the 
>>>> bottom of this huge and old tiger direct tower.  Because the 
>>>> radiator for the 6 core i5 is too tall, it hasn't had a side cover 
>>>> on it in years. If not, theres a 3 3.5" cage at the bottom of the 
>>>> stack I can stuff  with 2 SSD's per bay slot. A hidey place, front 
>>>> cover is solid, but cooling might be a problem. If worse comes to 
>>>> worse I could shoe-goo a 120x15 to the side of the cage.
>>>
>>>
>>> This is what I meant:
>>>
>>>      https://www.pc-pitstop.com/16-bay-25inch-sas-sata-jbod-tower
>>
>> Call me cheap, my choice is diy assembly, SS stampings you put 
>> together, all drive brackets and a dozen cables and a 5 drive power 
>> splitter, $30.
>> Less than 5% of the price of that nice looking box.
> 
> 
> Fair enough.
> 
> 
> Searching the mailing list archive, it appears that you have an Asus 
> PRIME Z370-A II motherboard (?):
> 
> 
> https://www.asus.com/motherboards-components/motherboards/prime/prime-z370-a-ii/
> 
> 
> And, an Intel Core i5 processor (?).  Which model?

cpuinfo can't copy/paste, 6 core, i5-9600K CPU @ 3.70GHz but apparently 
very pushable, I ran one cycle of memtester pointed at 16G's and saw it 
above 4300 mhz a couple times, and that core hit 51C, which is 20C 
hotter than its ever run b4. With my intermittent load it often loafs at 
800 mhz & 29C, 33C when OpenSCAD is munching on something I've designed.

> How many GB of OS and apps do you have?  Home directory?  Bulk data? 
> Amanda backups?  VM's?  Other?
> 
> 
> While researching this thread, I came across an HBA that may interest 
> both of us:
> 
> 
>      https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09L3GLCL9
> 
Thats nice but only an x4 for $117, how about an x16, which I have an 
empty slot for a full length X16 at $160:
<https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09K5GLJ8D/ref=sspa_dk_detail_1?pd_rd_i=B09K5GLJ8D&pd_rd_w=uURqc&content-id=amzn1.sym.386c274b-4bfe-4421-9052-a1a56db557ab&pf_rd_p=386c274b-4bfe-4421-9052-a1a56db557ab&pf_rd_r=VS9WAJ20QJWARTNAFRHD&pd_rd_wg=yO0Xv&pd_rd_r=fa3d74b2-3aa8-4d29-b549-1cf579949c11&s=pc&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9kZXRhaWxfdGhlbWF0aWM&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzNzVCT0w1MVhVSkpRJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwODc2OTQ3M0YxSkhTSzdZQUpSSyZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNTMyMjkxMTVOQUNFNEhLMFZPTyZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2RldGFpbF90aGVtYXRpYyZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU&th=1>

Or is the jmicron x4 better supported?
> 
> 4x the bandwidth (3.94 GB/s), 8 more SATA ports (24 total), and $42.31 
> higher price ($117.30).  I would prefer this card for the bandwidth 
> alone, and I never know when I might need those extra ports to 
> temporarily connect a bunch of disks from other machines.
> 
> 
> If your goal is maximum capacity at minimum cost, HDD's have larger 
> capacity, lower bandwidth, and lower cost per TB than SSD's -- per bay, 
> per drive, and per port.  Port multiplication makes sense with HDD's.
> 
> 
> For file server and backup server roles, I use ZFS with HDD primary 
> storage devices and full bandwidth HBA.  Read performance, write 
> performance, and capacity utilization can be improved with ZFS 
> compression, read performance can be improved with an SSD cache vdev 
> (virtual device; e.g. partition), and write performance can be improved 
> with SSD intent log vdev (mirror of partitions).  For the backup server 
> role, capacity utilization can be improved with ZFS deduplication and an 
> SSD dedup vdev (mirror of partitions).
> 
> 
> Regardless of what you do with HBA's, I would connect the six SSD's to 
> the six motherboard SATA III ports.
> 
Which would tie them up. Is that the faster solution, moving the 
opticals to a different card? The question then is can the bios see them 
to boot from them?

