I'm having some problems with a new model of LSI/Avago PCIe3, 12Gb/s HBA on a Gigabyte Z97N-mobo (and on a H97N) WiFi mobo with unRAID 6.2.0-beta21 Pro.

The Gigabyte mobo recognises the PCI card and I can access the PCI' card's config page with Ctrl-C. I can even set the Cards' boot mode to 'BIOS enable/disable, but it makes no difference as it's non-RAID card anyway.

This card is detected by the Mobo on the PCI port just fine, but it's not detecting any disks and passing these to the OS (unRAID)

I should add that I'm not actually using any 12Gb/s disks BUT PCIe2/6Gb/s cards are starting to become EOL also hard to find in a 24way card and also are more expensive than PCIe3 cards

I have contacted LSI (Avago) and Gigabyte for advice on compatibility/firmware/driver issues, but not heard anything yet.

I noticed a couple of occasional mobo BIOS errors along the lines of

'Unable to load Avago Technologies MPT BIOS

MPT BIOS Fault 10H encountered at adapter PCI(01h, 00h, 00h), Press any key to continue.

Unable to load Avago Technologies MPT BIOS

MPT BIOS Fault 11h encountered at adapter PCI(01h, 00h, 00h,), Press any key to continue'

 

Anyone have any ideas/suggestions what the issue might be,

Thanks

My initial reaction would be that it's too new, not compatible yet.  You may have to wait for the Linux drivers to catch up (mpt3sas I presume), or newer firmware for the card, or both.  I don't think the mobo or its BIOS are at fault.

I've tried upgrading the BIOS on the Gigabyte mobo to the latest firmware but that mode no difference.

I've eliminated the Hots swap bays by connecting directly to the HD and that made no difference.

I located a setting in the BIOS to switch the PCIe port from Gen1 - 2 - 3 .. and that made no difference.

 

Avagotech have advised :

> It looks like unRAID uses 3.9.6 which should have embedded driver support.

> Can you see mpt3sas.ko loading?

> If no, you may have to compile from source and I don't think this OS has full source

 

I presume they're referring to the version of their driver because I did tell them what version of the Kernel it was using in unRAID 6.1.3

However, can anyone advise how can I slow down/page/step the boot sequence so I can see if mpt3SAS is loading, etc. It scrolls offscreen so quickly on my monitor that I can't even read it until it gets to >login: ?

 

Thanks

Just examine the syslog, should see it starting up there.

However, can anyone advise how can I slow down/page/step the boot sequence so I can see if mpt3SAS is loading, etc. It scrolls offscreen so quickly on my monitor that I can't even read it until it gets to >login: ?

 

Scroll lock?

 

Tools syslog and just scroll through that

 

Sent from my LG-D852 using Tapatalk

 

 

I hate to necro this old thread but were you ever able to get this card to work? I am trying to set up a media server using unRAID and the Avago's 9305-24i SAS controller and am having the same issue. There don't seem to be any errors, but the card doesn't load. I checked the syslog and I don't see mpt3SAS loading.

Sorry to bump, but has anyone gotten this to work?

Another necro bump, but with an answer!

 

I replaced 3 x 9211-8i with this card.

 

I can confirm the 9305-24i (https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118248) DOES indeed work out of the box, at least with Unraid 6.5.0 on my Gigabyte X99P-SLI board running 24 drives.

 

 

Thank you!  My 9305-24i was delivered today. Did you install it in a 8x slot or a 16x slot?  I know it's a 8x card and the 16x slot won't help with anything, but I was curious if it worked ok in a 16x slot.  Very cool that we don't have do update firmware or mess with drivers.  ?

Yes i did install it in an x16 slot, for now.  If i'm able to get my PSU wiring issues ironed out so i can put 2 GPU's in the server, it'll move to an 8x

On 5/31/2018 at 7:53 PM, Switchblade said:

.  Very cool that we don't have do update firmware or mess with drivers.  ?

 

One thing to note - thinking back to last Oct / Nov when i first set up the Unraid box, there was a MB bios setting that i had to change in order to get Unraid to boot and essentially "skip" the card's bios, a RocketRAID 2760A at the time, and i think that's what made it function like a HBA.

 

It could be that changing that MB Bios setting is not necessary with the 9305, but i didn't change anything in bios when i swapped cards, and it just worked.

 

I had constant problems (parity drives dropping every couple days / weekly) with the 2760A, due to the known controller issues, and once i swapped to the 9305-24i those issues went away.  

 

I'll try and look for what the setting was and post back if i get a chance.

cool - thank you for sharing.  The hw compatibility list shows the 9305 24 working out of the box so I hope that is correct for my Supermicro X11SSM-F mb.

 

Which breakout cables did you go with?  I have tried a few different brands and found the Trip Lite ones are very sensitive and even a little pressure from the case door pressing on them will cause errors.  I'm now trying LSI cables and SuperMircro brand.  I'm also trying to use right angle drive connectors so the case side door doesn't even touch them.

 

By the way, there is a new firmware available, came out May 20, 2018.  See my other post, https://lime-technology.com/forums/topic/11753-sata-controller-cards/?page=24

 

Did you update yet?

 

On 6/4/2018 at 7:12 PM, Switchblade said:

cool - thank you for sharing.  The hw compatibility list shows the 9305 24 working out of the box so I hope that is correct for my Supermicro X11SSM-F mb.

