IBM 46M0997 SAS Expander

[Taddeusz]

Currently have a single IBM M1015 cross flashed to a 9211 in IT mode. There are a few IBM 46M0997 SAS expanders under $100 available on ebay. I've done some searching and there is some indication that this card may only be specifically compatible with certain IBM servers. Wondering if anyone has any experience with this particular SAS expander and whether it will be compatible. I would think that a SAS expander should be universal but I've also read that the IBM M1510 RAID cards will only recognize specific models of drives. Not critical at this point but it would be nice to be able to have more than 8 drives attached through this card.

[JorgeB]

It *should* work without any issues, especially since it uses a LSI chipset.

[DoeBoye]

Did you ever get one of these? Did it work out? Thanks!

 

 

Edited March 3, 2017 by DoeBoye

[Taddeusz]

No, I've had other priorities with my computer budget.

[DoeBoye]

ok. Thanks. I might roll the dice and pick one up. I'll post back for posterity if I do :).

[MorgothCreator]

So, it works?

Edited July 17, 2019 by MorgothCreator

[Taddeusz]

Holy necropost Batman!

 

I actually ended up getting another SAS card, this time a Dell H310. Works really well though I’m sure the expander would have been fine too. More than enough bandwidth for my drives.

[Ubernoid]

I just installed a 46M0997 with my LSI 9266-8i and it works great. It’s using the original firmware of 510a, latest is 634a and I may update to it using the sg_write_buffer method which is a ‘forced’ method to get around it not being in an IBM server. That’s the only issue regarding it ‘not working’ in non IBM servers is to update the firmware you’ve got to use sg3_utils to dump the rom out to the card forcing the update. It’s relatively safe in that you can recover by just clearing it out and rewriting another version etc.

Edited July 18, 2019 by Ubernoid
Updating info more detail

[Alexander]

Edit: consider this alternative Lenovo card too (2020-08-07).

https://www.youtube.com/embed/wudbsI_XB24?start=460&end=480

 

I have this IBM card too.

Card is new. Has "default" firmware 510A.

 

I have not tested it thoroughly yet, but it works OOTB with my WD reds and Seagate HDDs (4 in total, of which 2 are in array).

But do not put it in a PCIe slot that shares lanes with your HBA. My HBA (HP H220 IT-mode) is not working if it doesnt get all the 8 lanes it should have. The IBM card will thus claim use of up to at least some lanes when inserted, despite that it doesn't use any of them. Maybe that is required by the PCIe standard to get power, and populate a slot correctly?

It is meant to be put on a backplane or a slot only providing power.

 

After moving the IBM expander to an open 1 channel slot (on my ASRock motherboard) it's all working.

These do not use shared PCIe lanes between slots.

The card has a 8 channel wide slot connection, so if you put it on your motherboard you will need an open slot or waste 8 channels i guess. Don't ask me why the IBM expander does not have a 0 or 1 channel width connection?

 

You can "flash" it with newest firmware 634A. Art of Server on youtube has a video about how to do that.

I would suggest to use latest stable manjaro XFCE instead of CentOS and learn the corresponding commands to use. Google will help you find those (Arch linux based).

Hint, https://www.howtogeek.com/426199/how-to-list-your-computers-devices-from-the-linux-terminal/

Whence sudo pacman -Syu <commandpackage> will install the package that enables the command included in it (with some Y (Yes) confirmations.

sudo sg_write_buffer <and the same parameters used by Art of server> will run the command. Remember to run it in the directory that contains the files used in the parameter fields as if=filename  (if is inputfile) and of=filename  (of is outputfile). You will need to have an USB stick or a hard disk connected containing your firmware file. Disconnect everything that can contain LSI firmware, such as controllers and SSDs first so that you will not accidentally wipe the wrong firmware. It is VERY important to check what the name of your device is as described by Art of server.

If you do not provide that parameter at the end of the sg_write_buffer command you might damage another device. This is especially important if you motherboard has an LSI controller on it (usually server boards), obviously you can not remove that unless you have another computer to use for flashing.

 

To install manjaro on an USB follow manjaros wiki, thus use rufus to put manjaro on the USB stick.

Do not install manjaro on any hard disk, just run it "live" in memory. It will require you to set up timezone and keyboard for live use ="ram memory install". Hard disk install is done after your "live USB" install in manjaro, but you should not need to do that.

 

I found a forum thread where a guy testing the performance of the IBM 46M0997 card with original 510A firmware and all later firmware.

He got less throughput speed with all firmwares after 510A. So I will not "upgrade" it unless I later will encounter problems.

I'm not sure you can downgrade back easily. Not tested that. You might need to use another tool to erase the firmware completely first if you want to downgrade back?

Basically upgraded firmware made his 2 SAS bridge connected card tested with several SSD SATA connected (i think) to get about 1.1x the speed of only having 1 SAS bridge connected. With 510A the speed was 1.5-2x with both SAS ports connected (2x is what the "theoretical maximum" should be).

With only HDDs connected, you will not hit SATA 3 speeds, rather just below SATA 2 at the most (=half speed), so this might actually not matter in the end for you. This is probably a good choice if you consider stable "bug free" operation (with any brand or old HDD) as a higher priority than "top" speed (as you probably should).

 

If you do not have bugs/problems then maybe, (I do not know), you may not want to upgrade the firmware from v 510A.

 

If anybody does speed and/or stability tests, please share your results.

 

Edit (2020-08-07): Here is a short description (read color text) about current state for this IBM card.

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/sas2-expanders-60-ibm-lsi-chip-intel-alternative.11365/page-5#post-205920

Edited August 7, 2020 by Alexander

[MortenSchmidt]

On 1/17/2020 at 8:55 PM, Alexander said:

Edit: consider this alternative Lenovo card too (2020-08-07).

https://www.youtube.com/embed/wudbsI_XB24?start=460&end=480

 

For the sake of people searching the forum, the card featured in that video is the Lenovo FRU 03X3834. TheArtofServer guy says it is a newer card than the IBM FRU 46M0997 and that the cards he received did not have any of the firmware bugs the other cards used to come with. I had a lot of trouble digging up any mentions of this card, so thank you for linking this video.