I did grab what I think is a newer bios yesterday but haven't tried to 
install it yet.
  mt86plus_6.20_64.grub.iso.zip
> 
> A fresh install of  Debian stable or old-stable should solve the storage 
> I/O stuttering problems you are experiencing.  (That motherboard has 
> dual M.2 ports.  Installing Debian onto an M.2 PCIE 3.0 x4 SSD would be 
> very nice.)
> 
I know zip about the new m2 stuff. Link to good info appreciated. I 
didn't use it originally because I couldn't find the m2 sockets but 
probably didn't look too hard as I was more concerned with getting 
another system built after a usb socket on the previous occupant of that 
space caught fire and tried to burn the place down.

Can you find a link showing where the m2 memory is plugged in?
My 32G is in the dimm sockets.
> 
> David
> 
> .
Thank you David.  Take care & stay well.

Cheers, Gene Heskett.
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
  - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/>

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#261741

On Sun, Sep 17, 2023 at 06:26:49AM -0400, gene heskett wrote:
> On 9/16/23 19:46, David Christensen wrote:
> > On 9/15/23 19:37, gene heskett wrote:
> > > On 9/15/23 20:12, David Christensen wrote:
> > > > On 9/15/23 15:04, gene heskett wrote:
> > > > > On 9/15/23 17:35, David Christensen wrote:
> > > > > > On 9/15/23 12:28, gene heskett wrote:
> > > > > > > I've just ordered some stuff to rebuild or expand my Raid setup.
> > > > > > > This 16 port sata-III pci-e card:
> > > > > > > <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09L184W57?smid=A2H818KAC5I4D1&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp&th=1>
> > > > > > > along with a bigger drive cage, cables and such and
> > > > > > > some gigastone 2T drives to make a raid big enough
> > > > > > > to run amanda. And maybe put a new card in front of
> > > > > > > my 2T /home raid10.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Is everything going into one chassis?  Have you
> > > > > > considered an external drive chassis?
> > > > > 
> > > 
> > > Call me cheap, my choice is diy assembly, SS stampings you put
> > > together, all drive brackets and a dozen cables and a 5 drive power
> > > splitter, $30.
> > > Less than 5% of the price of that nice looking box.
> > 
> > 
> > Fair enough.
> > 
> > 
> > Searching the mailing list archive, it appears that you have an Asus
> > PRIME Z370-A II motherboard (?):
> > 
> > 
> > https://www.asus.com/motherboards-components/motherboards/prime/prime-z370-a-ii/
> > 
> > 
> > And, an Intel Core i5 processor (?).  Which model?
> 
> cpuinfo can't copy/paste, 6 core, i5-9600K CPU @ 3.70GHz but apparently very
> pushable, I ran one cycle of memtester pointed at 16G's and saw it above
> 4300 mhz a couple times, and that core hit 51C, which is 20C hotter than its
> ever run b4. With my intermittent load it often loafs at 800 mhz & 29C, 33C
> when OpenSCAD is munching on something I've designed.
> 
> > How many GB of OS and apps do you have?  Home directory?  Bulk data?
> > Amanda backups?  VM's?  Other?
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 4x the bandwidth (3.94 GB/s), 8 more SATA ports (24 total), and $42.31
> > higher price ($117.30).  I would prefer this card for the bandwidth
> > alone, and I never know when I might need those extra ports to
> > temporarily connect a bunch of disks from other machines.
> > 
> > 
> > If your goal is maximum capacity at minimum cost, HDD's have larger
> > capacity, lower bandwidth, and lower cost per TB than SSD's -- per bay,
> > per drive, and per port.  Port multiplication makes sense with HDD's.
> > 
> > 
> > For file server and backup server roles, I use ZFS with HDD primary
> > storage devices and full bandwidth HBA.  Read performance, write
> > performance, and capacity utilization can be improved with ZFS
> > compression, read performance can be improved with an SSD cache vdev
> > (virtual device; e.g. partition), and write performance can be improved
> > with SSD intent log vdev (mirror of partitions).  For the backup server
> > role, capacity utilization can be improved with ZFS deduplication and an
> > SSD dedup vdev (mirror of partitions).
> > 
> > 
> > Regardless of what you do with HBA's, I would connect the six SSD's to
> > the six motherboard SATA III ports.
> > 
> Which would tie them up. Is that the faster solution, moving the opticals to
> a different card? The question then is can the bios see them to boot from
> them?
> 
> I did grab what I think is a newer bios yesterday but haven't tried to
> install it yet.
>  mt86plus_6.20_64.grub.iso.zip
> > 
> > A fresh install of  Debian stable or old-stable should solve the storage
> > I/O stuttering problems you are experiencing.  (That motherboard has
> > dual M.2 ports.  Installing Debian onto an M.2 PCIE 3.0 x4 SSD would be
> > very nice.)
> > 

