Heya guys I will write a guide up but its basically grabbing a brand new 430-16i which is close to half the price of a second hand 9400-16i and flashing with the 9400-16i firmware. Ebay is flooded with these hba's and all you need to do is grab the newest lsi 9400-16i firmware and flash in an efi shell. I used clover as a usb bootable efi shell and used its command prompt. I mounted the clover bootable disk with "map -r" next "fs0:" then just ls to lsit dir cd to change basic nix commands. You need the lastest storcli.efi from broadcom, its the flashing util and firmware for the 9400-16i which is under legacy. I found the guide on github googling "430-16i github" just download the lsi 9400 frimware instead of lenovo and follow. I will write a full step by step guide when i get a chance as it will save alot of people money. For a u.2 nvme cable i got mine of aliexpress searching for broadcom u.2 and getting the one with hd mini sas

Edited November 20, 20241 yr by 2strokeunraid
updated

Thank you ! 

I have a Jonsbo N5 on pre-order, and am looking to get one of these 

No dramas ill link to a few guides when i get a chance, though theres enough pinned in this section to follow. It's been working great and i'am grabbing another U.2 to nvme caddy for a second nvme soon. The main reason i put this here as the lenovo 430-16i and 8i don't support tri-mode which takes the price down alot, though with a flash there full blown 9400's again

Edited November 20, 20241 yr by 2strokeunraid
updated

Were you able to get the guide going? I have the same board 430-16i and most guides are for 93xxx cards. Im not really good at using Linux and only know basic commands enough to get some details. I tried to use windows to flash the card but keep on getting invalid signature on the from (even if using the signed from file).

Greatly appreciate the guide.

2 hours ago, JayD said:

Were you able to get the guide going? I have the same board 430-16i and most guides are for 93xxx cards. Im not really good at using Linux and only know basic commands enough to get some details. I tried to use windows to flash the card but keep on getting invalid signature on the from (even if using the signed from file).

Greatly appreciate the guide.

I'm not the original poster, but see here

For the firmware, Go to this page (It goes to broadcom, searching for 9400-16i in the support documents and downloads page)

 

Basically, you'll want to get storcli.efi and HBA_9400-16i_Mixed_Profile from the firmware on an USB drive, then reboot the computer in an EFI shell with the USB conected, and use the following to install the firmware (so

storcli /c0 download file=HBA_9400-16i_Mixed_Profile.bin

instead of what it has for step 10

 

If that doesn't work, adding the force parameter should help (in the discussion on that github page it shows also how to do that)

 

@Wody Thanks a bunch!! Was able to cross flash my 430-16i card. I was about to pull my hair out trying to figure it out but the links you gave just made it simple and easy.

30 minutes ago, JayD said:

simple and easy.

I forgot to mention, but if you want the bios and UEFI-interface, of course you'd also use the broadcom ones instead of the ones from the instructions (just for completeness).

In case they do release new firmware (very unlikely since the 9700-series is getting closer to release and they're already working on a 9800-series) you can now just flash from the command-line in unraid, and reset the card to use the new firmware too, without having to restart the computer, unless the firmware says otherwise.

Thats interesting, that would be great to do just using unraid instead of swapping flash drives... any link on how to do it in unraid for the LSI94xx? Ive seen most of the post are for the 92xx and 93xx cards.

3 hours ago, JayD said:

how to do it in unraid for the LSI94xx?

I'm lazy, so I do this remotely, with a computer that has a connection to an unraid-share, but it doesn't matter how you do it. The goal is to get the firmware-file and companion storcli-version on unraid in a known location.

 

I'd first download the firmware-zip-file from Broadcom using the page I mentioned earlier, and the same storcli-zip-file under managment-software. I'd then copy the firmware file, bios file and uefi-file to a location on the share for example LSI9400.

Since the downloaded file is a ZIP file, you can also use unzip or use MC to copy the files, doesn't matter.

 

For the 9300 you'd use sas3flash which comes with a zip-file with all variations included, and you could unpack that. The 9500 and 9600 come with storcli(2) which also have a zip file with all variations, and a linux-lite version which is also easy to unpack (I assume this can be used to flash the card they are for, but I have used the full version).

