HDD's not appearing in Unraid using 9620-16I HBA

[marcimac]

Hi everyone,

 

Just received my new production server (I run a film post production company), but none of my HDD's are appearing.

 

Specs are:

GByte S453-Z30 4U 36B Server

AMD EPYC 9124 16C 2.7G OEM

8x Samsung 32G 4800Mhz DDR5

2x 3.84TB Ssung PM9A3 U.2 SSD
Broadcom MEGARAID 9620-16i

4x Exos 16tb

5x Ironwolf 8tb

 

I'm really and truly a rookie when it comes to the nitty gritty, but I'm pretty sure the issue has to do with the HBA. I couldn't find anything regarding this card specifically, but is it supported by Unraid? And if so, does it need to be flashed to It Mode?

 

Been working all day on this, will send diagnostics in the morning if needed.

 

Any help would be incredibly helpful! 

 

 

Thanks,

Marcus

[Gragorg]

Raid cards not recommended.  i would post diagnostics when you can.  Do the drives show up in the bios?

[marcimac]

Will send diagnostics soon. After tooling around abit, I was able to make the a test drive appear in UnRaid by setting it to JBOD mode inside of the 9620-16i's settings. Until then it was only appering inside of the bios settings of the HBA itself.

 

According to this https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/lsi-megaraid-9460-16i-with-physical-drives-in-jbod-mode.80070/ setting the cards to JBOD mode (and also the disks, which formats them :/) is not great. 

 

So that leads me to what to do next. Should I return this HBA? Or do I get it flashed to IT mode (though very little documentation on that)? Or possibly just connect the backplane directly to the motherboard (need to check if the cables would fit)?

 

If I do return it, what pre-flashed HBA should I get instead? Needs to have SFF-8654 SlimSAS connectors for the backplane (and support up to 36 drives). 

[itimpi]

5 hours ago, marcimac said:

According to this https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/lsi-megaraid-9460-16i-with-physical-drives-in-jbod-mode.80070/ setting the cards to JBOD mode (and also the disks, which formats them :/) is not great. 

Unraid is designed to work with standard HBA cards - not with hardware RAID ones.   If you need to use a hardware RAID card (not flashed to IT mode) then the disk need to be configured in JBOD mode to allow Unraid to work with them.

[marcimac]

Okay thanks Gragorg & itimpi

 

Can you confirm whether running the card in JBOD mode would be detrimental to the performance of the server? Can't find any resources regarding Unraid, but most Proxmox & TruenNas resources state that.

 

Leaving this HBA, do you have any recommendations of HBA's that can handle the SFF-8654 SlimSAS connector of the backplane & opto 36 drives?

[marcimac]

Talking to my systems integrator, swapping over to a 9600-16i should do the trick?

 

Afaik these come without RAID/JBOD meaning that they're arriving in IT Mode. Should plug'n'play?

[JorgeB]

32 minutes ago, marcimac said:

9600-16i should do the trick?

Yes, that one should be fine.

[marcimac]

25 minutes ago, JorgeB said:

Yes, that one should be fine.

 

Perfect, it'll arrive next week and will test then. 

 

Thanks JorgeB

[marcimac]

Hi again,

 

The 9600-16i has arrived, but the disks are still not appearing. Attached are diagnostics.

 

All drives are set to Unconfigured Good on the HBA, to avoid JBOD. 

 

Thanks

monolith-diagnostics-20231214-1717.zip

Edited December 14, 2023 by marcimac
wrote 9600i instead of 9600-16i

[marcimac]

Maybe instead of buying new (and dealing with this problem), I should just go for something like this instead?

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/134513177399?hash=item1f519c3337:g:bNUAAOSwNuljLBuN&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA0KMEzesH6P178dtVmOlh0Ot9BBrgQDSzlvBAb%2FyYlbhuXhbEI8pOw1bAUw%2FXt5rTn6D7MrZuOngUGNdHHh%2FhLzfrdaR73NYgjRo9D1RMrDnk3wsjvY7yp0cF1%2FTmWm5hgiAvFQE5MdbjzasAoo77M4x%2FvV9P5lZPmjwUcwmmzvOuOZAk4NVUtK1Ab9zvFZBoHBC8YvU%2FqNHt9dgMlME1H%2BXDRztljdwgVFTThNi%2FkicreDDpl%2BElGCbnJrpdukwkTIcFCL%2F3AHKtvvJbyGd5%2FaY%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR-Ks9paNYw

 

Pre-flashed to IT mode, 9500-16i, so still using the SlimSAS connector. Save loads of money also.

 

It'd be great to get the other one working though... Server's been down for almost a week now and the Ebay order will take a while.

[JorgeB]

The HBA is being detect and initialized correctly, are the devices being detected in the HBA BIOS? Problem can be the cables or the configuration.

[marcimac]

Through the normal BIOS and entering into the HBA settings, they show up yes (though as 'Configured Good").

 

I haven't checked the HBA BIOS specifically, (not super tach savvy sorry!) how do I access that?

 

Using the old 9620-16i and configuring a test SSD to JBOD (wiping all data), it would show up in Unraid. So I don't think it's cables.

[itimpi]

2 minutes ago, marcimac said:

I haven't checked the HBA BIOS specifically, (not super tach savvy sorry!) how do I access that?

There is normally a message displayed on the screen as the BIOS is booting that gives you a key combination to get into the HBA BIOS (typically something like CTRL-M seems typical).

[marcimac]

Thanks itimpi

 

Checking the BIOS for the HBA, the drives (well the one test drive I had connected), shows up.

[JorgeB]

I'm not familiar with that controller, it should be IT mode, but based on the log it also supports RAID, so look for JBOD or disk passthrough options.

[marcimac]

JBOD is available, though it forces me to wipe the disks. No passthrough options available. Maybe a 9500-16I pre-flashed to IT mode is the answer?

[JorgeB]

Not sure, never used on of those, I would think the 9500-16i would be IT mode only, but if there's a JBOD mode and since the log mentions RAID, maybe not.

 

mpi3mr0: Protocol=(Initiator,NVMe attachment), Capabilities=(RAID,MultiPath)

 

[JorgeB]

Just to be sure, there's also a MegaRAID controller in the server , you are not using that one correct?

 

01:00.0 RAID bus controller [0104]: Broadcom / LSI MegaRAID 12GSAS/PCIe Secure SAS38xx [1000:10e6]
    Subsystem: Broadcom / LSI MegaRAID 9540-2M2 [1000:40e0]
    Kernel driver in use: megaraid_sas
    Kernel modules: megaraid_sas

 

[marcimac]

That MegaRaid is a Dual M.2 expansion card, the 9600-16i is seperate. I can seemingly purchase a pre-flashed IT mode 9500-16I off ebay (as per the link above).

 

Based of this previous thread, the 9500-16I works out of box.

 

However this states the 9600 should also work, as long as the OS is updated.

 

Unsure of what's going on... I set my test drive to JBOD (which was initally Unconfigured Good and required a format) and it showed up in Unraid.