See below: maybe get a new machine to do this on ...

> I know zip about the new m2 stuff. Link to good info appreciated. I didn't
> use it originally because I couldn't find the m2 sockets but probably didn't
> look too hard as I was more concerned with getting another system built
> after a usb socket on the previous occupant of that space caught fire and
> tried to burn the place down.
> 

Given what you have: m2 is probably faster than anything else you've got.
Chuck a terabyte drive in and forget about running Debian anywhere else
for your OS.

Any add in card is likely to be slower than your MB sata ports which are
relatively well connected / you will end up with contention between a 
relatively fast card and the motherboard with a bottleneck somewhere.

Unless you buy the very best server grade cards - and even then - cheap
cards are doing everything in software so you're just running an expensive
bunch of disks and doing software RAID anyway - at which point you might as
well be using mdadm. ZFS - a whole new learning curve for you, a bunch of
tuning you may or may not want to do - and another thing for you to blame
in due course, perhaps..

You have a fascination for buying drives and kludging things together -
you might honestly be better getting yourself a really good case and
a motherboard installed by someone else and then just building up a 
reasonable machine from a clean install at this point - and you wouldn't 
necessarily lose any data.


> Can you find a link showing where the m2 memory is plugged in?
> My 32G is in the dimm sockets.
> > 
> > David
> > 
> > .
> Thank you David.  Take care & stay well.
> 
> Cheers, Gene Heskett.
> -- 

All the very best, as ever

Andy
> 

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#261744

On 9/17/23 03:26, gene heskett wrote:
> On 9/16/23 19:46, David Christensen wrote:
>> On 9/15/23 19:37, gene heskett wrote:
>>> On 9/15/23 20:12, David Christensen wrote:
>>>> On 9/15/23 15:04, gene heskett wrote:
>>>>> On 9/15/23 17:35, David Christensen wrote:
>>>>>> On 9/15/23 12:28, gene heskett wrote:
>>>>>>> I've just ordered some stuff to rebuild or expand my Raid setup.
>>>>>>> This 16 port sata-III pci-e card:
>>>>>>> <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09L184W57?smid=A2H818KAC5I4D1&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp&th=1>
>>>>>>> along with a bigger drive cage, cables and such and some 
>>>>>>> gigastone 2T drives to make a raid big enough to run amanda. And 
>>>>>>> maybe put a new card in front of my 2T /home raid10.
>>
>> Searching the mailing list archive, it appears that you have an Asus 
>> PRIME Z370-A II motherboard (?):
>>
>> https://www.asus.com/motherboards-components/motherboards/prime/prime-z370-a-ii/
>>
>> And, an Intel Core i5 processor (?).  Which model?
> 
> cpuinfo can't copy/paste, 6 core, i5-9600K CPU @ 3.70GHz ...


Okay.  I do not overclock, but the "K" suffix processor is usually the 
fastest OOTB in a given series.


>> How many GB of OS and apps do you have?  Home directory?  Bulk data? 
>> Amanda backups?  VM's?  Other?


Knowing how much and what kind of live, backup, and whatever data you 
have would help us make better suggestions for storage.  Similarly, your 
drives, HBA's, chassis, and chassis mods (notably drive bays).


