Which SSD ports should I use?

Issues related to hardware problems
Post Reply
tech0925
Posts: 9
Joined: 2019/03/13 20:51:27

Which SSD ports should I use?

Post by tech0925 » 2019/04/29 17:30:44

Hi all,

I'm setting up a new Centos 7 server and my motherboard (AsRock - EP2C602-4L/D16 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product. ... 6813157350) has several ports to use. Here is what I would like to do.

I have 4 Intel 540s Series 2.5" 1TB SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive's. I'd like to use two of these for the Linux server and the other 2 ask backup drives. To clarify, when something is written to one of the first two drives it would be replicated to the other two drives should 1 of the 2 main drives fail.

The motherboard has the following 6GB/s ports.

SATAIII_M0
SATAIII_M1
SATAIII_M2
SATAIII_M3
SATAIII_0
SATAIII_1
SCU_PORT_0
SCU_PORT_1
SCU_PORT_2
SCU_PORT_3
SCU_PORT_4
SCU_PORT_5
SCU_PORT_6
SCU_PORT_7

Which should I use and why? Also, during the Centos 7 installation from a disk is there an option to have the other two disk automatically replicate themselves for in case of a failure? I've worked with Centos for many years but I am not use to building from scratch so I was hoping for some helpful advice in this area.

Also, a bit off topic, I have installed 16 (CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product. ... 6820233310) 1 in each slot. Will this memory be ok in a server? Finally, in my mobo for the ECC settings should I use auto or disabled?

Thanks in advance for helping with this!

User avatar
TrevorH
Site Admin
Posts: 33202
Joined: 2009/09/24 10:40:56
Location: Brighton, UK

Re: Which SSD ports should I use?

Post by TrevorH » 2019/04/29 17:52:38

Your RAM is not ECC capable so you cannot enable ECC. You need special ECC RAM to be able to use ECC. Best of my knowledge, Corsair do not make any ECC capable RAM.

From the specs of your motherboard on the Asrock website (the horse's mouth rather than newegg) it says
8 SATA2 (3.0 Gb/s) by Intel C602, Supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 10
2 SATA3 (6.0 Gb/s) by Intel C602, Supports RAID 0, 1
That means that only 2 of the SATA ports (the 6Gbps ones) on your board are capable of running an SSD at full speed. The other 8 are all half that speed. Unless you want to run your SSDs at around 275MB/s instead of 550MB/s then you either need to change boards or perhaps utilise a plugin PCIe SATA card containing at least 2 more 6Gbps SATA ports.

It should also be noted that it has
4 Intel 82574L LAN, Support PCIE Quad Gigabit LAN
which has to qualify as the worst network chipset that Intel ever made. They're riddled with hardware bugs that cause all sorts of problems, most of which can only be bypassed by disabling pcie ASPM on the kernel command line. You might want to look at disabling those and getting yet another PCIe card with network ports that actually work properly!
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
Info for USB installs on http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey
CentOS 5 and 6 are deadest, do not use them.
Use the FAQ Luke

tech0925
Posts: 9
Joined: 2019/03/13 20:51:27

Re: Which SSD ports should I use?

Post by tech0925 » 2019/04/29 17:57:52

Thank you for the quick reply!

Did you look at the correct MOBO model? EP2C602-4L/D16

Even in the manual it comes with it lists the ports that I mentioned at 6GB/s.

Thanks for the tip on the ethernet and ram as well! Could you recommend a good PCIe SATA card that you would use instead of the existing ports?

User avatar
TrevorH
Site Admin
Posts: 33202
Joined: 2009/09/24 10:40:56
Location: Brighton, UK

Re: Which SSD ports should I use?

Post by TrevorH » 2019/04/29 19:50:29

The manufacturer web page is https://www.asrockrack.com/general/prod ... ifications and it clearly states 2 x 6Gbps SATA and 8 x 3Gbps SATA.

Ah, and I missed the bit in the detailed specs where it also says "- Marvell SE9230: 4 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s, support RAID 0, 1, 10, NCQ, AHCI and "Hot Plug" functions". Not sure why they hide that but it adds another 4 x 6Gbps ports so you should be OK.

You'll want to look at Linux software RAID - mdadm - for the easiest way to replicate data from one disk to another and protect yourself from failure. Be aware that RAID is not a backup.
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
Info for USB installs on http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey
CentOS 5 and 6 are deadest, do not use them.
Use the FAQ Luke

tech0925
Posts: 9
Joined: 2019/03/13 20:51:27

Re: Which SSD ports should I use?

Post by tech0925 » 2019/04/30 13:12:46

Thank you Trevor!

Does it matter which SATA 6/Gb/s port that I use? I'm guessing not but I just wanted to check to make sure first.
TrevorH wrote:
2019/04/29 19:50:29
The manufacturer web page is https://www.asrockrack.com/general/prod ... ifications and it clearly states 2 x 6Gbps SATA and 8 x 3Gbps SATA.

Ah, and I missed the bit in the detailed specs where it also says "- Marvell SE9230: 4 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s, support RAID 0, 1, 10, NCQ, AHCI and "Hot Plug" functions". Not sure why they hide that but it adds another 4 x 6Gbps ports so you should be OK.

You'll want to look at Linux software RAID - mdadm - for the easiest way to replicate data from one disk to another and protect yourself from failure. Be aware that RAID is not a backup.

tech0925
Posts: 9
Joined: 2019/03/13 20:51:27

Re: Which SSD ports should I use?

Post by tech0925 » 2019/04/30 13:49:46

I may have answered my own question by doing some more research. It looks like the main installation would perform better on the SATAIII_0 and SATAIII_1 ports and the backup disk on the SATAIII_M0 and SATAIII_M1 ports.

Thanks again for giving me some pointers along the way that I haven't considered.

Post Reply