 

Which breakout cables did you go with?  I have tried a few different brands and found the Trip Lite ones are very sensitive and even a little pressure from the case door pressing on them will cause errors.  I'm now trying LSI cables and SuperMircro brand.  I'm also trying to use right angle drive connectors so the case side door doesn't even touch them.

 

These are the cables i'm using: 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812400865

having good luck so far.  connecting from the card to the backplane in the case, no issues so far!

There's no pressure on them as the cables are all inside the case and no doors or anything to move them.

 

On 6/8/2018 at 10:32 AM, Switchblade said:

By the way, there is a new firmware available, came out May 20, 2018.  See my other post, https://lime-technology.com/forums/topic/11753-sata-controller-cards/?page=24

 

Did you update yet?

 

Not yet, but i'll check it out! Thanks!!

 

Did you get a chance to upgrade your firmware on your 9305-24?

 

Do you happen to have an SSD drive connected to it?  If yes, any issues and does TRIM work or do you need to keep that disabled?

 

I ask because I enabled TRIM and had some errors and then disk 1 red balled.  Before I turn TRIM back on, I want to be sure our 9305's are compatible with TRIM.  I read in another thread that some LSI HBA cards do not support TRIM with SSD drives.  I also was thinking maybe the new firmware upgrade would fix it.

 

 

 

On 7/21/2018 at 1:19 AM, Switchblade said:

Did you get a chance to upgrade your firmware on your 9305-24?

No, haven't had a chance to yet.

 

On 7/21/2018 at 1:19 AM, Switchblade said:

Do you happen to have an SSD drive connected to it?  If yes, any issues and does TRIM work or do you need to keep that disabled?

 

My two cache drives (2TB Samsung 850 EVO) are both connected to it and so far, since I installed it ~April this year, not one issue as far as drives going offline or anything. 

I don't have any data or parity drives that are SSD yet, so i can't say if there's a difference being a cache or data drive

 

I have the dynamix trim plugin enabled, running daily at midnight.  that's been going since i built the server, almost a year now, and never had any issue with the cache drives and the trim plugin on any of the HBA's i used.

 

On 7/21/2018 at 1:19 AM, Switchblade said:

I ask because I enabled TRIM and had some errors and then disk 1 red balled.  Before I turn TRIM back on, I want to be sure our 9305's are compatible with TRIM.  I read in another thread that some LSI HBA cards do not support TRIM with SSD drives.  I also was thinking maybe the new firmware upgrade would fix it.

 

 

 

 

ok, thanks for that information.  I'm now at a loss as to why my setup does not like the trim command.  We both have the same HBA and we both have samsung evo SSD's for cache.  I'm afraid to try it again, given last time I lost a drive and several others showed an error on the main screen gui. 

 

I assume you have the latest version of unraid, 6.5.3?

 

Perhaps it has something to do with my mb.

 

I still have not heard back from LSI support.  Really bad customer service via email.  I guess I will have to call them.

Sorry that didn't help! 

Yep, 6.5.3 here. 

 

I just double checked and the trim plugin is indeed enabled and running daily at 00:00

 

looked at my logs for last night and don't see any errors - but also don't see any explicit 'trim' log entries  other than

 

Aug 9 00:00:02 Guardian root: /etc/libvirt: 923 MiB (967876608 bytes) trimmed
Aug 9 00:00:02 Guardian root: /var/lib/docker: 12.2 GiB (13096083456 bytes) trimmed

 

but i don't believe those are actual trim related.

 

I'm hesitant to update the fw of the hba because "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and i don't have time to deal with a downed / glitchy system.

that's the whole reason i switched from the marvel based 2760A to this hba - i was tired of having my parity drives redball on me weekly.

 

If there's something i can try out or test lmk and i'll do my best. 

 

 

Thanks, very nice of you.  I have to agree with you on fw update.  Looking at what the fw update fixes, none have to do with trim or hard drive compatibility, so not likely the update would do much for me either. Never did get a response from LSI re my support ticket.  I guess I just need to try to turn it on again and see what happens, but like you, I don't have time to mess with a glitchy system either.

 

Thanks again!

I want to try to get this working but I could use some help from the smart people on this forum to test.  Given juanamingo and me have the same LSI sata controller, both are using Samsung evo ssd drives connected to the 9305, and we are running same version of unraid.  Yet his TRIM is working fine on his rig, and the last time I tried enabling this on my rig, it caused a bunch of errors, disk 1 redballed and many drives showed 1 error in the webgui Main page.  Since I disabled this plugin, no errors at all.

 

What is the best way to test TRIM without putting my data at risk?  Should I start the array in Maintenance Mode, or have the array Stopped while I test?

 

Edited August 10, 20187 yr by Switchblade

17 minutes ago, Switchblade said:

What is the best way to test TRIM without putting my data at risk?

 

TRIM of what drives? If TRIM of a data disk in the array, then any write happening to a data disk must be mirrored by a corresponding update of the parity - and TRIM represents a write.

The ssd drives that I want to run the TRIM on are the cache drives.  I do not have any ssd drives that are used for data.

 

Some users put the ssd drives on the motherboard sata controller to address TRIM issues.  I would like to use my 9305 for all drives.

 

TRIM of non-array drives should be safe. But remember that if you use encryption, then you will leak information about what parts of the drives that contains valid data.

@limetech can you please see my above posts on this page about testing TRIM and offer advice on how I should proceed?  Also see my post  here