>> While researching this thread, I came across an HBA that may interest 
>> both of us:
>>
>>      https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09L3GLCL9
>>
>> 4x the bandwidth (3.94 GB/s), 8 more SATA ports (24 total), and $42.31
>> higher price ($117.30).  I would prefer this card for the bandwidth
>> alone, and I never know when I might need those extra ports to
>> temporarily connect a bunch of disks from other machines.

There is an Amazon review that states the IO CREST is PCIe 3.0 x2 
electrically.  If correct, the bandwidth is 1.97 GB/s, which should be 
sufficient to saturate about a dozen HDD's.


The Amazon page for the IO CREST provides a part number:

     SI-PEX40169


STFW for the part number leads to a Syba HBA:

     https://www.sybausa.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=1095

     Uses 5 JMB575 ( 8 SATA Ports Per Slim SAS) connected to a JMB582 via
     Port Multiplier Mode


STFW for the chips:

* JMB582

     https://www.jmicron.com/products/list/15

     PCIe Gen3 x1 to Dual SATA 6Gb/s

* JMB575

     https://www.jmicron.com/products/list/16

     1 to 5 ports SATA 6Gb/s
     Port Multiplier / Port Selector


STFW it is hard to find good technical information, infer the 
architecture, or reason about the performance of the HBA.


I have some Syba PCIe 1.0 x1 to 2 @ SATA II HBA's on the shelf.  They 
have worked with Windows, Debian, and/or FreeBSD for many years.


> Thats nice but only an x4 for $117, how about an x16, which I have an 
> empty slot for a full length X16 at $160: > https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09K5GLJ8D


The Amazon page for the BEYIMEI HBA states:

     Use chipset 6 * ASM1064 + ASM1812 * 1 main control chip


STFW for those chips:

* ASM1064:

     https://www.asmedia.com.tw/product/A58yQC9Sp5qg6TrF/58dYQ8bxZ4UR9wG5

     ASM1064, a SATA host controller(AHCI) with upstream PCIe Gen3 x1 and
     downstream four SATA Gen3 ports. It’s a low latency, low cost and
     low power AHCI controller. With four SATA ports and cascaded port
     multipliers, ASM1064 can enable users to build up various high speed
     IO systems, including server, high capacity system storage or
     surveillance platforms.

* ASM1812:

     https://www.asmedia.com.tw/product/1e2yQ48sx5HT2pUF/b7FyQBCxz2URbzg0

     ASMedia PCIe product ASM1812, a low latency, low cost and low power
     12 lane , maximum 6 downstream ports packet switch. With upstream
     PCIe Gen2x4 bandwidth, ASM1812 can enable users to build up various
     high speed IO systems, including server, system storage or
     communication platforms.


Again, it is hard to find technical information, infer the architecture, 
or reason about performance of the HBA.


> Or is the jmicron x4 better supported?


I do not know.  One option is to STFW for release notes, bug reports, 
reviews, etc..  After that, I expect it boils down to "buy it, try it; 
return if not satisfied".


>> Regardless of what you do with HBA's, I would connect the six SSD's to 
>> the six motherboard SATA III ports.
>
> Which would tie them up. Is that the faster solution, moving the 
> opticals to a different card? 


My optical drives are SATA I (1.5 Gbps).  I connect them to the slowest 
SATA ports in my computers.  I use the motherboard SATA III ports for my 
fastest SATA drives under the heaviest workloads -- SSD system drives 
and cache/ ZIL/ dedup vdev's.


> The question then is can the bios see them 
> to boot from them?


That depends upon the SATA port and the drive.  If you must, you can 
make a temporary connection while booting and running an optical disc.


> I did grab what I think is a newer bios yesterday but haven't tried to 
> install it yet.
>   mt86plus_6.20_64.grub.iso.zip


Motherboard firmware upgrades come with the risk of bricking your 
computer.  I tend to run my motherboards with whatever firmware they 
came with, unless I am suffering under some bug that is identified and 
fixed by a firmware upgrade.


