So I've got this 88SE9215 based board that is similar to the ones already posted except that it uses single SAS port instead of x4 SATA ports. The board comes with a splitter cable 1 SAS to 4 SATA + LED head. The cable is completely compatible with the board as the seller claims. I will attach pictures below.

 

The board is detected (as per below), but if I attach disks they do not show up in the system at all. dmesg has no new messages and the disk is shutdown after 20-30 seconds (parks head and stops the motor) with lsscsi showing nada. Any thoughts on why I cant get it work?

 

Now when I plug this board and boot, from `dmesg | grep ata` I get 4 new SATA devices detected:

 

root@espressobin:~# dmesg | grep ata
[    0.000000] Memory: 1000200K/1048576K available (10236K kernel code, 714K rwdata, 3184K rodata, 576K init, 552K bss, 31992K reserved, 16384K cma-reserved)
[    0.000000]     .rodata : 0xffffff8008a80000 - 0xffffff8008da0000   (  3200 KB)
[    0.000000]       .data : 0xffffff8008e30000 - 0xffffff8008ee2a00   (   715 KB)
[    0.420045] vdso: 2 pages (1 code @ ffffff8008a86000, 1 data @ ffffff8008e35000)
[    1.671420] libata version 3.00 loaded.
[    2.216782] ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xe8010000 port 0xe8010100 irq 37
[    2.224468] ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xe8010000 port 0xe8010180 irq 37
[    2.232292] ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xe8010000 port 0xe8010200 irq 37
[    2.239599] ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xe8010000 port 0xe8010280 irq 37
[    2.247907] ahci-mvebu d00e0000.sata: AHCI 0001.0300 32 slots 1 ports 6 Gbps 0x1 impl platform mode
[    2.256947] ahci-mvebu d00e0000.sata: flags: ncq sntf led only pmp fbs pio slum part sxs 
[    2.270375] ata5: SATA max UDMA/133 mmio [mem 0xd00e0000-0xd00e1fff] port 0x100 irq 15
[    2.566263] ata1: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    2.570244] ata2: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    2.574233] ata3: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    2.578262] ata4: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    2.594794] ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[    4.042537] EXT4-fs (mmcblk0p1): mounted filesystem with writeback data mode. Opts: (null)
root@espressobin:~# 

 

From lspci:

root@espressobin:~# lspci  -knnv
00:00.0 SATA controller [0106]: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Device [1b4b:9215] (rev 11) (prog-if 01 [AHCI 1.0])
        Subsystem: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Device [1b4b:9215]
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 37
        I/O ports at 1020 [size=8]
        I/O ports at 1030 [size=4]
        I/O ports at 1028 [size=8]
        I/O ports at 1034 [size=4]
        I/O ports at 1000 [size=32]
        Memory at e8010000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2K]
        Expansion ROM at e8000000 [disabled] [size=64K]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
        Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit-
        Capabilities: [70] Express Legacy Endpoint, MSI 00
        Capabilities: [e0] SATA HBA v0.0
        Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
        Kernel driver in use: ahci

root@espressobin:~#

 

 

Below is the picture of the board and cable (could not find how to upload images, so sharing imgur link): https://imgur.com/a/wPvgr

 

 

 

 

Actually nevermind, the seller exchanged the cable and it all works now.

 

IO kills CPU though....