SuperMicro H12SSL-i SATA interface problem

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homeMan

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May 25, 2023
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I have a Supermicro H12SSL-i motherboard with an ESXI system installed on it. Recently, I want to pass through the hard disk to the virtual machine through the sata controller to the virtual machine.

When I opened up the ESXI PCI device passthrough page to try to passthrough a sata controller, I realized I had to go to the Supermicro manual as there were four sata controllers for me to choose from.

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But I was more confused when I found the figure in below in the technical manual. As shown in the red box in the figure below, the manual seems to show that there are 8 sata interfaces, including I-SATA0 ~ I-SATA7, but the red box on the far right shows SATA8~15 and SATA0~7, but it seems that there are only The sata position enclosed by the red box on the left and below has a physical interface, while the position enclosed by the red box on the right has no physical sata interface. So does my motherboard have 8 sata ports or 16 ports? The blank space without the SATA interface is actually just that there is no interface installed? Are 4 sata controllers corresponding to 8 sata interfaces or 16 sata interfaces? Other than that, is there any way for me to quickly tell which sata controller corresponds to which sata interface? For example, the four SATA controllers 4c, 4d, 88, and 89 identified by the ESXI system in the above figure correspond to which SATA interfaces.

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Finally, it can be seen from the figure that the blue box seems to be two mini sas interfaces. Searching for "SAS" from ESXI's PCI Devices does not seem to find any controllers or interfaces. Can I allow the hard disks connected to these two interfaces to pass through to the virtual machine through ESXI? How can I search? Does the pass-through of the mini SAS interface use the controller like the pass-through of the sata interface? Or does a single mini SAS port support pass-through?

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read and consider my lengthy technical question. I sincerely appreciate any answers or suggestions you may have, thanks again.
 
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vvkvvk

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Feb 1, 2023
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The image on the manual is for the CT variant which has that extra SAS thingy. If yours is -i like mine, you'll have SlimSAS 8i port (near the fan connectors near the VRMs) you can use to connect 8 more SATA disks with this sort of cable:


On my board the first controller (47:00.0, so it'd probably be the first 4c on yours) has all the standard SATA board connectors (edge and bottom two) "connected" on Linux.
 

Sean Ho

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Nov 19, 2019
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Does your H12SSL-i look like this one from one of tugm4470's ebay listings? You can see the slimsas 8654 port populated.

 

homeMan

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May 25, 2023
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The image on the manual is for the CT variant which has that extra SAS thingy. If yours is -i like mine, you'll have SlimSAS 8i port (near the fan connectors near the VRMs) you can use to connect 8 more SATA disks with this sort of cable:


On my board the first controller (47:00.0, so it'd probably be the first 4c on yours) has all the standard SATA board connectors (edge and bottom two) "connected" on Linux.

Does your H12SSL-i look like this one from one of tugm4470's ebay listings? You can see the slimsas 8654 port populated.


Unfortunately, when I checked my motherboard, I found that the blue box and the red box on the far right are empty on the motherboard, and there is no physical SAS or SATA interface.

So now I have 8 SATA interfaces and 4 SATA controllers are recognized by ESXI. This may means that a SATA controller corresponds to the passthrough of two SATA ports. Maybe the ID order is just addresses shows in ESXI from low to high.

But I still feel confused, why there is a physical interface in the manual, but there is no physical interface on the actual motherboard. Is it because that is another version of the motherboard? Dual CPU motherboard? Or is it just that the version I bought removed some interfaces in order to save some manufacturing costs?
 

drdepasquale

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Dec 1, 2022
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I believe that each EPYC SoC has four built in SATA controllers. There are four in a single socket system, and eight in a dual socket system. Each SATA controller should support connecting two drives. My motherboard has ten SATA ports, but only five of the SATA controllers are usable.
 

madsci1016

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Feb 24, 2024
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Old thread, but it was a top result when googling. Want to share / correct some things for anyone else that finds it the same way.

on EPYC, the processor itself has the SATA controllers, they are multiplexed on the pcie lanes. you can swap 32 pcie lanes for 32 sata ports. The motherboard does nothing but make the connections in wiring.

The H12SSL-I-O does the wiring for 16 ports. 8 go to a SlimSAS SFF-8654 port, the other 8 go to the onboard SATA ports. The SATA controllers at addresses 48 and 49 cover all 16 of those ports, 8 sata ports per controller.

My question, does anyone make a dummy PICE card that can adapt the other 16 SATA capable lanes (in this motherbaord, Slot 5 and 7 wired to P0 and P1) to SATA connections, so you can get more sata ports without a controller? This would be the ports behind SATA controllers at address 83 and 84, i suspect.

EDIT: The answer is probably no, since the cpu spec references a GPIO pin used to tell the CPU what the port is being used for, so no PCIE care adapter could be made.

Sad, how did no motherboard makers see that we might want another 16 SATA ports in place of switching two of the many generous pcie slots to x8?
 
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