[mythtv-users] OT: Problems with two hard drive controllers with an ASUS P5Q-E motherboard

[Roger Heflin]

The reviews on newegg (I wrote one of them) have 30% 1 star...that is
for multiple issues around the marvell AHCI chipset freaking out on
the Marvell card with linux, there are a number of others that were
trying to determine how to fix the bugs on it...i gave up, likely
marvell screwed up their firmware on their AHCI implementation.

Syba blames the rock solid AHCI linux driver that works with everyone
elses card...ignore the fact that all 4 ports lock up on the card
under certain conditions, and only a reboot will clear...and no other
AHCI ports have any issues under linux (many different vendors).

Note if you don't run smartctl and some other similar commands it gets
more stable...but at best it still is nowhere as reliable as as
build-in MB cards (intel's build-in and AMD's build in--be careful on
both of any SATA add-on ports on the MB...some of them suck).

I gave up on it and made sure to get a AMD FM2 MB with 8 build-in
ports and went back to a slow (but very reliable) old PCI (not PCIE)
controller for the few extra disks I don't need to be fast.

Syba sucks...Marvell Sucks.

On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 4:53 PM, Jerry <mythtv at hambone.e4ward.com> wrote:
> I'm having issues with both of my hard drives in my aging P5Q-E system.  I
> have a rather new Corsair Neutron 64GB SSD as my system drive and a 3 TB
> Seagate data drive.
>
> I have the 3 TB drive hooked up to the onboard controller.  It gives me
> errors occasionally when I record a show.  I have no errors shown when
> running smartctl -a.  I was unable to get the SSD working well with the
> onboard controller.  It was giving me errors constantly.  I sent it back
> three times until I determined I needed an external controller.
>
> Right now, I'm using a Startech PEXSAT34 controller which uses the Marvell
> 88SE9128 chipset.  It seems to be working well.  The only problem I have,
> and I'm beginning to think I'm just going to have to live with, is that I
> don't have a HDD activity light for devices attached to the card.  I like to
> know when my system is active and the lack of feedback is mildly annoying.
>
> I attempted to remedy the situation by ordering a controller with an LED
> header (Syba SD-PEX40054 with the Marvell 88SE9230 chipset).  It has the
> header and a pass through from the motherboard so you can see all of your
> HDD activity.  I got it connected, and it stayed mostly dimly lit,
> flickering brighter or briefly going off.  It wasn't what I wanted but I was
> willing to live with it.
>
> This newer card had more features (RAID capability and SSD Caching ability).
> Unfortunately, with the first card, I got major hard drive errors.  I sent
> it back and received the replacement today.  It doesn't miserably fail like
> the first card, but it has a good failure rate.
>
> What I don't understand is why the newer card would fail with a similar
> chipset.  I did not configure the drive as a RAID drive; I am not familiar
> with RAID and I like to keep things as simple as possible.
>
> Could the reason for these various failures be a failing PCIe bus or
> something similar?  Why would the current controller I'm using still work?
> I'm pretty confused.
>
> I did run the long test on my SSD drive and it came back clean.
>
> Frankly, I don't even need an SSD drive on this combined FE/BE.  I didn't
> have issues with my five or so year-old 1 TB hard drive.  I just thought it
> was an easy upgrade.  I have a feeling I'd have trouble with a newer hard
> drive as my system drive, so I suppose I might as well stick with the SSD.
>
> Any thoughts would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks!
> Jerry
>
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