Identify if LSI 9201-16i is Genuine?


AgentXXL

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I've submitted a case to LSI/Broadcom with the serial number of the card I purchased via eBay from a Chinese retailer. The SAS9201-16i card arrived in a plain brown box in a new anti-static bag, but no official LSI documentation. While the card may be fine, I'm experiencing lots of UDMA CRC errors and occasional other issues that  have me concerned that it's genuine. I have a thread in the General support forum regarding these issues:

 

 

Anyone have any recommended procedure for verifying if the card is genuine, or better, a testing procedure to help verify if the card is working properly and not part or all of the cause of my numerous errors in unRAID. I do believe my Norcotek RPC-4220 may also be part of the issue, but validating the LSI card will help take it out of the equation. 

 

Thanks for any assistance!

 

Dale

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18 minutes ago, Squid said:

Has the Ebay listing been taken down and superceded with another one selling the identical item? Easy way for the sellers to avoid bad reviews on the product being sold

Sent from my NSA monitored device
 

The listing is still valid - link below. I have received a response from LSI and they are suspecting it's a fake. I'm just waiting for the zero pass to complete on my 8TB spare before I can shut-down and move it to a motherboard connected SATA port for the rebuild from parity. While the system is shut down, I'm going to take some better pics of the card to send to LSI as it may just be a re-branded card. Based on the serial number I provided them, they think it's a fake until they see the pictures.

 

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/LSI00244-9201-16i-PCI-Express-2-0-x8-SATA-SAS-Host-Bus-Adapter-Card/272695245759

 

The one that appears to be genuine is this one:

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/312653733132

 

As always, thanks @Squid!

 

Dale

Edited by AgentXXL
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So I sent the pictures to LSI and they said it looks OK, but the serial number isn't in their database and it's not in the right format for this card type. They've given me some things to check and some tools that they think should run under unRAID to help diagnose the connection issues.

 

Regardless, after I took the pictures I re-assembled everything, putting my replacement 8TB drive in a drive bay connected to the motherboard SATA ports. The 8TB drive is about 10 minutes away from being rebuilt using the unRAID parity. Before I do any testing with the tools that LSI provided, I'm also going to add my 2nd parity drive to the array and let it complete its parity calculation so I have 2 drive failure capability.

 

With the potential for drives to drop offline and the random UDMA CRC, read and maybe even write errors, I feel safer having 2 drive protection before I proceed with any testing. I also still have short (11.5" vs 30" current) miniSAS cables on the way and they should arrive later this week.

 

I'm fairly certain I'm going to order a 2nd of the same model controller from the eBay seller that guarantees a genuine, retail boxed card. Alas that'll have to wait until I get my next disability check, so another week or so. At least that gives me time to let the 2nd parity drive get calculated.

 

More to come on my efforts later in the week.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 7/15/2019 at 5:23 PM, AgentXXL said:

I've submitted a case to LSI/Broadcom with the serial number of the card I purchased via eBay from a Chinese retailer. The SAS9201-16i card arrived in a plain brown box in a new anti-static bag, but no official LSI documentation. While the card may be fine, I'm experiencing lots of UDMA CRC errors and occasional other issues that  have me concerned that it's genuine. I have a thread in the General support forum regarding these issues:

 

 

Anyone have any recommended procedure for verifying if the card is genuine, or better, a testing procedure to help verify if the card is working properly and not part or all of the cause of my numerous errors in unRAID. I do believe my Norcotek RPC-4220 may also be part of the issue, but validating the LSI card will help take it out of the equation. 

 

Thanks for any assistance!

 

Dale

I just went through the same thing as you. I see tan/brown cap/diode/resistor and came in generic brown box just like my 9207-8i I purchased off ebay US seller that ended up being chinese counterfit. I was getting constant UDMA CRC errors. Most likely it is a chinese counterfeit. I purchased a used server pull from seller that 100% guaranteed genuine and it has been working perfect with no errors or problems. I also contacted Broadcom Avago.

