HP z820 LSI RAID 0 not working in 6gb/sec

[zEnthusiast]

Hi everyone, 

I have 2 raid 0 setups on an HP z820. One on the intel card and the other on the LSI card hooked up to an icy dock with ssds ( part no MB996SP-6SB). On the intel card, once I plugged both ssds into the 6gb/sec ports, I get 1000mb/sec sustained reads on samsung evo 960 ssds. Big performance boost. On the LSI card I can't break 600mb/sec which tells me they are operating in SATA 3gb/sec. Does the LSI card support SATA 6gb/sec? Or is it only the SAS drives that support this? I have updated drivers. 

Appreciate any insight. 

[DGroves]

you are incorrect in your assumptions on the SATA speeds the z820 offers. below are the correct speeds

• 2-channel SATA 6.0 Gb/s Interface (2 channels e-SATA configurable)
  4-channel SATA 3.0 Gb/s Interface
• 8-channel 6Gb SAS interface (8 SAS connectors on the motherboard),

the two native SATA 6GBps ports are the twp blue ports that are next to the four white ones

the 4 white (SCU) SATA ports are 3GBps comming from the C602 chipset

the 8 white ports running along the edge of the motherboard are the LSI 2308 (Mustang) ROC chip's SAS/SATA 6GBps ports

i recomend you reset the z820 bios back to defaults, and disable only the boot roms for the Nics and the LSI chip which will speed boot times note that disabling the boot rom on the LSI is not the same as disabling the LSI controller  itself

depending on the lenght of the cables and quality of the connections  themselves,  yes the LSI chip can step down to slower speeds

last, all of the above information is contained in the HP product descriptions , service manual, and quickspecs for the z820

you might want to try downloading/reading them in the future before posting a question

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03271150

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/SATA-cables-Is-there-a-difference-97/

[BambiBoomZ]

ZEnthusiast,

This may be related to the SATA connections between the drives mounted on the Icy  Dock no MB996SP-6SB to the LSI card.

Can you be more specific by what you mean by Intel card, and LSI card and describe more specifically the details of the Icy Dock to LSI connections? If by Intel and LSI, you mean the internal RAID controllers, then DGroves is correct in that there are only two SATAIII connections and the remainder are SATAII. To add additional SATAIII will require an add- on LSI or similar PCIe card on a PCIe3 x8 slot to run the additonal RAID  at full SATAIII.

BambiBoomZ

[zEnthusiast]

@DGroves. Thanks for the info. Yes I read the specs and documentation prior to posting. I understand the z820 only has 2 6gb/sec ports on the intel c600 sata controller. That's why I'm running the other RAID 0 pair on the LSI chip, since it's advertised as 6gb/sec. Although on the Broadcom site it contradicts the product brief with SATA 3gb/sec listed... The cables I'm using are 12" SATA 3 cablemod brand cables. Is there a way to access the LSI Mustang chip for some information on if and why it's down stepping the speed? Using software to query the interface I can't see the RAID array on the LSI chip ( I can on the intel chip). 

@BambiBoomZ. Are you saying the z820 only has 2 SATA III ports available for raid? So the LSI ports are SATA II?

Crystal Disk Info reports SATA 6gb/sec on drives hooked up to the LSI chip. However in benchmarking identical SSDs. Here are some results

Intel RAID 0 SSDs 950mb/sec

LSI SSD (1x non raid) 350mb/sec <--3gb/sec speed

LSI RAID 0 SSDs 350mb/sec (no improvement, I would expect to see 2x, ~700mb/sec) <-- looks to be capped at 3gb/sec, even at 3gb/sec speeds it should be doubled to 700 even if the drives are capable of 950 (6gb/sec). Perhapds the LSI chip's software raid isn't that good?

Yes I'll have to test direct without the icy dock to see if speeds improve. 

[DGroves · Accepted solution]

the LSI 2308 chip is 6GB for SAS  and 3GB for SATA in the z820 however the chip itself can do 6GB/6GB in either mode if the board maker enables it (which HP did not)

i recomend you install a  HP based card that is a oem of the  LSI 9211/9212

or better yet a LSI retail 9240 based card or a dell H310 card (h310 requires a small mod for the ic2 bus)

[zEnthusiast]

@DGroves. Thanks! this makes perfect sense now. Do you know if the LSI chip in the z840 supports SATA 6gb/sec? I may be able to get one of those. If not I will get a PCI card as suggested. 

[DGroves]

reguarding your z840 question, i will simply point out that google is your friend and as i pointed out previously this information is covered in numerous places by hp and quite easy to locate. as such it's not something that i going to spend time on since you can do this yourself

[zEnthusiast]

Ok, I ask because on the z820 the documentation isn't clear. Also this is what the z840 doc says 

"The HP Z840 has an embedded LSI 2308 SAS controller which supports eight 6 Gb/s SAS/SATA ports, and SW RAID modes 0, 1, and 10." 

I just don't want any surprises if HP decided not to enable 6gb sata on the LSI chip since it's the same model on both z820/840...Or if there's a generation model difference. ..

For the record I googled and researched this before posting here. Appreciate your time.