Sata port multiplier support info

[Gaunoiu]

SATA port multiplier support!

This information is a nightmare to find. Let's populate this thread with tested boards.

A basic toy is needed - SATA 1 to 5 Port Multiplier Card - Item # SATA-5-PORT
All mobo manufacturers should have something similar and test. It takes 1 minute and every specification page should have this info : "X SATA Connectors, support NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug , "Port Multiplier Support - YES/ NO "

Many try to build low powered file servers or whatever with small boards and lots of hard drives. Small boards have 2-4 SATA ports and to get more without add-on cards, port multipliers are perfect.

I'll start:

870 Extreme 3 - SB850 has FULL support for port multipliers. All the ports on this board have PM, esata also. PM works in AHCI and RAID mode.

I want to find PM info on modern intel boards with h81.:

H81M-VG4 and H81M-DGS

A database like this, but with modern chipsets and boards, would be perfect - https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.ph...dware_features

[parsec]

Re: Sata port multiplier support info

Intel boards have for years now use the single chipset Platform Controller Hub (PCH) design. The H81 chipset is of the PCH type. The PCH contains the SATA interface, and there is no difference between boards using the same PCH.

Testing this on Intel SATA interfaces is not necessary, since they don't support port multipliers. You are correct that this information is difficult to find and is only found buried within descriptions of other information.

For example, this is from the Intel 8 series/C220 Series Chipset Family Platform Controller Hub (PCH) Datasheet:



That can be found in the descriptions of various registers.

I haven't searched through every Intel PCH document, but the ones that I have are all the same, no port multiplier support. I don't think that any of the Intel PCH SATA interfaces support port multipliers.

Apparently, the ASMedia 1061 SATA chips support port multipliers if I recall correctly.

[Gaunoiu]

Re: Sata port multiplier support info

Wow... that sucks.

H67 and previous PCH chips had PM support, according to this - https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.ph...dware_features

What's up with that?

Where should people look for a low powered mini mobo with PM?

[parsec]

Re: Sata port multiplier support info

I just checked in the Intel X79 chipset datasheet, and it contains the same information as the Intel 7 and 8 series chipset datasheets do, no support for port multipliers:

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/doc...-datasheet.pdf

Search on "port multiplier", the document is large. I don't know where the wiki table got the information about the X79 chipset, but the Intel datasheet does not support its claim.

The Intel 6 series chipset datasheet had seemingly contradictory information, I found several entries that said no port multiplier support, and one entry that said port multipliers were supported on SATA ports 4 and 5 only.

Looking at the wiki table, very few SATA chips support port multipliers. Many AMD chips do, but the list is not up to date. Several Marvell chips do, the ASMedia and JMicron do, and a couple others, otherwise the obsolete Nvidia and VIA chips have a chip or two that support PMs.

What board should people look for with PM? It looks like it could be an AMD board, but there aren't many small ones, at least from ASRock. You sure won't get this from Intel, all the Intel chips that support PMs are out of production.

[Gaunoiu]

Re: Sata port multiplier support info

The wiki database is linux related. Some intel chips work with linux drivers. I was reading that with windows it could be a RST issue, that's why port multiplier is not supported. Intel SATA controller lacks port multiplier - Chipsets - Motherboards

I have the 870 extrme 3 with sb850 that works and does everything i want. The issue is power. This build without any hard drives connected (870 extreme 3 + phenom 2 x4@3000, 2GB ram, hd5450) draws 50-60W from the wall when idle. With a modern small mobo + 22nm celeron with integrated video, idle should be under 20W.

I would go for something modern and cheap from amd, if the idle power usage is similar to a haswell. But again, i need to find if small AM1 and FM2 boards support this damn PM feature...

[parsec]

Re: Sata port multiplier support info

Have you ever seen mother boards like this, an ASRock model:

ASRock Rack > C2550D4I

This board has multiple Marvell SATA controllers, and although the two Marvell controllers used on this board (9230 and 9172) are not listed in that wiki list, there's a good chance that they have PM support, to be verified of course.

This is the link to the list of these ASRock server boards, the one I linked to above is on page three of the list, which has a couple more on that page that might be worthwhile. Most of these boards are high power server boards without the appropriate PM support (?) Just thought I'd point these out to you in case they were of any interest.

ASRock Rack > Products

[Gaunoiu]

Re: Sata port multiplier support info

I know about that server asrock board with cpu. It's too expensive and i don't think i can find it in .ro

Was looking into cheap pcie add-on cards. ASM1061 has PM - ASMedia Technology Inc. ???? , but this implementation doesn't - PCI E PCI Express to 4 Port SATA 3 0 eSATA 6 Gbps Adapter Converter Card ASM1061 | eBay

Tried the jmb363 on my gigabyte mobo and it stinks. PM works but the speeds are bad. They say it's sata2, but it caps at 150Mbps in hdtune bench, and real file copy is @~80MB/s. The pm toy is not limiting anything as i get the full speed of the hard drives when connected to the sb850 as if connected straight to a single port (~150MB/s). So even if jmb363 pcie 1x cheap cards are available - - http://www.2direct.de/media/datasheets/PC0003A.pdf " Supports Port Multiplier with Commandbased Switching on SATA II port" , i will avoid them due to crappy speed.