Request about the Addonics Quad msata card

[JD575]

Hello folks,

I have a Addonics msata quad card and the Link Speed says 6Gb, but the Negotiated Link Speed says 1.5. However, my SSDs on the card says 6Gb and 6Gb. I am not using the hardware RAID on the moment.

Does others have the same readings?

I used SoftRaid Lite (since El Capitan doesn't have RAID) to do a RAID 0 and had I/O problems. SoftRaid blamed the card, and I have no errors when I don't use RAID 0. Addonics says to set it up as a HW RAID.

I came across the link speed issue today after continue experimenting with different configs.

 

[handheldgames]

Hello folks,

I have a Addonics msata quad card and the Link Speed says 6Gb, but the Negotiated Link Speed says 1.5. However, my SSDs on the card says 6Gb and 6Gb. I am not using the hardware RAID on the moment.

Does others have the same readings?

I used SoftRaid Lite (since El Capitan doesn't have RAID) to do a RAID 0 and had I/O problems. SoftRaid blamed the card, and I have no errors when I don't use RAID 0. Addonics says to set it up as a HW RAID.

I came across the link speed issue today after continue experimenting with different configs.

I think this may be the card you are having an issue with:

If you are having a performance issue. Take a look in About this Mac, System Report, PCI Devices. I'm attaching an example below. Select your device populated in the list and take a examine Link Width and Link Speed.


PCIe MSATA Adapter specifications show:

• 6 Gbps Hardware RAID AHCI 4Ports mSATA PCIe Gen2 x2 electrical and x4 mechanical Host Adapter
• Compliant with 10Gbps PCI Express 2.0

Your board should show a Link Width: x2 and Link Speed: 5.0GT/s. If the link speed is 2.5GT/s, performance effectively drops to PCIe 1.0 speeds. Have you installed the Marvell Storage Utility(direct link)? This may allow you to setup a hardware raid 0 is OS X. The file is listed on Lycom's Download page, as I believe they are the ODM manufacturer for Addonic's branded adapter.

 

[666sheep]

Hello folks,

I have a Addonics msata quad card and the Link Speed says 6Gb, but the Negotiated Link Speed says 1.5. However, my SSDs on the card says 6Gb and 6Gb. I am not using the hardware RAID on the moment.

Does others have the same readings?

I used SoftRaid Lite (since El Capitan doesn't have RAID) to do a RAID 0 and had I/O problems. SoftRaid blamed the card, and I have no errors when I don't use RAID 0. Addonics says to set it up as a HW RAID.

I came across the link speed issue today after continue experimenting with different configs.

I'll check mine in El Cap and will report back.

BTW, El Cap "does" RAID, just from Terminal only.
You can retrofit Yosemite DU if you need to get GUI RAID creation back.
Info is available on the someone's blog in the web or in El Cap sub-forum.

 

[JD575]

Bump

 

[JD575]

I think this may be the card you are having an issue with:

If you are having a performance issue. Take a look in About this Mac, System Report, PCI Devices. I'm attaching an example below. Select your device populated in the list and take a examine Link Width and Link Speed.

View attachment 604159
PCIe MSATA Adapter specifications show:

• 6 Gbps Hardware RAID AHCI 4Ports mSATA PCIe Gen2 x2 electrical and x4 mechanical Host Adapter
• Compliant with 10Gbps PCI Express 2.0

Your board should show a Link Width: x2 and Link Speed: 5.0GT/s. If the link speed is 2.5GT/s, performance effectively drops to PCIe 1.0 speeds. Have you installed the Marvell Storage Utility(direct link)? This may allow you to setup a hardware raid 0 is OS X. The file is listed on Lycom's Download page, as I believe they are the ODM manufacturer for Addonic's branded adapter.

Thanks. My Link Width does show x2 and Speed is 5 GT/s. The Marvell Storage Utility does not work in the current OSX. I will need to find a Windows box or Boot Camp. Which is a mess with the current version. Apple Boot Camp does not support older computers.

 

[JD575]

I'll check mine in El Cap and will report back.

BTW, El Cap "does" RAID, just from Terminal only.
You can retrofit Yosemite DU if you need to get GUI RAID creation back.
Info is available on the someone's blog in the web or in El Cap sub-forum.

I heard El Cap does through Terminal. I figure that SoftRaid would be better drivers since Apple has not updated their RAID drivers for years. However, apparently folks don't seem to have issues with Apples RAID and this card.

Do you have your card in a Software RAID or Hardware? I did reach out for Addonics via email and told them of my discovery. I will try HW RAID. Just did not really want to deal with Boot Camp in its current form.

 

[666sheep]

Where exactly in ASP do you see this 1.5Gb/s?

 

[JD575]

^^^

Where exactly in ASP do you see this 1.5Gb/s?

Scroll down to the Marvell controller. Let me know what you find.

Thanks

 

[666sheep]

You mean Marvell Virtual?
It's virtual RAID device. When you'd use pseudo-hardware RAID feature of this card, negotiated speed should change itself to 6Gb/s. Now it's 1.5 because there's no RAID configured on the card i.e. no drives connected to virtual device.
Link speed valid for non-hardware RAID config is marked on my screenshot.
Personally I wouldn't use this "HW" feature (which in fact is software RAID) because you're losing TRIM support.

IMO your issues are coming from SoftRAID or bad SSD(s). Possibly 9230 + SoftRAID isn't a good marriage?

 

[JD575]

You mean Marvell Virtual?
It's virtual RAID device. When you'd use pseudo-hardware RAID feature of this card, negotiated speed should change itself to 6Gb/s. Now it's 1.5 because there's no RAID configured on the card i.e. no drives connected to virtual device.
Link speed valid for non-hardware RAID config is marked on my screenshot.
Personally I wouldn't use this "HW" feature (which in fact is software RAID) because you're losing TRIM support.

IMO your issues are coming from SoftRAID or bad SSD(s). Possibly 9230 + SoftRAID isn't a good marriage?

Thanks 666 for the update and info. In software RAID that's what I get too for the drives.

I think it is a bad marriage. Apple RAID seems to be no problem for others. I had it in HW RAID with no problems. When I ungraded to El Capitan, I decided to use a software RAID. Thus I bought SoftRaid. I will take a look at using terminal for RAID.

TRIM goes out the window with HW RAID? Even if you enable it in OSX?

JD