LSI Controller FW updates IR/IT modes

[MiauwMaster]

3 hours ago, uldise said:

not sure about flashing, but i think P400 will not support drives larger than 2TB..

I know. I have a sizeable stash of 1TB velociraptors i’m using as long as they will last. I also have a HP HBA on the way but I would like to get a little more use out of the p400

[pepar]

I am looking for another card and am seeing OEM cards from China that, other than the missing LSI logo, appear to be identical to LSI cards. I'd guess LSI has their cards made in China and am looking for a thumbs up/down on buying the OEM card to save $20-$30.

 

Jeff

[JonathanM]

6 hours ago, pepar said:

I am looking for another card and am seeing OEM cards from China that, other than the missing LSI logo, appear to be identical to LSI cards. I'd guess LSI has their cards made in China and am looking for a thumbs up/down on buying the OEM card to save $20-$30.

 

Jeff

Be careful. A clone card is not guaranteed to perform or work like the genuine article. I would be disinclined to use something like that with data I considered precious.

 

BTW, circuit boards are cheap, and easy to clone. Chips on the other hand are not as easy to get right. You can directly compare the circuit board visually, the insides of the chip, not so much.

 

I would much prefer to get a working pull from a server that likely was built from genuine parts at full cost than risk a brand new clone that doesn't have the backing of LSI.

[pepar]

That’s what the good angel on my shoulder was whispering.

[mason]

I tried to find an answer in this threat, but sorry it's just too hughe... since I see to experience problems with my SASLP cards, I guess i try to switch them over to flashed H310, does these support the latest drive size i.e. 12TB?

[JorgeB]

19 minutes ago, mason said:

does these support the latest drive size i.e. 12TB?

Yes

[adn2377]

Hello,

 

I am a 40+ years old guy but very recently started to dabble into the "SAS RAID Controller" world.

 

I have created sort of a home server (in name), where I would like to use such a card. In the beginning I bought a Dell Perc H200 card (without knowing what I buy exactly), my initial desire being to have additional SATA ports and - maybe - also create a small RAID.

 

From that moment on I have spent many hours on the internet reading things. I learned that usually a card such as these will NOT function simultaneously with RAID and non-raid drives (to my deepest sorrow) and I managed, following some guides found on the net, to flash my card to IT-mode. I am not sure how to change back to a RAID mode if I wanted to now, but for the moment this seems a good use for the Dell Perc 200 - just additional SATA ports.

 

I borrowed from a friend a HP P420 card that was unable to boot with its own BIOS active (I had to disable Storage boot Option ROM) and then my Windows 2016 Server boots and also directly sees the card. Found out that a Windows utility exists for that HP, I install it and see that:

- I can change from RAID to HBA and vice-versa from it (reboot needed);

- I can make all the management to my RAID arrays if I wanted any (and I do now)

- I found a mention of an additional MIXED mode (beside RAID and HBA), that should allow (in my understanding) to simultaneously present to the OS both RAID arrays AND single drives (No Raid) but have no option to switch to it. BINGO!

 

After my following search, I found out that such a feature is only active on the newest Gen10 SAS Controllers from HP. And of course, tough luck! They are all very expensive...

 

So I turned my attention towards LSI-based cards again. Is there anything comparable possible with an affordable LSI? I saw a few mentions regarding LSI 3108, but those are also kind of new and - of course, also EXPENSIVE. Searching if this is possible using (for example) a LSI 2208 card left me with a couple of hours spent and no clear conclusion...

 

What I would search for in such a card:

 

- To have the option to present to the OS, in the same time, both RAID array(s) and single drives (NOT drives with RAID-0, but directly physical drives);

- To have of course reliability in that configuration;

- To be able to be configured from a Windows environment, not only from Bios/boot (Like I said, I currently use a W Server 2016)

- To have all RAID modes available (inclusive RAID 6, 60).

- To not be very expensive (not over ~~100 Eur when bought from China for eg.)

 

Otherwise I probably should look for another HP P420, since (without mixing) seems ok with the rest of my needs.

 

Please tell me if I could find something like this between the LSI cards...

 

Thank you!

 

 

Edited September 20, 2018 by adn2377
correction

[trurl]

2 hours ago, adn2377 said:

recently started to dabble into the "SAS RAID Controller" world.

This forum is for Unraid and the usual way to use these controllers is to set things up as individual disks since Unraid isn't RAID and has its own schemes for redundancy and spanning disks.

 

But perhaps someone else on this forum will have some experience to share with you.

[pepar]

@adn2377 - do a search for “LSI 9211-8i forum” and you will find other forums where this card and family of cards are discussed. There is a LARGE community using this.

[pepar]

Once I have disabled the card's initialization display at bootup, how do I access the BIOS to check/change settings?

[Fireball3]

On ‎9‎/‎21‎/‎2018 at 6:24 PM, pepar said:

Once I have disabled the card's initialization display at bootup, how do I access the BIOS to check/change settings?

