michael.samer Posted July 11, 2014 Share Posted July 11, 2014 Hello at Corsair I bought eight Neutron's to "beef up" my Array Volume. I used 8 Force120 (don't know the Firmware Rev) which worked flawlessly on the controller. Now I bought two 4 packs Neutrons (Rev M310 and one M312) to create a new array. They will be detected, but upon creating it it took ages (the former took about 35 min to create an RAID5 900GB Array, now 20h after I stopped it). I dropped the array and created an RAID0 array (=3,8TB) so no creation process is needed and did a speed Read test via dd. The values where max 18MB/s so it looks like a communication problem with the PHYs/Controller/Firmware. I tried one of the Neutron GTX in my HP Elitebook 8760 which got bootproblems (BSOD and after that the controller didn't detect the SSD until I shut down), while a 840 Pro and Force GT 480 works well there. On a Marvell 88SX7042 the drives are not even recognized (JBOD mode). After that I looked at the firmware which was in the first pack just M310 and the second had 3 M310 and one M312. I created an R0 array with all the M310 and: same problem: read rates about 12MB/s. As the controller took quite long just to detect the SSDs I guessed it might be a firmware related issue. When I tried to find the most recent M312 I was referred to the M311. My questions: a) are the M312 just a new revision (19nm to 22nm MLCs) or a firmware update b) where can I find it c) why is the Force GT recognized fast ( I have only one so RAID modis are out of question) and works while the N-GTX. The Force 120 was working for three years without any problem. d) are controller issues known with the Neutron? I remember such problems with the Sandforce 2xxx based Serie Cheers (from a worried expensive buyer) Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael.samer Posted July 14, 2014 Author Share Posted July 14, 2014 Today I tried the JBOD mode, so all drives are natively shown. With a thoughput of about 500kB-1,5MB/s it's pretty sure a communication problem. My only 840Pro performs at 275MB/s read on the same port. My only ForceGT 480GB shows 256MB/s (SAS3GB only). Hope you will find a better way. Currently I'm stuck. I started a ticket on friday. Let's see if it leads me to success :-) Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael.samer Posted July 15, 2014 Author Share Posted July 15, 2014 After sheer endless waiting I tried all three firmwares (M310, M311, M312) as JBOD. All three behaved the same: very slow because the Controller PHY is waiting for response. As the mentionend Marvell SATA Controller seems doing the same: waiting and after some time dropping the attempt (=showing no drive but connection state is up) it looks like the Neutron GTX is not the most compatible from my point of view. On a Intel X79 SATA-6G it works so no hardware problem itself. Today I tested the ForceGT at the same time and it's working like a charm, while at the same time the Neutron GTX allows about 1/500th (kB vs MB) of the Force. As I already tried everything in my mind the 14 days trial period is long gone. The dealer told me to contact Corsair direct. So here I'm again Just to mention it: I tried all firmwares of the areca as well (1.47, 1.48, 1.50, 1.51). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toasted Posted July 16, 2014 Share Posted July 16, 2014 Contact technical support via phone and see if you can get some idea what's causing the issue. You can call them using Skype by calling their toll-free number. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael.samer Posted July 16, 2014 Author Share Posted July 16, 2014 Contact technical support via phone and see if you can get some idea what's causing the issue. You can call them using Skype by calling their toll-free number. Hi Toasted I'll try to contact the phone (have to find the number first and a time slot, as I'm from germany, so CET) as I had no reply up to now and time is getting thin (I need a working solution next week). I thought ticket is better organized. Cheers Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael.samer Posted July 16, 2014 Author Share Posted July 16, 2014 Today I got a reply: "Created By: Andrew TS (7/16/2014 9:07 AM) Hi Michael, Thank you for contacting Corsair and apologies for the delay in response. SSD's are not known to perform well with certain 3rd party SATA controllers. Is this issue isolated with 3rd party SATA controllers only? Regards, Corsair Technical Support" I answered: Created By: Michael Samer (7/16/2014 9:14 AM) "Hi as detailed in the comments below I tested different SSDs, but only got Problems with the GTX, no matter which FW I used. I tested one on a local X79 SATA6G Port which allowed me to perform FW updates (M310 to 311) and worked well there. On a Marvell and the Areca (plattform where it should work) Controller the Marvell didn't show any of the eight tested (the ForceGT and the Force and the Samsung 840Pro works perfectly well there) is not detected. The Areca detects it but the connection problems (PHY timeouts) seems to solidify as very bad performance and timeouts. No way to use it as RAID. I have not heard read about SATA Problems of the GTX (else I would have bought the then available ForceGT instead). The LAMD seemed a perfect match esp. because of the Performance with uncompressible data. Anything I could do (apart from buying 8 new different SSDs)?" So it looks like I overread the controller issues of the LAMD Firmware. I'm aware of performance "Problems" with certain SATA HBAs, but in such a habit of not properly found (Marvell SATA-3G) or in my main case with the Areca (mainly the Intel PHYs of the IOP348) communication problems which results in a ~1MB/s Performance at best.... Hopefully corsair come back to me again. 2700EUR for the GTX are a lot of money to "beef up". Today I asked for the price of an adequate replacement of the GTX and was informed that the ForceGT is not longer available... Cheers Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael.samer Posted July 17, 2014 Author Share Posted July 17, 2014 Today I got the info: "Hi Michael, It is most likely a compatibility issue between Neutron's Link-A-Media SATA 3 controller and the Marvell 88SX7042 as well as the Areca 1680 RAID adapter. We can replace all 8 of the Neutron GTX 480 for the Force GT 480 as you have confirmed that it works for your particular setup. We can also provide a prepaid shipping label for you to send the Neutron GTX 480 back to us. Please let us know if this works for you. Apologies for the inconvenience this may have caused. " As it seems I have overlooked the compatibility issues which seems to be know. I'll check if I buy a new controller which works with LAMD or go back to the ForceGT series. Cheers Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael.samer Posted July 24, 2014 Author Share Posted July 24, 2014 Solved: I bought a new RAId (two to be exact, as I wasn't sure if the Areca will work, so I bought an LSI as well) Controller ARC 1882iX, plugged the GTX on and works like a charm. Sad for the good performing ARC1680, but the 1882 is blazing fast (2,3GB/s write and 2.8GB/s read while 140k IOPS @4k Random)), so worth the money. Cheers Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toasted Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Good to hear everything is working fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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