opentoe Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Anyone bite the bullet on a higher speed card? Like this? http://www.provantage.com/lsi-logic-lsi00194~7LSIG07U.htm After reading and looking up information, this card rocks. Yea, it is $300 but it supports 6Gb/sec and has it's own processing power onboard which will give the computer/drives all the time they need. http://www.lsi.com/channel/products/raid_controllers/megaraid_9240-8i/index.html Link to comment
opentoe Posted January 6, 2011 Author Share Posted January 6, 2011 Well, this is the card I am going to get. I'll let you know if it works ok and how it works. LSI considers this an entry level, but compared to other cards this card is awesome. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118128 Link to comment
BRiT Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 This card has a LSI-SAS2008 chip. It is supported in Linux via the mpt2sas driver. I do not know if unRAID includes this driver natively. Even if the driver is included, I don't know if unRAID will discover hard drives on the card without SK's patches to add in SCSI-based discovery drive identification. Link to comment
joe90 Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 I have a 4 ports card with the mpt driver - it won't show the smart data and temps Link to comment
BRiT Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 I think Atacom has that card for $100 cheaper. It's identical to the SuperMicro AOC-USAS2-L8i 6Gb/s Eight-Port SAS Internal RAID Adapter. I think we discussed this card previously on the forums here. Atacom Link Link to comment
opentoe Posted January 6, 2011 Author Share Posted January 6, 2011 I think because it has the same onboard processor doesn't mean it is the same card. I have 3 different media players, all have the same chipset on them but they are all entirely different machines. Link to comment
BRiT Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Yes, but for all intents and purposes it is the same card. You can typically cross-flash bioses to obtain exactly the same features if one was lacking. They use identical drivers. Looking at the specifications of both cards, I have yet to see any differences in features offered aside from possibly Raid 5 or 50. All that unRAID will ever use is the basic SATA controller functionality, so all the additional functionality is a bit of a waste. I just figured I'd point out a less expensive alternative using the identical chipset with identical drivers for everyone to consider. If you feel more comfortable in spending more money for quite possibly no extra features at all or possibly extra features you won't ever use for unRAID, then that's perfectly fine too. No sweat. Link to comment
dgaschk Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Will this card support 16 drives? Link to comment
opentoe Posted January 6, 2011 Author Share Posted January 6, 2011 Supports 63 devices in RAID mode and 122 devices in HBA mode (the mode which we will use if unRAID eventually will support new stuff like this). Link to comment
dgaschk Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 PCIe x8 will only support up to 16 drives accessed at full speed. Any more will slow parity checks. Are there cables that allow 16 SATA drives to be connected? Link to comment
BRiT Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 This chipset and both cards linked to support PCI-Express 2.x link which means the bandwidth is 500 MB/S * 8 = 4000 MB/sec. If you pair it with a motherboard PCI-Express 2.x slot you can support at least 32 drives at a constant 125 MB/s, or 40 drives at a constant 100 MB/s, or 50 drives at a constant 80 MB/s. You get the picture. This is for a single card too! I think you might need to connect up HBA Expansion boards via cables to this card to support more than the native 8 drives. I'm not too sure on this part, so maybe it doesn't need expansion boards. Link to comment