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2 hours ago, jpowell8672 said:

I just went through the same thing as you. I see tan/brown cap/diode/resistor and came in generic brown box just like my 9207-8i I purchased off ebay US seller that ended up being chinese counterfit. I was getting constant UDMA CRC errors. Most likely it is a chinese counterfeit. I purchased a used server pull from seller that 100% guaranteed genuine and it has been working perfect with no errors or problems. I also contacted Broadcom Avago.

I actually found the real cause of my issues to be the miniSAS backplanes (with 4 SATA connections each) in my Norco enclosure. I ended up ordering some miniSAS (host) to 4 SATA (target) breakout cables and removed the backplanes. This has apparently resolved my issues as I haven't seen a UDMA CRC or other read/write error since I did the cabling last Sunday.

 

That said, I did break down and buy one of the genuine LSI 9201-16i adapters from the US eBay seller I linked above. This one came in a retail LSI box and looked to be factory sealed. I have sent the serial number on the new card to LSI/Broadcom for verification, but regardless it appears the original card is working fine.

 

I did do a back-and-forth communication with the Chinese eBay seller and they admitted it was an OEM knock-off for the Chinese market, and they even offered to refund my money if I sent it back to them (at my cost for shipping of course). But since the replacement of the backplanes with direct cabling, it now appears that the original card is working fine. I've lost the hot-swap capability but that's a minor issue as this is a home-based server that can tolerate downtimes, unlike most businesses.

 

I'm still going to keep the genuine card as well as I'll likely pick up a new storage enclosure at some point. The 9201-16i is limited to 6Gbps SAS/SATA but is fine for my unRAID needs. And it never hurts to have spare equipment on hand should the OEM Chinese unit ever fail or start causing issues.

 

Glad to hear you got yours resolved as well with the new storage enclosure.

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  • 11 months later...

Hi, I am having the same problem trying to identify the real deal....

When looking online, even newegg, it looks different to what I would expect, has anyone got a picture of am authentic LSI  LSI00244 9201-16i controller?

I can see different colouring of the PCBA, some transistors have different colouring, LSI logo missing sometimes, the heatsink looks different. Maybe the layout was changed by LSI, maybe not....

At the moment I am really unable to tell what the original should look like. Too many counterfeit controllers on the web for premium prices.

If you look at the pictures, all of them claim that their controllers are the authentic LSI controllers, any help would be appreciated.

For-LSI00244-9201-16i-PCI-Express-2-0-x8-SATA-SAS-Host-Bus-Adapter-Card.jpg

New-Broadcom-Avago-LSI-SAS-9201-16I-LSI00244-Original-New-16-port-HBA-JBOD-SFF8087.jpg

newegg.jpg

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14 hours ago, Hakunamatata said:

So if anyone has an authentic controller, it would be great to get some high quality pics to be able to compare. 

Compare to what? If someone is selling a counterfeit, they are not likely to post pictures of the actual article they are selling that reveal the differences, and if you already have the product in hand, you simply need to follow the advice given to ask the manufacturer if that particular serial number is one of theirs.

 

If you have doubts about a specific seller, ask them for the serial number of the exact piece you intend to buy, and contact broadcom.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Do you consider the card counterfeit/fake it is an oem? I don't know about this particular card, but for many of the LSI cards, LSI makes the card for Dell, HP, NEC, etc. A lot of times for example, Dell put a sticker with their part number on it and may or may not have different firmware.  The cards are physically and functionally the same. Do you consider the card as counterfeit LSI card? What if you just put the word OEM at the end of the title, does it make it a legitimate listing?   The 9201-16i in question, if the seller market it under their own brand instead of LSI, would that be legitimate? Also besides the logo and LSI vs OEM/Unbranded, if the LSI retailed boxed one cost $500 and the physically/functionally the same card but oem or unbranded one cost under $200, which would you buy?  Just curious. Love to hear what you guys think.

 

 

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