Are you referring to the card BIOS?

If your card is operating in IT mode, there is nothing to check/change.

[pepar]

You caught me; this one is IR and in my Windows box.

[Raistlfiren]

Hi, I have a SuperMicro X8DT6 motherboard with a LSI SAS 2008 onboard controller. On the controller I am running version 7.17.00.00 (2011.02.18) firmware. I was hoping to upgrade the controller to the latest version to get 3TB drive support, and maybe higher? It looks like this post is telling me to download the following drivers - https://wiki.unraid.net/Crossflashing_Controllers#LSI_SAS2008_chipset

 

Although, I noticed SuperMicro has a newer patch here - https://www.supermicro.com/wftp/driver/SAS/LSI/2008/IR_IT/Firmware/IT/ 

 

Should I update my controller using the SuperMicro firmware or the link from the Wikipedia article? If I use the SuperMicro firmware, then should I be flashing IT or IR mode? I am assuming IT, but I do want to verify.

Thanks!

[inspyr]

Hi, I recently obtained a Dell PERC H200 which had been previously played with and was not working. The SAS address was gone, the firmware was gone and the bios was erroring. 

 

I am trying to flash it to LSI SAS9211-8i firmware and am able to get it to detect in dos, sas2flsh -listall shows the card as a LSI SAS: SAS2008(B2), then says "Controller is not operational. A firmware download is required" when I try and pass it the dell HBA file 6gbpsas.fw, it progresses to "Chip is in reset state. Attempting Host Boot..." then errors saying "ERROR: Firmware Host Boot Failed !". Same thing happens with both 2118IR.BIN and 2188IT.BIN.

 

from reading through this thread i've tried doing the megarec -cleanflash 0 and writing empty sbr files in different orders without much luck.

 

the megarec -writesbr 0 empty.bin returns;

 

Warning! IO Base address high. Currently not supported.

Chip is in FUSION mode

 

and megarec -cleanflash 0 returns;

 

Warning! IO Base address high. Currently not supported.

Flash Signature Error. Trying to clear it.....

Step 1: Host diag reg reads 1f2

Step 2: Host diag reg reads 1b2

Using BAR2 mem space.

 

Erasing Flash Chip (8mb)....

Completed 100%

 

Success.

 

I dont think these commands are running and succeeding correctly which is the source of my issue.

 

When I try to run the sas2flsh -o -e 6 command, it says a firmware is required to hostboot, i try giving it the 6gbpsas.fw file, or the 2118IT.bin file and it says controller does not have valid firmware, rerun utility to flash a valid firmware.

 

Ive tried Fireball's toolset (which I have had success with in the past) but I am still stuck. I think I may need to flash some FW file back to the card using megarec, but I cant seem to find a valid file.

 

Any help would be much appreciated.

[brun0]

Hi, 

 

recently I changed my storage controllers to two DELL PERC H310 controllers which are modified to IT described above.

I have had some issues with my mvsas based controllers, a faulty drive and a second with a bad sata connector so my old array crashed.

Now I started with a new array, by now with 4 discs online and copy my data to the array, then preclear a disc, add it to the array, copy again and so on.

While copying I'm getting minimal I/O errors on different discs. All drives pass a long SMART test, some are some month old, other a year or two so I can't believe I have that much faulty drives in my system. SAS cables are new to ensure not to be the source of my problems.

 

Are there any know issues with the H310 controllers? I'm unsure what will happen if the error happens on a assigned drive.

 