For the 9400 and newer there is also the full version, but this is a 'problem' since it comes as a RPM file, and unraid doesn't support those. So you need to unpack it, and easiest way to do that is with 7zip (which is why I use a different computer), so you'd open the RPM with 7zip, and navigate the folders, something like storcli/./opt/MegaRAID/storcli, and unpack the storcli64 file with 7zip and put it with the firmware files in the same location as before.

 

Now open a terminal or ssh to the unraid-server (including login if needed) and then navigate to the share-location and run storcli, something like:

cd /mnt/user/SHARE/LSI9400
./storcli64 /c0 show

If you did get the files unpacked correctly, this will show the first controller with everything attached. Then you'd do the same as on the page I linked first (this would be step 7 on that page) from step 8 to step 13, except for storcli.efi you'd use ./storcli64 and the filenames would be different.

 

Instead of resetting the system you can do:

./storcli64 /c0 restart

and when done do:

./storcli64 /c0 show

and that should show the new firmware being active. If it doesn't, you may have to power-cycle the system anyway.

 

Final remarks, if you check the help for storcli, by just running ./storcli64 it mentions reset, but the command is restart. Also for the 9500 and 9600 the download-commands are different, because the files they use are different, but everything around it is the same (except storcli2 for the 9600 of course).

 

Thank you so much! This is better than restarting the server each time.

Just verifying that I should be able to cross flash the Lenovo 430-8i cards to the LSI 9400-8i before I pull the trigger.

 

The Lenovo 430-8i description says "...not compatible with non-ThinkSystem or standard desktop systems."

 

Also, do I have to worry about putting the card in IT mode or is that with older cards?

Edited February 14, 20251 yr by beanmeister

On 2/14/2025 at 5:47 AM, beanmeister said:

should be able to cross flash the Lenovo 430-8i

says "...not compatible with non-ThinkSystem"

IT mode or is that with older cards?

There is a 'dense' version of it which obviously won't work, but for the PCIe version it should be as easy as making an USB with storcli and firmware which you can get here, and bios if required, booting into EFI-shell, flash the firmware with

fs0:
storcli64 /c0 download file=HBA_9400-8i_Mixed_Profile.bin

once done, restart the computer, and it should identify as a 9400, if you need the BIOS you can flash those with replacing it with 'download efibios file=' and 'download biosfile=' and of course the respectable files, mpt35sas_x64.bin for UEFI and mpt35sas_legacy.bin for the BIOS.

 

For the firmware, there are options nosigchk and noverchk but those shouldn't be required.

 

As for non-compatible, there may be some firmware check where it refuses to load if it isn't on a non-Thinksystem but I doubt it, seeing how people don't report anything. I think it's more a question of not wanting to support it.

 

As for IT mode, the 9300 has IR and IT mode, but the 9305 and newer models only support IT mode.

There are different firmwares for newer models though, the 9400 and 9500 have firmware for SAS/SATA only which has bigger buffers and queues since it doesn't need the NVMe stuff, and mixed mode firmware for SAS/SATA/NVMe.

 

Edit: So I wanted to know if it worked or not, thought about getting a Lenovo model, then I figured, if it works one way, it should work the other too. So I fpund the lenovo firmware and flashed my regular 9400-16i to a 430-16i and that worked.

Some notes:

If you try to flash the card under linux, it will recognize the firmware (storcli64 show file=firmware.bin) but when you try to flash it, it will say it's invalid, so you really have to use EFI shell.

The last official firmware is 24.00.00.00 from 2022 but Intel has a newer firmware 24.00.04.00 from 2023 which you can get here. It includes both SAS/SATA only and mixed SAS/SATA/NVME firmware. If you're reading this after 29 Sept. 2031, sorry, they deleted it. RSP3QD160J is their 9400-16i model, RSP3GD016J is their 9400-16e model. The other one is a mezzanine.

Lenovo firmware does something funky in their installer, but the firmware seems standard, and you can get that here. If it asks you for a serial, cancel and press the button again. The firmware is version 24.00.07.00 from 2024, so even newer, but includes only the SAS/SATA versions.

Big differences between the Lenovo and standard firmware are bugfixes, a different PCI-id and buffers. The standard firmware does about 6600 Parallel commands, the Lenovo version about 9000.

