Rockpro64 with sata pcie card and omv

[xtract]

Hi all! 

For a long time I've wanted to make my own NAS, and it looks like the rockpro64 is just what I need. 

My idea is to use a PCIe card with a Marvell 88SE9215 or 
88SE9230 chipset, so I can have up to four drives connected. I don't want to do raid or anything, it's just that I rather have all my storage in the same device. 

Do you know if it should work straight away, or there will be issues with omv or the Linux kernel with the sata card?

Thanks for your time! 

/Xtract

[Ryan]

I think those Marvell chips will use Linux ahci driver, so it should work just fine.

[p91]

Looking to do the same thing:
my aim is to use a LSI SAS controller and connect 8 hard drives to it.
Waiting for this for a loong time

[guest808]

Hi all! 

For a long time I've wanted to make my own NAS, and it looks like the rockpro64 is just what I need. 

My idea is to use a PCIe card with a Marvell 88SE9215 or 
88SE9230 chipset, so I can have up to four drives connected. I don't want to do raid or anything, it's just that I rather have all my storage in the same device. 

Do you know if it should work straight away, or there will be issues with omv or the Linux kernel with the sata card?

Thanks for your time! 

/Xtract

I was thinking about the same but how to power thees drives?

[xtract]

There are three options:

1 - Grab one of those pico itx power supplies (>150W) and use it to power both the board and the drives (should check 5V rail power) . You'll need a 12V 12A PSU brick too. 

2 - Get a 12V 12A supply and a 12V to 5V 2A step down converter, should be enough to power the 4 drives and the rockpro64.

3 - Get a flex atx psu

I am considering 30W per drive at real maximum load, and that is unlikely to happen. I am being conservative there. Moreover, it's better for the PSU to not work at full power.

[p91]

If you have tipps for power supplies, I am also looking for a solution.
Gona have 8 hard drives, roughly 0.6A@12V, 0.5A@5V per drive.
Still have some time because I missed the last batch of RockPros.

[hopkinskong]

Why not just use a custom power supply scheme? I am using this in my Banana Pi SATA NAS.
Buy a 12V10A power brick, and tap the 12V into the SATA power cables of the 3.5' HDDs.
For the 5V rail, just use a buck converter (LM2596S-5.0 in my case) and tap into the SATA power cable

I am using this 24/7 for already > 1yr with no issue. However, I am looking to upgrade to RockPro64 for more drives

[p91]

Have you actually measured the wall power consumption?
My drives will most of the time be in idle I think so getting idle power down is worth the while.

Otherwise, the LM2596S-5.0 seem like a pretty nice idea.
Can you run two of them in tandem (worrying what happens if you did not match the voltage on both to 100%) or just have one for 4 drives, a second one for another 4 drives?

[hopkinskong]

No, I didn't measure the power consumption. I was relying the current draw information printed on the hard disk label. It says how many Amps it will drawn from the +12V rail and +5V rail. for a 120W (12V 10A) power brick, minus 3A for RockPro64, there is 7A left for your hard drive and peripherals. Running 3-4 drives shouldn't be a problem. If not all of them will be running at full seek and spin, you may even add more hard drives.

Regarding the 5V rail, of course you can run multiple LM2596S-5.0 on multiple drives, just make sure you don't short out the 5V rails (GND of course need to be common). I would say powering 2 3.5' HDD per LM2596S-5.0 is pretty safe. Or you can always grab a better IC to provide higher current for your 5V rail.

[chrisf]

No, I didn't measure the power consumption. I was relying the current draw information printed on the hard disk label. It says how many Amps it will drawn from the +12V rail and +5V rail. for a 120W (12V 10A) power brick, minus 3A for RockPro64, there is 7A left for your hard drive and peripherals. Running 3-4 drives shouldn't be a problem. If not all of them will be running at full seek and spin, you may even add more hard drives.

Regarding the 5V rail, of course you can run multiple LM2596S-5.0 on multiple drives, just make sure you don't short out the 5V rails (GND of course need to be common). I would say powering 2 3.5' HDD per LM2596S-5.0 is pretty safe. Or you can always grab a better IC to provide higher current for your 5V rail.

Unless you can guarantee staggered spin up, not only when first powering up but also when the drives resume from sleep, you should allow at least 30W per 3.5" drive. Hard drives consume a lot more power than the numbers printed on them when spinning up the platters.
A quick google shows it's typical for a 3.5" 7200 rpm drive to consume 700mA on the 5V rail and peaks of 2.5A on the 12V rail during spin up. The last thing you want to happen is for your PSU to go in to current limit protection and shut down.
I wouldn't run 4 drives on a 120W PSU without first testing how much the drives consume.