# Marvell 88SE9235 card + Samsung 860 EVO = ZFS corruption



## SonOfMom (May 23, 2021)

Hi Everyone,

I have a maxed out HP DL385 Gen10+ server with 8 x LFF drives and two Samsung PM1725a cards to run bunch of jails / bhyve images. Machine is running FreeBSD 13.0.
The machine also has Marvell 88SE9235 based Delock 89588 card with two Samsung 860 EVO M.2 SATA drives configured as OS / Boot ZFS Pool.

Unfortunately, zpool reports CKSUM errors on both drives and reports corruption of some files, this is a very slow process but errors increase (each resolver produces additional 5-10 errors per drive). Smart Checks on drives report no errors, there are also no error messages in dmesg or system log.
I would love to replace those drives with proper HP certified drive cage or card but unfortunately delivery windows are terrible.

Does anyone use a Marvell 88SE9235 based card in combination with FreeBSD 13.0? What are your experiences?

Thank you!


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## Phishfry (May 23, 2021)

That Delock card looks cheezy compared to a pair of PM1725a.
I was never impressed with Marvell storage or networking. It's like it works, barely.
ZFS is just exposing its flaws.

Have you tried a single M.2 to see if it improves? This sounds like a production box and that may not be possible.
Stupid as it sounds I would also try a different PCIe slot.


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## SonOfMom (May 24, 2021)

I have tried to swap the PCIe slot, errors are still here.

I have to agree that this kind of "solution" is really not worthy the machine, those SSDs lack PLP among other things. I will just dump the contraption and replace it with a single (only one PCIe slot is available) PM1725a card as a boot device. That's not redundant but still probably better then what I had before.


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## Phishfry (May 24, 2021)

Just for my curiosity. Are you using Samsung branded PM1725a or HPE ?

I bought a Samsung branded PM1725a and it works near advertised speeds.
I bought another but it is Dell branded PM1725a.
It is only giving me 625MB/sec reads versus 6000MB.sec reads on the Samsung model.
Totally baffling me. It is running at PCIe 3.x and SMART looks ok.
Only thing I can think of is some kind of Dell BIOS blocker. I am testing it on SuperMicro X10 boards.

Have you ever updated the firmware on your cards?


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## SonOfMom (May 24, 2021)

Phishfry said:


> Just for my curiosity. Are you using Samsung branded PM1725a or HPE ?



I am using Samsung branded 6TB cards that I bought on eBay before Chia was the thing, they had old/beta firmware but I was able to update to GPNABB3Q firmware thanks to this thread on servethehome. While I was looking for firmware people kept telling me that I really should look for dell/hp branded cards because firmware support is much better.
The "other" PM1725a I will use is a 3.2tb Oracle Branded F320, I will test it's performance and report.


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