>> A fresh install of  Debian stable or old-stable should solve the 
>> storage I/O stuttering problems you are experiencing.  (That 
>> motherboard has dual M.2 ports.  Installing Debian onto an M.2 PCIE 
>> 3.0 x4 SSD would be very nice.)
>>
> I know zip about the new m2 stuff. Link to good info appreciated. 


Wikipedia is a good start:

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.2


PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD provides a noticeable performance improvement over one 
SATA SSD -- up to ~6.5x.


> Can you find a link showing where the m2 memory is plugged in?
> My 32G is in the dimm sockets.


Looking at "PRIME Z370-A II User’s Manual", English, Version E14608:

 
https://www.asus.com/motherboards-components/motherboards/prime/prime-z370-a-ii/helpdesk_manual/?model2Name=PRIME-Z370-A-II

* See Section 1.1.2 "Motherboard Layout", page 1-2, items #18.

* See section 2.1.9 "M.2 installation", page 2-12.

* See Section 3.6.8 "Onboard Devices Configuration", page 3-19.


It looks like the motherboard shares some PCIe and/or SATA lanes between 
SATA ports and M.2 ports, so you must be careful with your choices.  I 
suggest installing an M.2 PCIe x4 SSD into slot M.2_1 and configuring it 
for "PCIE mode", so that it works and all 6 SATA ports work.  You will 
want to use EUFI mode and GPT when installing Debian.


> Thank you David.  Take care & stay well.


Likewise.  :-)