opentoe Posted January 6, 2011 Author Share Posted January 6, 2011 I really wish a card like this is supported in unRAID. Having a price of only $135 is a steal! I really don't want to spend $100 on a plain HBA with the old Marvell chipset on it. At least in my opinion. Link to comment
dgaschk Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 This chipset and both cards linked to support PCI-Express 2.x link which means the bandwidth is 500 MB/S * 8 = 4000 MB/sec. If you pair it with a motherboard PCI-Express 2.x slot you can support at least 32 drives at a constant 125 MB/s, or 40 drives at a constant 100 MB/s, or 50 drives at a constant 80 MB/s. You get the picture. This is for a single card too! I think you might need to connect up HBA Expansion boards via cables to this card to support more than the native 8 drives. I'm not too sure on this part, so maybe it doesn't need expansion boards. The first card link: http://www.provantage.com/lsi-logic-lsi00194~7LSIG07U.htm Under the specifications tab says, "Host Interface: PCI Express x8". This is what confuses me. In the name it says PCIE 2.0. Link to comment
Ford Prefect Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 This card has a LSI-SAS2008 chip. It is supported in Linux via the mpt2sas driver. I do not know if unRAID includes this driver natively. Even if the driver is included, I don't know if unRAID will discover hard drives on the card without SK's patches to add in SCSI-based discovery drive identification. That card (edit: from the second post, LSI 9240) is also sold from IBM as ServeRaid M1015...I have a couple of them lying around. With linux distros like RHEL6 or FC14, the driver that gets pulled is called megaraid, not mptsas. The card identifies as a LSI/SAS SKINNY controller. AFAIK that driver is not shipped with unRAID, isn't it? Here's more of what I know: - Unconfigured (not in RAID) drives are automatically listed as JBOD, which is good - IBM models will accept LSI Firmware as well, which get updated more frequently. - smartctl need a special syntax to work ... no S.M.A.R.T data "out of the box", see here - even most recent linux distros come with a fairly old driver version per default. Here's a howto about upgrading it - LSI uses a BIOS Interface called WebBIOS....you nedd a mouse to operate it and recent versions dropped the ability to be used with a USB mouse...no chance for IPMI remote access anymore - there is native support with ESXi 4.1 for that card So a virtual unRAID scenario with RawDeviceMapping will work, like here I was only able to use PCI-passtrough or VMDirectPath for native access with a Win7-VM...all linux distros bumped inside a VM I also would like to see native support in unRAID for it. But it is an expensive card compared to the features usable with unRAID. If you want to go that route and get one, maybe the IBM parts are available for less, since many X-Series models are shipped with them by default, then get pulled out and replaced and end up floating in the Bay. regards, Ford Link to comment
dgaschk Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Getting 16 or 32(22) full speed drives out of a single pcie slot makes this card worth it. But SMART reports are necessary. No USB mice? What else it there? Link to comment
BRiT Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 This is what I could make sense of the drivers... Here is where I found the first support of this chipset: Linux mpt2sas announcement on Fri, 13 Mar 2009. In my Linux 2.6.32.x kernel I do see two different options show up as MEGARAID_SAS and SCSI_MPT2SAS. Maybe there's two different drivers, one that does basic HBA and one that does RAID specifics so depending on which firmware you have flashed the IR (RAID) or IT (Basis SAS) will determine which you use? MEGARAID_SAS: LSI Logic MegaRAID SAS RAID Module. Module for LSI Logic's SAS based RAID controllers. SCSI_MPT2SAS: LSI MPT Fusion SAS 2.0 Device Driver. This driver supports PCI-Express SAS 6Gb/s Host Adapters. Link to comment