 

So, if you need NVMe use the standard or Intel version, if you don't, you can use any of them. As long as you don't hold me responsible if something goes wrong, of course.

 

Final note: Broadcom changed their site, to separate legacy products, so now you can go to Support and services, then Documents, Downloads and Support, then Support Documents and Downloads, select Legacy products for Product group, then Legacy Host Bus Adapters (or Legacy Raid controllers if you have one) for Product Family, and then start typing the model number under Product name and it should come up.

Edited February 16, 20251 yr by Wody

Guys I am planning to swap my two older "SAS2 2008" compatible cards (supporting 8 disks each), with a single of those 9400-16i ones.

My old ones where flashed to "IT firmware", but I don't even remember why. JBOD was not working without it?

In any case, questions:

1) If someone has made such a move, are those 9400-16i faster than what I have? (because really my disk access was never great)

2) Why I need to flash them? What is wrong with the "tri-mode" firmware they have? (yeah it's been years since I last dwelved in this)
3a) Reading the last post above, if I need NVMe support (I don't), the compatible firmware is a bit slower?
3b) NVMe, meaning SSD storage on SATA bus? Because I thought NVMe is only for M.2 storage. In that case, I don't know if in the future I would use some SSD on my server. If though, it just means using some NVMe to SATA board, I don't care for those.

 

(edit) 4) I am now a bit confused after reading the links. If I get a card that is labeled like this "Lenovo 430-16i 9400-16i 12Gb/s NVMe Tri-Mode HBA", WHAT is the best/latest firmware I should flash it IF I should? (as per #3b above) Can you directly point me to it?

 

Thanks for getting up to date.

 

Edited February 22, 20251 yr by NLS

16 hours ago, NLS said:

Thanks for getting up to date.

About JBOD/IT mode, it's basically the same thing. In IR mode, the controller acts as a raid-controller which doesn't pass through single disks, where in IT mode, it acts as just a pass-through for just a bunch of disks. (JBOD).

 

1. The sas 2008 supports SAS2 and Sata 3 speed (6gpbs) so for many drives it may not make a difference. But the 9400-16i has the sas 3416 chip which also supports SAS3. The 2008 has PCIe2.0 and the 9400 has PCIe3.1 so if that was a bottleneck, it will make a difference. Also, the 9400--16i processor runs faster, so even if the transfer-speeds are the same, there should be a difference. It sure feels a lot faster and more responsive to me.

2. For older cards, you'd have to flash them to get into IT mode, but also to fix bugs. For the 9400, it's mostly to fix bugs, since the 9400 and newer are only HBA's so they don't support RAID at all. It does come with two firmwares to choose from, the Mixed one support SAS, SATA and NVMe (with  special cables for NVMe), while the SAS/SATA only firmware doesn't support NVMe but has bigger buffers and more queues.

3a. The NVMe firmware won't be slower, but with bigger buffers and queues it can handle more commands at once, and sort things better, so you'd only notice a difference if you use the card at max capacity which with unraid is unlikely to happen.

3b. NVMe is the protocol used to talk to flash drives, it's mostly used for PCIe drives (M.2 is an interface that combines different physical protocols like PCIe and SATA and some others). So if you buy a SATA SSD, it talks SATA, if you buy an M.2 or PCIe drive, it talks NVMe. For a SATA or SAS SSD you don't need an adapter, for the drives that talk NVMe you'd need a special cable. Usually those drives come with an U.2 connection, which looks like a SAS connector but isn't, and a SAS connector looks like a combined power+data SATA connector with the bit in the middle filled in.

4. The latest firmware for SAS/SATA is the Lenovo firmware from here which is version 24.00.07.00 from 2024.

The latest firmware Broadcom released is here which is version 24.00.00.00 from 2022.

 

5 hours ago, Wody said:

About JBOD/IT mode, it's basically the same thing. In IR mode, the controller acts as a raid-controller which doesn't pass through single disks, where in IT mode, it acts as just a pass-through for just a bunch of disks. (JBOD).