David

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#261746

On 9/17/23 17:52, David Christensen wrote:
> On 9/17/23 03:26, gene heskett wrote:
>> On 9/16/23 19:46, David Christensen wrote:
>>> On 9/15/23 19:37, gene heskett wrote:
>>>> On 9/15/23 20:12, David Christensen wrote:
>>>>> On 9/15/23 15:04, gene heskett wrote:
>>>>>> On 9/15/23 17:35, David Christensen wrote:
>>>>>>> On 9/15/23 12:28, gene heskett wrote:
>>>>>>>> I've just ordered some stuff to rebuild or expand my Raid setup.
>>>>>>>> This 16 port sata-III pci-e card:
>>>>>>>> <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09L184W57?smid=A2H818KAC5I4D1&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp&th=1>
>>>>>>>> along with a bigger drive cage, cables and such and some 
>>>>>>>> gigastone 2T drives to make a raid big enough to run amanda. And 
>>>>>>>> maybe put a new card in front of my 2T /home raid10.
>>>
>>> Searching the mailing list archive, it appears that you have an Asus 
>>> PRIME Z370-A II motherboard (?):
>>>
>>> https://www.asus.com/motherboards-components/motherboards/prime/prime-z370-a-ii/
>>>
>>> And, an Intel Core i5 processor (?).  Which model?
>>
>> cpuinfo can't copy/paste, 6 core, i5-9600K CPU @ 3.70GHz ...
> 
> 
> Okay.  I do not overclock, but the "K" suffix processor is usually the 
> fastest OOTB in a given series.
> 
> 
>>> How many GB of OS and apps do you have?  Home directory?  Bulk data? 
>>> Amanda backups?  VM's?  Other?
> 
> 
> Knowing how much and what kind of live, backup, and whatever data you 
> have would help us make better suggestions for storage.  Similarly, your 
> drives, HBA's, chassis, and chassis mods (notably drive bays).
> 
> 
>>> While researching this thread, I came across an HBA that may interest 
>>> both of us:
>>>
>>>      https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09L3GLCL9
>>>
>>> 4x the bandwidth (3.94 GB/s), 8 more SATA ports (24 total), and $42.31
>>> higher price ($117.30).  I would prefer this card for the bandwidth
>>> alone, and I never know when I might need those extra ports to
>>> temporarily connect a bunch of disks from other machines.
> 
> There is an Amazon review that states the IO CREST is PCIe 3.0 x2 
> electrically.  If correct, the bandwidth is 1.97 GB/s, which should be 
> sufficient to saturate about a dozen HDD's.
> 
> 
> The Amazon page for the IO CREST provides a part number:
> 
>      SI-PEX40169
> 
> 
> STFW for the part number leads to a Syba HBA:
> 
>      
> https://www.sybausa.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=1095
> 
>      Uses 5 JMB575 ( 8 SATA Ports Per Slim SAS) connected to a JMB582 via
>      Port Multiplier Mode
> 
> 
> STFW for the chips:
> 
> * JMB582
> 
>      https://www.jmicron.com/products/list/15
> 
>      PCIe Gen3 x1 to Dual SATA 6Gb/s
> 
> * JMB575
> 
>      https://www.jmicron.com/products/list/16
> 
>      1 to 5 ports SATA 6Gb/s
>      Port Multiplier / Port Selector
> 
> 
> STFW it is hard to find good technical information, infer the 
> architecture, or reason about the performance of the HBA.
> 
> 
> I have some Syba PCIe 1.0 x1 to 2 @ SATA II HBA's on the shelf.  They 
> have worked with Windows, Debian, and/or FreeBSD for many years.
> 
> 
>> Thats nice but only an x4 for $117, how about an x16, which I have an 
>> empty slot for a full length X16 at $160: > 
>> https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09K5GLJ8D
> 
> 
> The Amazon page for the BEYIMEI HBA states:
> 
>      Use chipset 6 * ASM1064 + ASM1812 * 1 main control chip
> 
> 
> STFW for those chips:
> 
> * ASM1064:
> 
>      https://www.asmedia.com.tw/product/A58yQC9Sp5qg6TrF/58dYQ8bxZ4UR9wG5
> 
>      ASM1064, a SATA host controller(AHCI) with upstream PCIe Gen3 x1 and
>      downstream four SATA Gen3 ports. It’s a low latency, low cost and
>      low power AHCI controller. With four SATA ports and cascaded port
>      multipliers, ASM1064 can enable users to build up various high speed
>      IO systems, including server, high capacity system storage or
>      surveillance platforms.
> 
> * ASM1812:
> 
>      https://www.asmedia.com.tw/product/1e2yQ48sx5HT2pUF/b7FyQBCxz2URbzg0
> 
>      ASMedia PCIe product ASM1812, a low latency, low cost and low power
>      12 lane , maximum 6 downstream ports packet switch. With upstream
>      PCIe Gen2x4 bandwidth, ASM1812 can enable users to build up various
>      high speed IO systems, including server, system storage or
>      communication platforms.
> 
> 
> Again, it is hard to find technical information, infer the architecture, 
> or reason about performance of the HBA.
> 
> 
>> Or is the jmicron x4 better supported?
> 
> 
> I do not know.  One option is to STFW for release notes, bug reports, 
> reviews, etc..  After that, I expect it boils down to "buy it, try it; 
> return if not satisfied".
> 
> 
>>> Regardless of what you do with HBA's, I would connect the six SSD's 
>>> to the six motherboard SATA III ports.
>>
>> Which would tie them up. Is that the faster solution, moving the 
>> opticals to a different card? 
> 
> 
> My optical drives are SATA I (1.5 Gbps).  I connect them to the slowest 
> SATA ports in my computers.  I use the motherboard SATA III ports for my 
> fastest SATA drives under the heaviest workloads -- SSD system drives 
> and cache/ ZIL/ dedup vdev's.
> 
> 
>> The question then is can the bios see them to boot from them?
> 
> 
> That depends upon the SATA port and the drive.  If you must, you can 
> make a temporary connection while booting and running an optical disc.
> 
> 
>> I did grab what I think is a newer bios yesterday but haven't tried to 
>> install it yet.
>>   mt86plus_6.20_64.grub.iso.zip
> 
> 
> Motherboard firmware upgrades come with the risk of bricking your 
> computer.  I tend to run my motherboards with whatever firmware they 
> came with, unless I am suffering under some bug that is identified and 
> fixed by a firmware upgrade.
> 
> 
>>> A fresh install of  Debian stable or old-stable should solve the 
>>> storage I/O stuttering problems you are experiencing.  (That 
>>> motherboard has dual M.2 ports.  Installing Debian onto an M.2 PCIE 
>>> 3.0 x4 SSD would be very nice.)
>>>
>> I know zip about the new m2 stuff. Link to good info appreciated. 
> 
> 
> Wikipedia is a good start:
> 
>      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.2
> 
> 
> PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD provides a noticeable performance improvement over one 
> SATA SSD -- up to ~6.5x.
> 
> 
>> Can you find a link showing where the m2 memory is plugged in?
>> My 32G is in the dimm sockets.
> 
> 
> Looking at "PRIME Z370-A II User’s Manual", English, Version E14608:
> 
> 
> https://www.asus.com/motherboards-components/motherboards/prime/prime-z370-a-ii/helpdesk_manual/?model2Name=PRIME-Z370-A-II
> 
> * See Section 1.1.2 "Motherboard Layout", page 1-2, items #18.
> 
> * See section 2.1.9 "M.2 installation", page 2-12.
> 
> * See Section 3.6.8 "Onboard Devices Configuration", page 3-19.
> 
> 
> It looks like the motherboard shares some PCIe and/or SATA lanes between 
> SATA ports and M.2 ports, so you must be careful with your choices.  I 
> suggest installing an M.2 PCIe x4 SSD into slot M.2_1 and configuring it 
> for "PCIE mode", so that it works and all 6 SATA ports work.  You will 
> want to use EUFI mode and GPT when installing Debian.
> 
> 
Based on this, and a full sized manual printout,  I've ordered a 2T WD 
Black, supposedly a 2280 device. $100.

