enetec

Try these... - flash on another mainboard - flash P11 first (with p11 flash command!), then, eventually, go with P19/20... It could be bad anyway...

Your card seems to be an LSI 2008 controller based, programmed with an IT firmware (even if I am not able to precisely catalog it...). If it's as I understood, YES, you need an IR firmware to get any RAID by card (from a Supermicro FAQ: " BPN-ADP-E16-L is in IT mode and supports JBOD only. ".) BUT be very carefull on what exactly version do you need to use...

Formatting or preclearing? About the Wiki... well I've noted too... but I think it's done to test your 'unRAID true believers skills'..! Anyway, after reading and rereading on wiki and on forum... all parts begin to fit very well in the puzzle..!

It's in this thread too... BUT I REALLY think it's better doing it on one not-UEFI BIOS mb...

Nope... if you go down in that post you will find a link for (P11). This contains IR & IT firmwares. Now you can't see them since you are still on IBM and/or LSI MegaRaid firmware and these require single drive to be mapped as JBOD too, otherwise they will not showed to OS (only RAID volumes will). In IR instead this isn't needed and single drive are automatically passed to OS as RAID volumes too. In IT every port is a 'simple' SATA AHCI port, with no option. For more info read my topic I've linked to you before, in my previous post.

What do you mean? If you want to use your card for making some RAID you have to go with IR version, otherwise, if you only need 8 SATA ports for unRAID usage, it's better to go with IT version, eventually without ROM too if you prefer. Best procedure is to crossflash using P11 version, then upgrade to P19 or P20 (once it's P11 crossflashed, it 'thinks' to be a real 9211-8i, so you can easily upgrade with standard LSI/Avago procedures). Possibly use a standard BIOS mainboard so you can go with a simple bootable USB for all steps of procedure. With an UEFI BIOS you could face some errors and need to use more complicated procedures on some steps. Most here are still using P19 since of a bug found on P20 v.20.00.00, but according to LSI, this has been fixed in P20 v.20.02.00 and in fact I'm using it (IR version) on Windows with a 4 SSD RAID0 flawlessly: https://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=39935.0

In fact I prefer fine tuning manually after first pass... Great tool anyway... I think this should be sticky too +1 Only one answer... I've got the impression that fine tuning give great gains on systems with mixed data disks and little gains on systems with identical data disks... Could it be this way?

It seems WE could be right... From http://mycusthelp.info/LSI/_cs/AnswerDetail.aspx?&inc=8484 ... Question: Upgrading to firmware phase 20 (20.00.00.00) caused errors in /var/log/messages file Answer: If you upgrade to phase 20 firmware (20.00.00.00) on LSI SAS HBAs (e.g. LSISAS2004, LSISAS2008, LSISAS2308 based) then you may see this repeated many times in /var/log/messages:mpt2sas0: log_info (0x31080000): original (PL), code (0x08), sub_code (0x0000)This has been addressed by Avago and has been fixed in a newer firmware release: 20.00.02.00 (still called phase 20, or P20).To avoid the message, you can flash the controller to an older version of firmware (e.g. phase 19), or flash to the newer firmware release 20.00.02.00 or newer (if available). Please note that if you are already on P20 rev.20.00.00.00 you need to follow the special procedure subsequently indicated on that kb article to upgrade.

It seems you could be right... P20 firmware package available now from LSI web site contains rev. 20.00.02.00 and reading the provided changelog it seems that revs. 20.00.01.00 and 20.00.02.00 have been released to fix two defects related to data corruption and a bad working NCQ queue. Anyone who have tested this latest build of P20 firmware? Impressions?