[Solved] LSI HBA only reading one drive


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First time building an Unraid server, and after getting everything put together and booting up for the first time, I'm puzzled as to why Unraid is only detecting 1 of the 4 HDDs I have connected to my HBA card. I'm VERY noob, but capable enough to read guides that say "this hardware gud, and work together gud" and "follow these brainded steps to install Unraid". Unfortunately, I'm not capable enough to figure out this problems, so I come to you all for help.

 

For reference, the key hardware is as follows:

MB: ASRock B550

CPU: Ryzen 7 3700X

HBA: Dell H200 Integrated 6Gbps SAS HBA w/ LSI 9210-8i P20 IT Mode (purchased from Art of Server)

RAM: Kingston KSM26ED8/16ME - DDR4-16 GB - DIMM 288-pin - 2666 MHz / PC4-21300 - CL19-1.2 V - unbuffered - ECC

HDDs: Western Digital Red Plus 8TB (connected to HBA via CableCreation Mini SAS 36Pin (SFF-8087) Male to 4X SATA Female Target/Backplane)

 

I've attached my diagnostics zip. I appreciate any and all help that can be offered 😃

mc-server-diagnostics-20210415-1500.zip

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2 hours ago, michaelroni said:

CableCreation Mini SAS 36Pin (SFF-8087) Male to 4X SATA Female

Do you have the drives direct connected to SFF-8087 to SATA cables?  Are they in a disk cage with SATA connector to the cage on some kind of backplane?

 

I have a Dell H310 with drives in a hot-swap bay with SATA connectors on the back of the hotswap bays.

 

These configurations require a forward breakout cable.  Direction matters.  Reverse breakout cables will not work and drives will not be detected in BIOS or unRAID.  Forward and reverse cables look exactly the same.

 

I cannot tell 100% from the description of the cable you bought whether it is a forward or reverse breakout cable; although my reading of that is that they are forward cables.

 

These cables are the ones I purchased as they specifically state they are forward breakout cables.

Edited by Hoopster
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I received the forward breakout cable and used it to replace the cable I was previously using. Still encountering the same issue, only one of the four HDDs is being detected. It seems like power is not an issue, all four HDDs appear to be receiving power, but I'm only basing that on the fact that all four HDDs sound like they're spinning up when I boot up with the case open.

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With both ports on the SAS card, it's the same HDD that is being detected.

 

I tried connecting all HDDs to my MB via individual SATA cables, and they all get detected that way.

 

So is a faulty SAS card the most likely answer here? Are there some particular config settings within the BIOS that might be the culprit?

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11 hours ago, michaelroni said:

faulty SAS card

Each cable have 4 SATA, if connect detected disk to other SATA connector won't detect, then it is card fault.

 

From log, seems there are something detect but just disk no show. Suggest provide diagnostic when those problem disk connect to onboard which will normal detect.

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8 hours ago, WizADSL said:

Were the drives with the issue originally sold as externals?

They were all brand new WD Red Plus drives bought off of Amazon.

 

4 hours ago, Vr2Io said:

Each cable have 4 SATA, if connect detected disk to other SATA connector won't detect, then it is card fault.

 

From log, seems there are something detect but just disk no show. Suggest provide diagnostic when those problem disk connect to onboard which will normal detect.

I have my diagnostic zip in the first post.

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23 minutes ago, John_M said:

Have you taken a look at the HBA's BIOS settings (not the motherboard BIOS)? I seem to remember you need to press CTRL-C during POST. It should show what's happening. Maybe something is disabled and you can restore the default settings.

 

Not quite sure how to do that.

 

I am able to check some controller properties for the HBA within the mobo BIOS, and I'm able to enable or disable legacy BIOS on the HBA, but that's all.

20210419_100706.jpg

20210419_100729.jpg

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34 minutes ago, michaelroni said:

There was an option to "disable the logo and display normal POST messages"

 

That would be the one. But if there's no HBA BIOS, maybe it was flashed without one. It isn't necessary for it to work with Unraid so it can be flashed with the appropriate firmware but no BIOS. The advantage of this is that it starts up quicker. The disadvantage is that the BIOS can be quite useful for troubleshooting.

 

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According to Art of Server's item description on ebay,

"I also flashed the LSI/Avago MPTSAS2 BIOS ROM version 07.39.02.00 and UEFI 07.27.01.01 so that it is easier to access the controller's ROM without booting an OS."

So I feel like there should be a HBA BIOS for me to access, if only I could get to it somehow.

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On 4/19/2021 at 10:56 AM, John_M said:

When you first power on, don't you see a screen of text before the motherboard UEFI/BIOS starts up or before the Unraid boot menu shows? If not, you might have to enable full POST in the motherboard UEFI/BIOS. The HBA BIOS looks like an old fashioned blue and white text-based BIOS, as on this page.

 

 

Ok, it took some messing around within my MB bios, but I was able to finally get to my SAS config utility, just like in this link. It was originally set to "BIOS and OS", so I changed it to "OS only", and the problem remains the same.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • ChatNoir changed the title to [Solved] LSI HBA only reading one drive

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