Installation of LSI SAS 9207-8i

[Kevek79]

Hi Folks,

I just received my first LSI HBA (9207-8i).

As far as my research goes this should work out of the box with unraid.

Currently I have all my data disks, parity and cachedrives connected to the onboard sata controller.

The plan is to leave my cache drives on the sata controller and move the data and parity disks to the LSI controller.

 

How does unraid identify a drive? Is this anyhow dependant on the controller it is connected to?

Is their anything I have to take care of to make switching the drives from one controller to the other work, or is it as simple as installing the card connecting the drive, boot up and start the array again?

 

[Squid]

2 hours ago, Kevek79 said:

How does unraid identify a drive?

By it's serial number

 

2 hours ago, Kevek79 said:

Is this anyhow dependant on the controller it is connected to?

No.  (Except that an actual RAID card will tend to report as model / serial numbers its own particular numbers)

 

2 hours ago, Kevek79 said:

or is it as simple as installing the card connecting the drive, boot up and start the array again?

Pretty much

[Kevek79]

Thanks @Squid

I will install in the evening and see if everything works as expected.

[SCANNERMAN]

First post. Feel free to move if required. Just got my new 9207-8i. It shipped without documentation or driver discs. It came out of the box in IT mode. Nearly every site I've searched tells how to switch from IR to IT. I wanted precisely the opposite. Took me days to finally get the thing to flash over to IR via FreeDos because Intel on my main board prevented flashing the card to IR in EFI. Fortunately I had a couple of old Dell PCs kicking around and started it off in those. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was not necessary for me to reinstall or re-image my operating systems once I set the main board UEFI (BIOS) back to RAID. The 9207-8i replaced my 9211-8i which seemed to be weak in the second physical port and would only show two drives connected (6&7). I'm not sure if this information is helpful but I have a NOOB question of my own: Is it possible for me to run my LSI 9211-8i on the same main board as a secondary IR card now that I've managed to flash the 9207-8i and switch my operating systems over to the replacement? The drivers appear to show in Windows device manager without issue but I'm not sure how well the arrangement will function. Any input would be helpful I'm sure. Also, will I be able to run this with Thunderbolt III?

 

Thanks

[Kevek79]

So one week passed until I could get back on this project, and now I realized that the HBA will not fit in the only PCI-e slot left on my board (It would collide with my graphics card) - Bad Luck.

So I need to mount the HBA somewhere else in the case.

Can I ues the HBA with a 20cm riser cable or are there any issues in using a pcie extension with an HBA?

[Vr2Io]

Seldom people will do that and 20cm also too long. If you don't need local display output, you may try remove display card, and disable error notify in BIOS may need.

[Kevek79]

1 hour ago, Benson said:

Seldom people will do that and 20cm also too long. If you don't need local display output, you may try remove display card, and disable error notify in BIOS may need.

Removing the Graphics card is not an option, as I need it for my VMs local output.

Putting the graphics card in the riser cable is unfortunately also not an option, as my case does not support that.

 

What is the risk I would take with mounting the HBA via the PCIE extension ?

My plan was to connect the array HDDs (all SATA) to this controller to free up internal SATA ports.

 

My only other options are transplanting the system on a new motherboard in a new case or getting a graphics card with less height, which I really would like to circumvent.

[Vr2Io]

1 hour ago, Kevek79 said:

What is the risk I would take with mounting the HBA via the PCIE extension ?

PCIe signal intergrity.

Although some gamer extend display card for showing with longer cable seems fine, but HBA connect disk, data trouble free should take priority.

 

If you extend HBA, then I suggest you force the PCIe ver on that slot from auto to 2.0, bandwidth would be enough in general.

[Kevek79]

I think i might give it a shot.

Any tests you would suggest to run before adding array disks to the controller? 

[Vr2Io]

12 minutes ago, Kevek79 said:

I think i might give it a shot.

Any tests you would suggest to run before adding array disks to the controller? 

Start array in maintenance mode and perform no-correct parity check or read check. If pass then you may put in production.

 

And pls keep air flow surrounding 9207 heatsink, recently my 9207 die due to overheat.

[Kevek79]

1 hour ago, Benson said:

Start array in maintenance mode and perform no-correct parity check or read check. If pass then you may put in production.

 

And pls keep air flow surrounding 9207 heatsink, recently my 9207 die due to overheat.

Thanks for your input @Benson.

Heat dissipation was allready on my to do list. I plan to use a Noctua NF-A4x10 mounted to the heat sink of the HBA to add some propper air flow to the card. In addition it will be in direct air stream of the case fan.

As one of your cards died due to heat, do you think direct active cooling is enough or would you also use a fresh layer of quality thermal compound.

 

[Vr2Io]

5 hours ago, Kevek79 said:

I plan to use a Noctua NF-A4x10 mounted to the heat sink of the HBA to add some propper air flow to the card. In addition it will be in direct air stream of the case fan. 

More then enough, but no harm, just don't push too much unbalance force on haetsink, it may destory silcon die edge.

 

 

The package different from 2008 chip or 9211