How-To Guide on replacing raid controllers?

[Klainn]

I currently have the widely cursed Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88SE9485 SAS/SATA 6Gb/s controller. It's been giving me no end of issues with data rebuilds wanting to take years to complete (43k estimated speeds). I usually get impatient and end up losing some data doing reboots to clear up the hangs.

 

I've picked up replacement Supermicro PCI Express x4 Low Profile SAS RAID Controller (AOC-SASLP-MV8) cards. I've searched around and I've seen folks say they are going to do the swaps and what not, but I haven't seen anyone outline the steps to help ensure success without losing data. I know to flash the cards to IT mode, but that's about all I've seen. My question is, what should I be aware of when doing this swap? Are there prerequisite steps I need to complete before I do the deed? Will my array be fine as once I pop the new cards in or are there some configuration changes I need to perform?

 

Thanks for reading. If i've missed topics on this, please link them.

[trurl]

Shouldn't be a problem if you get it flashed, but make sure you know your drive assignments, and make sure the array is set to not autostart so you can check them before starting.

[Klainn]

Thanks for the reminder. 

[JonathanM]

44 minutes ago, Klainn said:

I've picked up replacement Supermicro PCI Express x4 Low Profile SAS RAID Controller (AOC-SASLP-MV8)

Pretty sure those are marvell also.

 

[Klainn]

I hope not. This was straight out of the unraid hardware recommendation. Hardware Compatibility

 

Edit: Looks like you're right. Good documentation.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Klainn

[JonathanM]

3 minutes ago, Klainn said:

I hope not. This was straight out of the unraid hardware recommendation. Hardware Compatibility

Quoted from the page you linked.

Quote

PCI SATA Controllers

NOTE: The majority of this section is very outdated, and in general if you are shopping for a new card, you should avoid anything with a Marvell controller for Unraid versions 6.X.

 

[Klainn]

Yeah. Fantastic work Unraid. The same page that says this specific card is used by unraid says not to used it as well. What a joke.

 

[Klainn]

Managed to replace those controllers.  All the drives were in their proper locations when I powered up the machine with the new hba's. Could not have gone smoother. Took me longer to find a vga monitor cable so I could watch the post process than it did to swap the cards, boot up and verify no changes had to be made.

I will add, the LSI MPT2 Bios on these controllers is slow to cycle. By slow I mean it will likely cause you anxiety (5 or more minutes to display text). Just wait it out before you panic. I read that if you flash them and remove some part of the bios you can speed that up, but these shouldn't reboot often enough for this to really be an issue.

 

Cards I installed: LSI Logic Controller Card LSI00301 SAS 9207-8i 8Port  x2