 

1. The sas 2008 supports SAS2 and Sata 3 speed (6gpbs) so for many drives it may not make a difference. But the 9400-16i has the sas 3416 chip which also supports SAS3. The 2008 has PCIe2.0 and the 9400 has PCIe3.1 so if that was a bottleneck, it will make a difference. Also, the 9400--16i processor runs faster, so even if the transfer-speeds are the same, there should be a difference. It sure feels a lot faster and more responsive to me.

2. For older cards, you'd have to flash them to get into IT mode, but also to fix bugs. For the 9400, it's mostly to fix bugs, since the 9400 and newer are only HBA's so they don't support RAID at all. It does come with two firmwares to choose from, the Mixed one support SAS, SATA and NVMe (with  special cables for NVMe), while the SAS/SATA only firmware doesn't support NVMe but has bigger buffers and more queues.

3a. The NVMe firmware won't be slower, but with bigger buffers and queues it can handle more commands at once, and sort things better, so you'd only notice a difference if you use the card at max capacity which with unraid is unlikely to happen.

3b. NVMe is the protocol used to talk to flash drives, it's mostly used for PCIe drives (M.2 is an interface that combines different physical protocols like PCIe and SATA and some others). So if you buy a SATA SSD, it talks SATA, if you buy an M.2 or PCIe drive, it talks NVMe. For a SATA or SAS SSD you don't need an adapter, for the drives that talk NVMe you'd need a special cable. Usually those drives come with an U.2 connection, which looks like a SAS connector but isn't, and a SAS connector looks like a combined power+data SATA connector with the bit in the middle filled in.

4. The latest firmware for SAS/SATA is the Lenovo firmware from here which is version 24.00.07.00 from 2024.

The latest firmware Broadcom released is here which is version 24.00.00.00 from 2022.

 

Thank you for elaborate reply.

I know about IR mode and IT mode, I don't know what "tri-mode" that it claims is.
My UNRAID has 12 SATA3 disks.
Will it make a difference to flash non-NVMe enabled firmware?

In any case I ordered an open-box "IT" one, so there is a good chance it won't need any flashing.

 

1 hour ago, NLS said:

 I don't know what "tri-mode" that it claims is.
Will it make a difference to flash non-NVMe enabled firmware?
In any case I ordered an open-box "IT" one, so there is a good chance it won't need any flashing.

Tri-mode means SAS, SATA and NVMe, as opposed to traditional HBA's that 'only' do SAS and SATA.

 

Flashing the non-NVME firmware probably won't make a difference in performance, but they did fix a lot of bugs. A lot of it will be for the entire product line, and HBAs are pretty simple so they won't have a lot of issues, but generally, you want to use the latest firmware to avoid any known issues.

 

The 9305 and newer no longer have IR firmware, and the 9400 and newer don't have the option to switch,so there are only HBA's and RAID-controllers.  You probably will have to flash it, most won't come with the P24 (version 24) firmware, almost nobody flashes stuff. But, flashing is easy, because you can't flash a wrong version, or have to do weird stuff with jumpers or DOS or EFI-shells.

9 hours ago, Wody said:

Tri-mode means SAS, SATA and NVMe, as opposed to traditional HBA's that 'only' do SAS and SATA.

 

Flashing the non-NVME firmware probably won't make a difference in performance, but they did fix a lot of bugs. A lot of it will be for the entire product line, and HBAs are pretty simple so they won't have a lot of issues, but generally, you want to use the latest firmware to avoid any known issues.

 

The 9305 and newer no longer have IR firmware, and the 9400 and newer don't have the option to switch,so there are only HBA's and RAID-controllers.  You probably will have to flash it, most won't come with the P24 (version 24) firmware, almost nobody flashes stuff. But, flashing is easy, because you can't flash a wrong version, or have to do weird stuff with jumpers or DOS or EFI-shells.

 

Thanks for the info.

I thought 9400 needs EFI shell flashing.

I remember my old controllers, needed flashing in DOS environment and I had an issue with newer OS that didn't allow unrestricted access to hardware.

So which is the definite guide to flash the 9400?

46 minutes ago, NLS said:

I thought 9400 needs EFI shell flashing.

So which is the definite guide to flash the 9400?

