ASRock N100M Motherboard Can't Boot from ASM1166 M.2 SATA Adapter—Need Advice

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Having_A_NAS_Time

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Sep 29, 2024
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Hello everyone,

I recently purchased an ASRock N100M motherboard with the following setup in mind:
  • Use an ASM1166 M.2 to 5x SATA adapter to connect 4 SATA drives.
  • Attach 2x 240GB SSDs directly to the motherboard over SATA.
  • Install Proxmox as a bootable RAIDZ set on the 4 SATA drives.
  • Add the 2 SSDs as mirrored ZFS cache devices.
However, I've run into an issue:
  • The ASRock N100M doesn't recognize the ASM1166 M.2 device at the BIOS level—it doesn't detect it at all.
As an experiment, I set up the 2 SSDs as a ZFS mirror and booted the system. Once Linux is running:
  • I can see the 4 SATA drives attached via the M.2 card.
  • I can even form them into a zpool.
But this isn't my desired configuration. I wanted to:
  • Boot off the 4x SATA RAIDZ pool for redundancy.
  • Use the SSDs solely to accelerate the system (as ZFS cache devices).
Additional Information:
  • The ASRock N100M motherboard has available PCIe slots, and I'm open to using one of them to attach a SATA HBA (Host Bus Adapter), even if it requires an additional purchase.
My questions are:
  • Is this approach fruitless?
  • Can the ASRock N100M motherboard not boot off this type of adapter in the M.2 slot?
  • Would using a SATA HBA in a PCIe slot be a viable solution?
  • Does anyone have experience with this setup or suggestions on how to achieve my desired configuration?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you in advance.
 

RolloZ170

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Apr 24, 2016
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However, I've run into an issue:
  • The ASRock N100M doesn't recognize the ASM1166 M.2 device at the BIOS level—it doesn't detect it at all.
the BIOS has no drivers for it. normaly there is a Firmware on the Sata card, e.g. OpRom to serve drivers.
 

Having_A_NAS_Time

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Sep 29, 2024
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the BIOS has no drivers for it. normaly there is a Firmware on the Sata card, e.g. OpRom to serve drivers.
I don't know too much about this topic, so it was hard to tell what was bootable and what isn't. I ended up purchasing this PCI card based on it being described as "bootable": https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0D82WYMY9. It is "SATA Card, 4 Port with 4 SATA Cable, SATA Controller Expansion Card with Low Profile Bracket, Non-Raid, Boot as System Disk, Support 4 SATA 3.0 Devices" with a Marvell 88SE9215. At only $20 I was willing to roll the dice. For my future adventures, is there any smart way to tell which NVMe / PCIe devices support booting and which do not?

I think I'm going to hang on to the NVMe one I have in the system, because later I can expand my disks.
 

RolloZ170

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Apr 24, 2016
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there is a FW rom on the card, you have to adjust the BIOS to use it.

" The SPI flash is also referred to as an "option ROM". Is this a boot ROM used by a PC BIOS so that the connected SATA drives are able to be booted from? "
 
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Having_A_NAS_Time

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Sep 29, 2024
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I could but my original intent was to make a 4 disk ZPool with the SATA disks and use the SSD for cache.

The current working setup I have is the SSD are a bootable mirror and the secondary 4x disks are a RAIDZ data ZPool.

If the new card I get is not Bootable either I will give up and live with it. This will mean I have no SSD acceleration for my data pool and but such is life.

Next time I build a NAS I will try to improve my research to establish if whatever solution I choose for expansion is bootable.
 

RolloZ170

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Apr 24, 2016
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or Boot from the M.2 (nvme) ?
I could but my original intent was to make a 4 disk ZPool with the SATA disks and use the SSD for cache.
note this card is running at PCIe 2.0 X1 - slow.
Next time I build a NAS I will try to improve my research to establish if whatever solution I choose for expansion is bootable.
it is all the same, if you use a HBA the OpRom on it is required to access the drives, or boot from.
 

Having_A_NAS_Time

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Sep 29, 2024
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or Boot from the M.2 (nvme) ?

note this card is running at PCIe 2.0 X1 - slow.

it is all the same, if you use a HBA the OpRom on it is required to access the drives, or boot from.

I want some redundancy in my boot volume. If I just put a NVMe single drive there won't be any.
 

Having_A_NAS_Time

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Sep 29, 2024
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> ok. it seems your 4x Sata Card uses a Legacy OpRom only. means you can boot only in non UEFI modes.

Dang it! I'm not sure this is usable on the N100m then... I didn't think it would be so hard to achieve this config...
 

RolloZ170

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Apr 24, 2016
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you may ask some users here if they know a PCIe Sata Card with UEFI Boot support,
or do a google first.
 

Having_A_NAS_Time

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Sep 29, 2024
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Update: I did receive the PCI card. However, it is not detected in the Setup. As @RolloZ170 mentions above, I believe I will need to find something that supports UEFI... time to try again.
 

Having_A_NAS_Time

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Sep 29, 2024
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Another update: After sitting around thinking for a bit, I realized Secure Boot was still on... disable it... AHA... suddenly I can see 4HDD connected to the PCI card. I think I am good to go with this configuration.
 

Having_A_NAS_Time

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Sep 29, 2024
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Updated update: Proxmox installed fine and the system boots properly off the PCI card. I now have a RAIDZ1 zpool of 4 HDDs running Proxmox and I will be adding the 2 SDDs as ZFS cache to the zpool. The previous M.2 adapter I tried to use is just sitting inert on the board. The good news is the case I bought has room for even more HDD, so in the future I can use this to expand the storage, if I wish.

Special thanks to @RolloZ170 for his advice during the build.

Lessons learned for me:
  1. I like this ASRock N100m (the power usage is nice and low) but MAN it hurts to only have 2 SATA ports
  2. Those M.2 PCI<->SATA adapters are REALLY flimsy... I think I almost broke one plugging in the SATA cables!
  3. Remember to disable Secure Boot if you need to boot a legacy device!
  4. Patience pays when building a system. Now that I've taken a bit of time to understand the configuration, I can have the original build plan I wanted. It just took a bit of fiddling and learning.
This hopefully is the end of the woes and now I can just continue on to really fun fiddling with Proxmox.
 
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