Question, when I put this in, what happens to the 32GB of dimms? How 
does this fit into the architecture?  I assume this isn't volatile but 
is quick storage.

I propose to put this in as suggested, which should leave all 6 
sata-III's available, Install bookworm to it, w/o the current ectra 
controller get it going, then put 3 of the 2T gigastones on sata1-2-3, 
use the bios to make a raid5 of them and mount it as /home, prove it 
works with some throw away stuff, then plug the existing raid10 
controller & mount it as moi, then format the raid5 again with gparted,
and turn mc loose copying /moi to /home to get my working data back. 
Then 3 more 2T gigastones on the last 3 mobo sata ports, make another 
raid5 out of those mounted as amandatapes.. Unforch, I had a wrapper 
around amanda that it took me 5 years to fine tune but I've no idea if a 
backup copy exists anyplace it this midden heap. Amanda, as it exists, 
if you start a recovery to bare metal, can only restore to yesterday, my 
wrapper was a special deal that grabbed the database fom the just 
finished backup and put that into the vtape, uncompressed which if that 
was untared to the bare metal gave anmanda the data for recovery that 
would bring the system back to this mornings state. It also cleaned out 
the database of any links that referenced vtapes that were recycled and 
re-used.

So while I'm familiar with amanda, its been sold to an outfit that 
doesn't care, so its getting long in the tooth with only user support.

Suggestions re other, more recent solutions will be accepted and 
studied.  Definitely must support backing up other machines of varying 
architectures on my local network. In addition to a 4 pack of linux 
running wintel stuff, there's the potential for 5 or so arms too. Gcodes 
for 3d printers are all unrolled loops and bulky as can be.

>> Thank you David.  Take care & stay well.
> 
> 
> Likewise.  :-)
> 
> 
> David
> 
Thank you David, take care and stay well.
> .

Cheers, Gene Heskett.
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
  - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/>

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#261751

On 9/17/23 18:17, gene heskett wrote:
> On 9/17/23 17:52, David Christensen wrote:
>> On 9/17/23 03:26, gene heskett wrote:
>>> On 9/16/23 19:46, David Christensen wrote:
>>>> On 9/15/23 19:37, gene heskett wrote:
>>>>> On 9/15/23 20:12, David Christensen wrote:
>>>>>> On 9/15/23 15:04, gene heskett wrote:
>>>>>>> On 9/15/23 17:35, David Christensen wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 9/15/23 12:28, gene heskett wrote:
>>>>>>>>> I've just ordered some stuff to rebuild or expand my Raid setup.
>>>>>>>>> This 16 port sata-III pci-e card:
>>>>>>>>> <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09L184W57?smid=A2H818KAC5I4D1&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp&th=1>
>>>>>>>>> along with a bigger drive cage, cables and such and some 
>>>>>>>>> gigastone 2T drives to make a raid big enough to run amanda. 
>>>>>>>>> And maybe put a new card in front of my 2T /home raid10.