The 9400 does need EFi shell for cross-flashing, otherwise it doesn't. For the 430, you'll need Windows and the firmware .EXE which asks to install or extract, if install doesn't work (because it may verify the computer, not just the card) you can extract and do a manual install.

for the 9400, you'd get storcli64, the firmware, and bios-files if required, and in windows, linux, or efishell do storcli64 /c0 file=filename for EFI, storcli64 /c0 efibios file=filename for the efi-interface and storcli64 /c0 bios=filename for the legacy bios. After that you can just run efibios64 /c0 restart, or restart the computer.  The hardest part is typing all the actual filenames, so I didn't this time. Usually I also rename them to something simpler, but with tab-completion it doesn't matter much.

 

edit: Interestingly, the 9500 used to be much simpler (just one firmware, and one bios), but they also added the PSOC package, which I think is used to boot the card, and they added mixed mode and sas/sata only with an update to release 30. The 9600 is also much simpler, that uses storcli2 and only one file with everything.

Edited February 24, 20251 yr by Wody

I'll wake this up when I get the card.

OK so I got the card, installed it and sees my disks fine.

In Tools/System Devices it shows:

IOMMU group 11:[1000:00ac] 01:00.0 Serial Attached SCSI controller: Broadcom / LSI SAS3416 Fusion-MPT Tri-Mode I/O Controller Chip (IOC) (rev 01)

In storcli64 it shows (among other things):

Product Name = 430-16i SAS HBA
FW Package Build = 09.02.00.07
FW Version = 09.00.07.00
BIOS Version = 09.17.00.00_09.00.01.00
NVDATA Version = 09.00.00.39
Driver Version = 43.100.00.00

 

What are my next steps?

 

Preferably from within UNRAID command line (probably with array stopped?) and NOT EFI shell.
...Reason being my motherboard (a Colorful branded... don't ask why), doesn't display anything in the first phase of booting UNRAID (it only displays after resolution change that happens midway in the boot process) and it boots it only in legacy (not UEFI) mode (which, this latter part, was also the case with my previous motherboard and with other USB stick... so I tend to believe it is an UNRAID issue, but I don't care for it now)... my last motherboard managed to show the whole boot process from the blue boot menu and onwards.
Now I don't have this, I just wait to a black screen until resolution changes and see the rest of UNRAID boot process.

 

So WHICH file I need to get after all?

And then using UNRAID's own shell I do what?
storcli64 /c0 efibios file=filename

storcli64 /c0 bios=filename

...this also confuses me, because I don't know if I need efibios or bios firmware. After I need to see the controller from within UNRAID environment, not some EFI interface (at least with my current motherboard, I don't have that option, I did have it with my older one).

Can't I flash something that supports both BIOS and UEFI?

What does it have now? BIOS?

Sorry for the question attack but I am sure we are slowly building an FAQ here.

Thanks @Wody!

EDIT: I got 9400_16i_Pkg_P24_SAS_SATA_NVMe_FW_BIOS_UEFI.zip from Broadcom. Is this the one I want? Then which file from in there I want to use?

I see that I am to use one of these:

• HBA_9400-16i_Mixed_Profile.bin (I suspect this supports NVMe? Again what is the reason not to always flash this one? Why would Broadcom not have a single version if there is no reason?)
• HBA_9400-16i_SAS_SATA_Profile.bin
• mpt35sas_legacy.rom (maybe I can flash this AND the above? This is only 53KB!... maybe it flashes other part of the firmware chip?)
• mpt35sas_x64.rom (maybe this too!?!?)

 

Edited March 8, 20251 yr by NLS

2 hours ago, NLS said:

So WHICH file I need to get after all?

You mention not being able to use EFI-shell, so you must use Lenovo firmware, and that also means you can flash using unraid. You'll need storcli64, 16i_24_00_07_00.fw, mpt35sas_legacy_9_47_03_00.rom and mpt35sas_x64_24_00_05_00.rom. (the .rom files are optional)

 

You'd execute the following:

storcli64 /c0 download file=16i_24_00_07_00.fw

For BIOS and UEFI iyou can flash none, either one, or both as you wish. I'd flash both, since it only adds a few seconds, but can be helpful to see if all drives are detected during boot.

storcli64 /c0 bios file=mpt35sas_legacy_9_47_03_00.rom
storcli64 /c0 efibios file=mpt35sas_x64_24_00_05_00.rom

After flashing, restart the computer.

