SAS HBA and eSata Port Multipiers

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cdthede

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I'm looking to move to a new storage model and am looking at purchasing an IBM M1015 and flashing it to IT mode and using some flavor of NAS OS (NAS4Free/OMV/FreeNAS) for use of ZFS.
I'm trying to cut on some costs so I'm trying to reuse my Sans Digital eSata drive enclosures that I have never had any issues with.
I'm looking at getting the IBM M1015 along with a SFF-8087 to SFF-8088 converter and then a SFF-8088 to eSata breakout cable.
My question is, will the M1015 work correctly with my Sans Digital eSata drive enclosures as they are using port multipliers to be able to connect 4 drives with 1 eSata connection.

In my searches it appears to be some mixed reviews on if this works successfully or not.
Has anyone had experience with this type of setup or know if this would work or not?
 
your going to buy enough different hardware in an attempt to make that drive enclosure work that you might as well start from the beginning and not try to use that enclosure.

the bad deal with expanders is that they just do not always work with every controller. and finding someone that has used the exact setup you are wanting to try is probably not going to happen.

if you want to try, i would atleast look for a card with external ports to begin with. like the HP 221. i have had bad luck going from internal, too external, to cable, to device. there's no logical reason why other than cable length or maybe low quality connectors. but the fewer connections between host and device the better.

i do not know what expander chip your cage uses, and a good place to atleast start would be too see if there are compatible controllers for the expander chip on the device and then you can broaden your compatibility search a little bit.

i tried the expander route, and made a few nice setups. but it gets to a point where time is worth more than what a HBA is and a multiple HBA non-expander route starts looking better and better.
 
They're not using a SAS expander, they're using a SATA port multiplier and they're very different. As far as I'm aware, no SAS HBA support port multipliers. Even when using SATA controllers, not all of them support it (like Intel's integrated ones).
 
For the Sans digital box your pretty much limited to various marvel chipsets, sil 3132, and asmedia 1061, all sata and they need to support FIS based port multipliers, I've found for single drive performance the asmedia tends to be the best but for multiple drives marvels hyperduo based cards tend to work the best. the Sans digital box has a Sil 3722 or similar varaient for the port multiplier inside the box.
 
Thanks a lot for the insight here. Was trying to see if the IBM M1015 would work so that could use it in a future build I'm planning but don't have the funds to pull the trigger on just yet. I will have to look into the Marvel chip-sets to see what there is to offer.
 
cdthede said:
Thanks a lot for the insight here. Was trying to see if the IBM M1015 would work so that could use it in a future build I'm planning but don't have the funds to pull the trigger on just yet. I will have to look into the Marvel chip-sets to see what there is to offer.
Click to expand...

Didn't your external box come with a controller? Mine did, PCIe x1 card w/ 2 eSATA ports and no internal ones.

Though the PSU on mine died in short order, (*bleep*ing cheap Sans Digital stuff) the rest still works though so i'm feeding it via a molex plug. (I almost never use the thing so i'm not too concerned running 4x drives and the stuff off of one plug)
 
FnordMan said:
Didn't your external box come with a controller? Mine did, PCIe x1 card w/ 2 eSATA ports and no internal ones.

Though the PSU on mine died in short order, (*bleep*ing cheap Sans Digital stuff) the rest still works though so i'm feeding it via a molex plug. (I almost never use the thing so i'm not too concerned running 4x drives and the stuff off of one plug)
Click to expand...

Yeah, it did come with a HighPoint RR622 but I'm not a fan of the card so was looking for an alternative.
 
I have other enclosures (Icy Dock) but with the same marvell chips and with PCIe marvell controllers. I now only use them in USB as eSATA is too hit and miss, I run my computer for weeks without restarting, and sometimes when firing one of the enclosures in eSATA I would get a BSOD.

I also have M1015 cards however I never connected the two as I don't think it would work, and I would need a male SATA to female eSATA converter, not something too common.
 
Aesma said:
I have other enclosures (Icy Dock) but with the same marvell chips and with PCIe marvell controllers. I now only use them in USB as eSATA is too hit and miss, I run my computer for weeks without restarting, and sometimes when firing one of the enclosures in eSATA I would get a BSOD.

I also have M1015 cards however I never connected the two as I don't think it would work, and I would need a male SATA to female eSATA converter, not something too common.
Click to expand...

Huh, must be a windows thing then, reasonably certain I had a cheapo marvell one as well. (I forget and have zero clue where the controller ran off to) I had a couple running for weeks on end for the (linux) fileserver before I stopped using them due to lack of bandwidth issues. (8x drives via 2 eSATA ports all via a PCIe x1 connector.... bad idea)
 
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