Port Multipler Issues (ASM1061 & eSata JBOD)

[TomTomTuning]

MacPro5,1 (10.8.2)
ASM1061 PCIe sata/esata card
Sans Digital 4 Bay JBOD

So the ASM1061 has been working great with single drives attached to it. I remamber reading that card supported Port Multiplier (PM), so I decided to take advantage of a Cyber Mondaysale on a eSata JBOD.

I originally had the PCIe card setup for one internal sata and one external esata (I'll attach a photo of the jumpers). I loaded the JBOD with four hard drives and turned it on. There's four lights on the front of the enclosure to show activity, only the light for drive 1 is turning on... but nothing is showing up in Disk Utility.

I decided to mess around with the jumpers on the PCIe card, I configured them for both external esata connections... Same thing only drive 1 light turns on but this time the drive mounts an load. Slow read/write speeds but thats besides the point right now (50read/65write).

Jumpers: 1 Internal - 1 External

Does anyone know how to enable PM on this card?
Am I doing something wrong?


Thanks!

 

[ColdCase]

The card should automatically detect a port multiplier connection (if set to external), its part of the SATA spec and negotiated between the devices on connection. Not all port multipliers work with all controller cards, however. They are suppose to, but your mileage varies.

 

[slughead]

[nevermind]

 

[TomTomTuning]

The card should automatically detect a port multiplier connection (if set to external), its part of the SATA spec and negotiated between the devices on connection. Not all port multipliers work with all controller cards, however. They are suppose to, but your mileage varies.

Thank you! I guess the two aren't compatible.

I wonder why the drive would only mount while the card had both external ports selected.

 

[Loa]

Hello,

Just in case you miss my other post, the ASM1061 card doesn't recognize my PM enclosure.

Loa

 

[TomTomTuning]

Hello,

Just in case you miss my other post, the ASM1061 card doesn't recognize my PM enclosure.

Loa

Thanks Loa, I got excited when you originally said it worked for you. Thanks for clearing that up. I guess I'll look into getting another card that supports PM.

I believe the Sans Digital enclosure only supports SATAII, I'd be happy I'd I could get the same SATAII speeds my internal SATA ports provide, which is around 100mb

 

[TomTomTuning]

Q

Two year update... I bought a HighPoint RocketRaid 622 eSata card which supports PM and that solved my problem with the JBOD enclosure.

Now I have a new issue with the ASM1061 card. Around the same time I resolved the above issue, I stopped using the single SSD attached to the internal port of the ASM1061 card. I've kept the card installed on the computer but haven't used it in nearly two years. I just got a new SSD and figured I could attach it the same way I had the previous SSD.... but it's not working.

Slot 4 - ASM1061 card (2 external ports, 2 Internal ports)
Slot 3 - Lacie USB 3.0 card (2 external ports)
Slot 2 - RocketRaid 622 card (2 external ports)
Slot 1 - GPU

I can't format the drive while it's connected to the ASM1061 card. I connect it to an internal SataII port and it works fine. So I formatted the card while attached to the SataII port and then reattached it back to the SataIII connection on the ASM1061 card... The SSD will mount just fine but I can't write to it, I can't run a Black Magic Speed test with it, etc... Nada.

 

[Loa]

Hello,

Try removing all your non-GPU cards except the ASM and see if it works.

Loa

 

[TomTomTuning]

Hello,

Try removing all your non-GPU cards except the ASM and see if it works.

Loa

Hey Loa, thanks for the suggestions. I've actually started a new thread for this issue here https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1756316/

I gave that a try but it did not work.