SATA3 adapter on Dell T5500?

[SoNic67]

I have a Dell Precision T5500, and the embedded controller is only SATA2. I am trying to add-on a PCI-e SATA3 controller but I hit a wall... none that I have tried recognize a SSD at boot time (some not even later).
I have tried two controllers with ASMEDIA ASM1061 chip. No luck, SSD are not seen at boot time, but they are seen in Windows.
I have tried a Dell Perc H310 (RAID). I have tried modding that H310 in LSI-9211-8i in IT mode (non-RAID, flashing succeeded) . Both of those would recognize HDD's (in BIOS and Windows), but not a SSD attached to them.
I am looking also at controllers with Marvell chips, but I would like to know other's opinion.

Does anyone have experience with a working SATA3 adapter in a Dell Precision T3500/T5500?

 

[Shambles1980]

not sure about this day and age.
but you used to have to specify drivers when installing windows to detect the hard disks so you could install windows on to it.

 

[95Viper]

I had a system and can't remember exactly, but, I had to enable the oprom (option rom) in the bios, for the card to do it's thing... see if the BIOS has any options for that.

 

[SoNic67]

The above cards show up under BIOS. They just don't show any attached SSD's to them, the slots are "empty".

 

[Shambles1980]

you don't see them in the bios either??
i would personally get the drivers for them slap them on a usb stick and when installing windows i would tell it to load the drivers from the usb.

p.s I had a t5500. Used a ssd on it fine but that was with onboard sata,

 

[SoNic67]

Drivers for Windows in BIOS?
Again - the CARD is detected in BIOS or in Windows. Drivers don't do anything in BIOS, OS is not loaded yet (Windows or Linux).

 

[Shambles1980]

srry thought you were trying to use it as a windows boot drive.

 

[Jetster]

Your stuck with SATA2 for booting

Wait the specs says it has a SATA 3.0GB/s host controller (part of the integrated Intel ICH10R I/O controller hub

Are you sure they are all SATA2?

 

[SoNic67]

Yes, SATA2 with 3.0 Gbps. SATA was 1.5Gbps.
I want SATA3 with 6.0 Gbps.
I have ordered another controller, this time with the latest Marvell 88SE9235 chipset for $40. Not sure if I did a good thing, my motherboard was only $35...

 

[95Viper]

I know you have a T5500; however, after looking through the Dell forums, some members there had success in doing this, on their T5600s, by trying different BIOSes.
However, you know, you take you chances whenever you flash a BIOS.

Goodluck in whatever you do and hope you get the results you want.

 

[SoNic67]

T5600 came standard with the Dell PERC H310 (PCIe host-based RAID card with four 6Gb/s ports supporting SATA/SAS/SSD drives and RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 configurations).
That's the one that I have tried and didn't recognize the SSD (but recognized the HDD's).

 

[M0rafic]

I suspect that your problem is that the perc310 recognises supported enterprise level ssd's.

Have you checked that the bios and firmware on the perc are up to date? If not this may well solve your problem even though you will probably get warnings about the ssd being unsupported. I was formally on Dell's EMEA server team and 80% is of problems were down to old firmware. You be the don't mention what ssd you are actually using, I assume it is a 2.5" one is this correct? My own T7500 is booting quite happily off an nvme drive and many use the Marvell Sata3 cards which seem to be the only ones other than percs that these machines will boot from.

The current version of the perc h310 firmware version 20.13.2.0001 can be found here:-

https://www.dell.com/support/home/uk/en/ukbsdt1/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=r09pj

Unfortunately I haven't got a perc310 to test but I took the cheap drevo one out of this laptop and tried it in the h710 I have, which is of the same generation. I had previously updated the firmware on it on Friday before I saw this thread, but I can confirm that the ssd was recognised and is certainly not a Dell supported one, nor were there any warnings. Whilst not conclusive this does tend to support my conclusion that you have a firmware problem rather than a fundamental hardware problem and as such whilst a PITA is not the end of the world.

 

[SoNic67]

I suspect that your problem is that the perc310 recognises supported enterprise level ssd's.

Probably. I have updated the firmware to everything that I could get, motherboard and controller.
Solved my problem by buying a T7610 that works as I wanted.

 

[M0rafic]

Probably. I have updated the firmware to everything that I could get, motherboard and controller.
Solved my problem by buying a T7610 that works as I wanted.

So long as you got where you wanted to be, the how is far less important The thing with Dell kit is it rarely does exactly what it seems to say in the blurb

 

[buckets]

My own T7500 is booting quite happily off an nvme drive

Can I ask what your setup is? I see the benchmark that you posted. I've just bought a T7500 and have a 1GB SSD like SoNic67's, but also 4 x 3TB 3.5 SAS 7200. Think I've read it does raid 0 or 1 from the motherboard, but I'll need a pci raid card. I'd like to boot from the ssd in raid with another, but isn't the nvme faster? And you can get those cards with 2 or 4 slots.

* I see more of your comments now