 

The BIOS is used during booting, the UEFI interface when you enter the BIOS and EFI is enabled, it adds the card to the advanced menu to manipulate.

 

SAS/SATA only firmware has bigger buffers and queues, which can make the card more efficient if you don't need NVMe. In unraid it won't make a big difference.

 

 

To reply to myself (for future searches)...
1) I indeed need all three firmware.
2) The .bin I mention DOES NOT work in linux console. Needs efi shell.
3) This helped me:
https://gist.github.com/buswedg/f94a7978b07c1976e81e6d456ec37853

...but found latest 24.00.07 and it works!
 

I think that a guide for this would be nice. I chose to use the intel firmware which has some advantages and disadvantages. First you have to run storlci in efi shell. I did not know what that was but made a flash drive based on this information. I copied the intel fimware to another flash drive just because it was handy. Efi shell may be easy or confusing depending on your motherboard. I did this on a windows PC and not my server because I am lazy and did not want to hook up a monitor and keyboard and I don't have kvm.

 

The intel firmware has batch files that take care of the flashing for you as long as your card is at c0. It worked well and the card shows NVME support.  The intel firmware also automatically updates the EFI bios.

So after going through this, wanted to do much more of a step by step for a mac user wanting to flash the 430-16i over to the 9400-16i.  Thanks to all the people who posted above and on the github site that's linked in prepare the files. 

 

Create the UEFI bootable disc

On your Mac insert a USB you don't mind blowing away, - "Erase" using disk utility with Fat32 and guid bootloader options selected, I named my drive 9400-16i

Open up the 9400-16i USB stick

Add a folder called EFI\BOOT and add the shell file from https://github.com/KilianKegel/Howto-create-a-UEFI-Shell-Boot-Drive?tab=readme-ov-file 

I also added the 2 optional files into a EFI\TOOLS folder from the above link just for the fun of it, not really needed.

 

Prepare the files

To the root of the USB, copy the files that you downloaded per the instructions on this site: https://gist.github.com/buswedg/f94a7978b07c1976e81e6d456ec37853. 

You should have the following 4 files

Pick one of these based on your needs (NVME vs just SAS/SATA)

• HBA_9400-16i_Mixed_Profile.bin - if you want NVME
• HBA_9400-16i_SAS_SATA_Profile.bin - If you only want SAS / SATA support

mpt35sas_legacy.rom 

mpt35sas_x64.rom

storcli.efi

 

Prepare my older i7 motherboard for booting (this is a spare unraid box for testing)

Swap mobo to boot from UEFI and select the USB for booting

Boot

Type in  MAP and hit enter to see file system, for mine it was FS1

Type in “FS1:” without quotes to swap to FS1 drive

LS to confirm you can see files that you copied above

Make backup folder "mkdir backup"

 

Backing up the current card and flashing new (this is from the https://gist.github.com/buswedg/f94a7978b07c1976e81e6d456ec37853 page, pasting here so people have it)

 

Identify the relevant (cX) HBA:

storcli.efi show all

 

Confirm the relevant HBA:

storcli.efi /c0 show

 

Backup STORCLI output to the USB:

storcli.efi /c0 show all > backup\output.txt

 

Backup current controller bios, firmware etc. to the USB:

storcli.efi /c0 get bios file=backup\bios

storcli.efi /c0 get firmware file=backup\firmware

storcli.efi /c0 get mpb file=backup\mpb

storcli.efi /c0 get fwbackup file=backup\fwbackup

storcli.efi /c0 get nvdata file=backup\nvdata

storcli.efi /c0 get flash file=backup\flash

 

Update the firmware:

storcli.efi /c0 download file=HBA_9400-16i_Mixed_Profile.bin

 

Update the EFI BIOS:

storcli.efi /c0 download efibios file=mpt35sas_x64.rom

 

Update the BIOS:

storcli.efi /c0 download bios file=mpt35sas_legacy.rom 

 

Check HBA versions have updated:

storcli.efi /c0 show

 

Power cycle the machine.

 

All done!

 

So I am a little stuck. This is what shows up. Did the updates... through efi. Have one SSD drive attached. Nothing shows up... any ideas?

@dnoyeb @Wody Any help?

Edited June 3, 20251 yr by GreenEyedMonster