Radxa quad-SATA HAT: really-stable JMS561 disk controller performance in Linux? Raspbian?

[esbeeb]

Hello,
An interesting quad-SATA HAT was pretty recently announced by Radxa:
https://wiki.radxa.com/News/2019/12/int ... i-sata-hat

A Youtube reviewer also made a video about setting up a Raspberry Pi 4 NAS with this HAT (4 x 2.5" SATA disks, in a RAID 5, with EXT4), and he got some very decent SMB file-sharing speeds of 90-100 MB/sec, over GbE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eix0PCB0byQ

But in his video, he didn't really torture-test that NAS. It has me wondering how mature the Linux kernel support is these days, for the JMS561 controller chips on that quad-SATA HAT.

Can anyone speak to the current reputation of the JMS561 (for stability under heavy NAS loads) in Linux? How about when these chips are used with the current kernel shipping with Raspbian?

PS: That HAT only has distributors in Asia and Europe, currently. No North American distributor yet!

[ejolson]

Hello,
An interesting quad-SATA HAT was pretty recently announced by Radxa:
https://wiki.radxa.com/News/2019/12/int ... i-sata-hat

A Youtube reviewer also made a video about setting up a Raspberry Pi 4 NAS with this HAT (4 x 2.5" SATA disks, in a RAID 5, with EXT4), and he got some very decent SMB file-sharing speeds of 90-100 MB/sec, over GbE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eix0PCB0byQ

But in his video, he didn't really torture-test that NAS. It has me wondering how mature the Linux kernel support is these days, for the JMS561 controller chips on that quad-SATA HAT.

Can anyone speak to the current reputation of the JMS561 (for stability under heavy NAS loads) in Linux? How about when these chips are used with the current kernel shipping with Raspbian?

PS: That HAT only has distributors in Asia and Europe, currently. No North American distributor yet!

Is your question whether a version of the JMicron firmware greater than v8.0.3.7 ships on the hat with RAID and hot-plug features compatible with Linux?

The answer seems pretty mysterious to me as the device is barely available. It would be wonderful if you got one and checked. Personally, I think people assembling mini-NAS systems with the Raspberry Pi are more interested in the scrubbing and redundancy provided by ZFS and BTRFS than having a USB to SATA bridge with built-in mirroring. On the other hand, the fact that the Pi uses a single PCIe lane to drive all the USB ports does make putting RAID functionality in the bridge attractive from a speed and performance point of view.

[esbeeb]

That was an informative answer, thanks.

After skimming this file about the JMS561's firmware:
https://wiki.odroid.com/accessory/add-o ... export_pdf

There is a linux utility for working with the firmware of the JMS561. A command to show the firmware version goes something like this:

Code: Select all

JMS561FwUpdate -d /dev/sda -v

Perhaps the Nova Spirit Tech guy (who made the Youtube video above) can be politely asked to run such a command, as he owns one.
He has a forum here:
https://forum.novaspirit.com/

...and I've made a post, putting the request to him here:
https://forum.novaspirit.com/t/radxa-qu ... ersion/692

[mbn12]

I have one device that uses the JSM561U chip and performance is problematic. (HD DOCKING STATION VINIK, 2 BAIAS, 2.5/3.5, USB 3.0).

In fact, it is barely functional under linux (Fedora 31 Kernel 5.5.17-200.fc31.x86_64) and also Ubuntu 19.10 (will test later under raspbian). It works to some extend: you can mount the devices, RW, etc... even use it "normally", but there will be multiple errors being logged and when used under heavy load (several GB's of random IO) the device eventually fails (disconnect/reconnect sometimes.. and eventually need a full power cycle).

Apparently the firmware indeed has some bug regarding UFA mode / USB 3.0, etc. (still trying to understand it).

I was not successful running the tool under linux:

Code: Select all

[mario@aspire JMS561]$ ./JMS561FwUpdate 
bash: ./JMS561FwUpdate: cannot execute binary file: Exec format error
[mario@aspire JMS561]$ file -i JMS561FwUpdate 
JMS561FwUpdate: application/x-executable; charset=binary
[mario@aspire JMS561]$ 

I tried the Windows version, which runs at least, but my device has the VID=152D PID=1561 (detected by the tool, which seems to refer to the JSM561U chip, but I only possess the firmware for the VID=152D PID=0561 of JSM561).

In this page you will be able to find the tool and firmware for JSM561. (note the password `jmicro` to enable the full tool usage, just in case that forum post goes down).
https://wiki.odroid.com/accessory/add-o ... re_upgrade

This other russian forum also has some jmicro firmware: https://www.usbdev.ru/files/jmicron/

If anyone has the firmware for JSM561U let me know (or at least if the above for JSM561 did fix it).

In another Red Hat forum I saw one 'possible line of solution' based on disabling some 'UFA kernel module/parameter'. This probably may degrade maximum speed but at least the device should work reliable. (I'm still trying to do this).


Best regards
Mario