memeka Posted August 26, 2017 Posted August 26, 2017 Since I wanna get a jetson tx1 for some other stuff, I was wondering how do you guys think it will do as a NAS. I'm thinking I could connect 4 SATA HDDs to the PCIe2.0 4-lanes connector using something like http://www.ebay.com/itm/Marvell-9230-PCIe-To-4-SATA3-0-Raid-Card-PCI-Express-4Ports-SATA-6Gbps-Raid-Card/201168267815 (Marvell 9320) or http://www.ebay.com/itm/Free-Mouse-Pad-New-PCIe-x4-slot-Card-HyperDuo-4-port-SATA-III-SATA-3-4-port/381891976760 (Marvell 88SE9230) or http://www.ebay.com/itm/HighPoint-RocketRAID-640L-6Gb-s-SATA-RAID-Host-Adapter-Serial-ATA-600-PCI/332262844972 (please suggest others you think it would work, I just looked for x4 size PCIe cards that have 4 SATA ports to maximize bw, there are some 2x cards too but i suppose you can get max 250MB/s which would still be OK with HDDs i gues...) I'm also thinking this board could use ZFS RAID5 (64-bit A57). Maybe even use the SATA port for a SSD for L2ARC... Thoughts?
tkaiser Posted August 27, 2017 Posted August 27, 2017 We tested 4 port Marvell SATA adapters behind a single PCIe 2.x lane already: https://forum.armbian.com/index.php?/topic/4845-marvell-based-4-ports-mpci-sata-30/ (fast enough for spinning rust anyway) If I would have to decide whether to spend the same amount of money on a TX1 or on a HP Microserver I would always choose the latter since everything there to operate a couple of HDDs already (enclosure and properly dimensioned PSU) and more importantly ECC memory for data integrity.
memeka Posted August 27, 2017 Author Posted August 27, 2017 Well, in my case I don't have to decide between TX1 or something else, and the only extra amount of money I have to decide spending is for the SATA adapter (to get one or not; and if I do, which model). So you think that even a 2-lane card should be OK for 4 spinning drives, and any Marvell should be OK? (the prices for the 2-lane cards are smaller, and also I would prefer a short card, since a long one would extend above the native SATA port...) Or is there a chip you would recommend? Thanks.
tkaiser Posted August 27, 2017 Posted August 27, 2017 19 minutes ago, memeka said: So you think that even a 2-lane card should be OK for 4 spinning drives, and any Marvell should be OK? I would say so (since you're bottlenecked by Gigabit Ethernet anyway). My tests were made with this 88SE9215 card and based on results it should be possible to combine 4 HDDs in whatever mode to saturate the GbE connection between a client and the NAS.
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