Wed Oct  3 23:37:24 2018 sd 13:0:2:0: [sds] tag#0 UNKNOWN(0x2003) Result: hostbyte=0x00 driverbyte=0x00
Wed Oct  3 23:37:24 2018 sd 13:0:2:0: [sds] tag#0 CDB: opcode=0x88 88 00 00 00 00 01 03 cf 5a 90 00 00 00 08 00 00
Wed Oct  3 23:37:24 2018 print_req_error: I/O error, dev sds, sector 4358888080
Thu Oct  4 13:11:45 2018 sd 2:0:5:0: [sdn] tag#0 UNKNOWN(0x2003) Result: hostbyte=0x00 driverbyte=0x00
Thu Oct  4 13:11:45 2018 sd 2:0:5:0: [sdn] tag#0 CDB: opcode=0x88 88 00 00 00 00 01 83 9f 03 98 00 00 00 08 00 00
Thu Oct  4 13:11:45 2018 print_req_error: I/O error, dev sdn, sector 6503203736
Thu Oct  4 21:13:06 2018 sd 2:0:0:0: [sdi] tag#1 UNKNOWN(0x2003) Result: hostbyte=0x00 driverbyte=0x00
Thu Oct  4 21:13:06 2018 sd 2:0:0:0: [sdi] tag#1 CDB: opcode=0x88 88 00 00 00 00 02 04 9d 7a 40 00 00 00 08 00 00
Thu Oct  4 21:13:06 2018 print_req_error: I/O error, dev sdi, sector 8667363904
Thu Oct  4 21:13:36 2018 sd 13:0:6:0: [sdw] tag#1 UNKNOWN(0x2003) Result: hostbyte=0x00 driverbyte=0x00
Thu Oct  4 21:13:36 2018 sd 13:0:6:0: [sdw] tag#1 CDB: opcode=0x88 88 00 00 00 00 01 f1 97 7b c0 00 00 00 08 00 00
Thu Oct  4 21:13:36 2018 print_req_error: I/O error, dev sdw, sector 8348203968
Thu Oct  4 21:25:46 2018 sd 2:0:6:0: [sdo] tag#0 UNKNOWN(0x2003) Result: hostbyte=0x00 driverbyte=0x00
Thu Oct  4 21:25:46 2018 sd 2:0:6:0: [sdo] tag#0 CDB: opcode=0x88 88 00 00 00 00 00 02 67 07 18 00 00 00 08 00 00
Thu Oct  4 21:25:46 2018 print_req_error: I/O error, dev sdo, sector 40306456
...
Fri Oct  5 13:49:56 2018 sd 2:0:0:0: [sdi] tag#0 UNKNOWN(0x2003) Result: hostbyte=0x00 driverbyte=0x00
Fri Oct  5 13:49:56 2018 sd 2:0:0:0: [sdi] tag#0 CDB: opcode=0x88 88 00 00 00 00 01 45 7f 36 60 00 00 00 08 00 00
Fri Oct  5 13:49:56 2018 print_req_error: I/O error, dev sdi, sector 5460932192

Thank you for your help

 

brun0

[JorgeB]

2 hours ago, brun0 said:

Are there any know issues with the H310 controllers?

No, it's not normal, and happening to both controllers, so it's not likely a bad controller, are they using latest firmware? It also could be power, board, or just some compatibility issue.

[GurKeSaLaT]

Hey guys, 

I bought a H310 controller and flashed it to the LSI firmware. Got some problems during the process becaus I had a UEFI an got the PAL-error, so I put the controller in my old mobo and flashed using FreeDOS without any further problems. 

Now with the new firmware I put it back in my server and hooked up 3 drives to it, the problem is now that no drives are detected not in UnRaid nor in the BIOS of the controller. 

The controller itself gets detected within UnRaid, just no drives. 

Any Ideas what went wrong? 

If you need more data please let me know, I'm new to UnRaid and other server-stuff. 

 

Edited November 17, 2018 by GurKeSaLaT

[Hoopster]

1 hour ago, GurKeSaLaT said:

I bought a H310 controller and flashed it to the LSI firmware

Just to confirm; did you flash it to IT mode or did you flash it with RAID firmware?

[GurKeSaLaT]

4 minutes ago, Hoopster said:

Just to confirm; did you flash it to IT mode or did you flash it with RAID firmware?

I flashed it with IT firmware. 

[Hoopster]

1 minute ago, GurKeSaLaT said:

I flashed it with IT firmware. 

Obviously, that is the correct answer 😀

 

Since it was unclear, I just wanted to make sure it was IT firmware.  I don't know why the disks are not appearing, but, your answer eliminates one possibility.

 

Paging the experts.

[GurKeSaLaT]

1 minute ago, Hoopster said:

Obviously, that is the correct answer 😀

 

Since it was unclear, I just wanted to make sure it was IT firmware.  I don't know why the disks are not appearing, but, your answer eliminates one possibility.

 

Paging the experts.

Even if I had the RAID firmware, I would see the drives in the controller BIOS, wouldn't I? 

[JorgeB]

3 hours ago, GurKeSaLaT said:

Any Ideas what went wrong? 

Are you using the right cables? Forward breakout and reverse breakout look exactly the same, only forward breakout will work in this case.

[GurKeSaLaT]

10 hours ago, johnnie.black said:

Are you using the right cables? Forward breakout and reverse breakout look exactly the same, only forward breakout will work in this case.

Is there any way to tell the differenz, because i just use the cable that came with the card? 

I don't have a second cable and the bundle is used so maybe they put the wrong cable in there. 

Edited November 18, 2018 by GurKeSaLaT

[JorgeB]

2 hours ago, GurKeSaLaT said:

Is there any way to tell the differenz

Not AFAIK, unless it has some model or part number.

[levster]

I posted this in a separate forum but perhaps posting here may also get me some help. Here is the text from the other topic:

 

So, I found the link to update the LSI controller. Installed the latest. Plugged in the system and... No drives appear!

 

Looks like all three PERC cards were not flashed correctly. I just tried to run 1.bat and am getting "firmware returned exception". Looks like there is not firmware on the card. Now, it seems that all three cards are dead in the water.

 

Any ideas how to get them back? I would hate to go and start looking for three new PERCs