>>>> ... Asus PRIME Z370-A II motherboard ...

>>> ... i5-9600K CPU @ 3.70GHz ...

>>>> A fresh install of  Debian stable or old-stable should solve the 
>>>> storage I/O stuttering problems you are experiencing.

>> It looks like the motherboard shares some PCIe and/or SATA lanes 
>> between SATA ports and M.2 ports, so you must be careful with your 
>> choices.  I suggest installing an M.2 PCIe x4 SSD into slot M.2_1 and 
>> configuring it for "PCIE mode", so that it works and all 6 SATA ports 
>> work.  You will want to use EUFI mode and GPT when installing Debian.

> Based on this, and a full sized manual printout,  I've ordered a 2T WD 
> Black, supposedly a 2280 device. $100.


This one?

     https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09QV5KJHV


> Question, when I put this in, what happens to the 32GB of dimms?  How 
> does this fit into the architecture?  I assume this isn't volatile but 
> is quick storage.


You will still have 32GB of memory.  The WD Black is a fast SSD.  The 
crux will be configuring your motherboard firmware Setup program so that 
d-i can see the WD Black during installation and so that the new Debian 
installation can boot and run.


> I propose to put this in as suggested, which should leave all 6 
> sata-III's available, Install bookworm to it, w/o the current ectra 
> controller get it going, then put 3 of the 2T gigastones on sata1-2-3, 
> use the bios to make a raid5 of them and mount it as /home, prove it 
> works with some throw away stuff, then plug the existing raid10 
> controller & mount it as moi, then format the raid5 again with gparted,
> and turn mc loose copying /moi to /home to get my working data back. 
> Then 3 more 2T gigastones on the last 3 mobo sata ports, make another 
> raid5 out of those mounted as amandatapes.. Unforch, I had a wrapper 
> around amanda that it took me 5 years to fine tune but I've no idea if a 
> backup copy exists anyplace it this midden heap. Amanda, as it exists, 
> if you start a recovery to bare metal, can only restore to yesterday, my 
> wrapper was a special deal that grabbed the database fom the just 
> finished backup and put that into the vtape, uncompressed which if that 
> was untared to the bare metal gave anmanda the data for recovery that 
> would bring the system back to this mornings state. It also cleaned out 
> the database of any links that referenced vtapes that were recycled and 
> re-used.


Most hardware- and hybrid hardware/ software RAID solutions expect 
Windows -- e.g. the manufacturer provides a Windows bundle with device 
driver, CLI, GUI, etc..  Looking at the Asus PRIME Z370-A II Driver & 
Tools page, I see various Windows packages related to storage, but 
nothing for Linux.  Unless you can find suitable Debian packages, I 
would advise against motherboard RAID.


Debian supports software RAID via md, LVM, and btrfs.  I suggest that 
you use one of those.


ZFS is another possibility, but the learning curve is non-trivial.


> So while I'm familiar with amanda, its been sold to an outfit that 
> doesn't care, so its getting long in the tooth with only user support.
> 
> Suggestions re other, more recent solutions will be accepted and 
> studied.  Definitely must support backing up other machines of varying 
> architectures on my local network. In addition to a 4 pack of linux 
> running wintel stuff, there's the potential for 5 or so arms too. Gcodes 
> for 3d printers are all unrolled loops and bulky as can be.


I suggest starting with the WD Black and the new Debian installation.  A 
fresh install on a new device will simplify re-arranging the rest of 
your disks later.  The challenge will be deciding what data to put on it 
after Debian boot, swap, and root; and if and how to subdivide the space.


> Thank you David, take care and stay well.

Likewise.  :-)


David

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