Kaygee Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 MPT fusion is ARM based LSI controller. MPT = message parsing technology (ARM solution that deals with SCSI, SAS and SATA). MegaRaid is old school AMI Megaraid series of controllers. Both are very popular controller chipsets. Intel, HP, IBM, DEll, promise, Fujitsu all use LSI drivers. Link to comment
BRiT Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 Do not confuse MPTSAS drivers with MPT2SAS; they are for different chipsets. The MPT2SAS supports the LSI SAS2004, SAS2008, SAS2108, SAS2116, SAS2208, and SAS2308 chipsets. // excerpt of /usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi/mpt2sas/mpi/mpi2_cnfg.h of Linux 2.6.32.2 #define MPI2_MFGPAGE_DEVID_SAS2004 (0x0070) #define MPI2_MFGPAGE_DEVID_SAS2008 (0x0072) #define MPI2_MFGPAGE_DEVID_SAS2108_1 (0x0074) #define MPI2_MFGPAGE_DEVID_SAS2108_2 (0x0076) #define MPI2_MFGPAGE_DEVID_SAS2108_3 (0x0077) #define MPI2_MFGPAGE_DEVID_SAS2116_1 (0x0064) #define MPI2_MFGPAGE_DEVID_SAS2116_2 (0x0065) #define MPI2_MFGPAGE_DEVID_SAS2208_1 (0x0080) #define MPI2_MFGPAGE_DEVID_SAS2208_2 (0x0081) #define MPI2_MFGPAGE_DEVID_SAS2208_3 (0x0082) #define MPI2_MFGPAGE_DEVID_SAS2208_4 (0x0083) #define MPI2_MFGPAGE_DEVID_SAS2208_5 (0x0084) #define MPI2_MFGPAGE_DEVID_SAS2208_6 (0x0085) #define MPI2_MFGPAGE_DEVID_SAS2308_1 (0x0086) #define MPI2_MFGPAGE_DEVID_SAS2308_2 (0x0087) #define MPI2_MFGPAGE_DEVID_SAS2308_3 (0x006E) The MPTSAS supports the LSI SAS1064, SAS1064A, SAS1064E, SAS1066, SAS1068, SAS1068E, and SAS1078 chipsets. // excerpt of /usr/src/linux/drivers/message/fusion/lsi/mpi_cnfg.h of Linux 2.6.32.2 #define MPI_MANUFACTPAGE_DEVID_SAS1064 (0x0050) #define MPI_MANUFACTPAGE_DEVID_SAS1064A (0x005C) #define MPI_MANUFACTPAGE_DEVID_SAS1064E (0x0056) #define MPI_MANUFACTPAGE_DEVID_SAS1066 (0x005E) #define MPI_MANUFACTPAGE_DEVID_SAS1066E (0x005A) #define MPI_MANUFACTPAGE_DEVID_SAS1068 (0x0054) #define MPI_MANUFACTPAGE_DEVID_SAS1068E (0x0058) #define MPI_MANUFACTPAGE_DEVID_SAS1078 (0x0062) The MEGARAID included of Linux 2.6.32.2 supports the LSI SAS1078, SAS1078 GEN2, SAS1079 GEN2, SAS0073 and SAS0071 chipsets. Though is is an old version indeed. // excerpt of /usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi/megaraid/megaraid_sas.h of Linux 2.6.32.2 #define MEGASAS_VERSION "00.00.04.17.1-rc1" #define MEGASAS_RELDATE "Oct. 29, 2009" #define MEGASAS_EXT_VERSION "Thu. Oct. 29, 11:41:51 PST 2009" #define PCI_DEVICE_ID_LSI_SAS1078R 0x0060 #define PCI_DEVICE_ID_LSI_SAS1078DE 0x007C #define PCI_DEVICE_ID_LSI_VERDE_ZCR 0x0413 #define PCI_DEVICE_ID_LSI_SAS1078GEN2 0x0078 #define PCI_DEVICE_ID_LSI_SAS0079GEN2 0x0079 #define PCI_DEVICE_ID_LSI_SAS0073SKINNY 0x0073 #define PCI_DEVICE_ID_LSI_SAS0071SKINNY 0x0071 Link to comment
opentoe Posted January 7, 2011 Author Share Posted January 7, 2011 So the verdict is that unRAID does not support this driver chipset yet? I'm just looking at cost right now, since it is readily available for $135 with free shipping. Very good price for a good performer, when the popular SuperMicro everyone uses is $100. Link to comment
Ford Prefect Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 This is what I could make sense of the drivers... Here is where I found the first support of this chipset: Linux mpt2sas announcement on Fri, 13 Mar 2009. In my Linux 2.6.32.x kernel I do see two different options show up as MEGARAID_SAS and SCSI_MPT2SAS. Maybe there's two different drivers, one that does basic HBA and one that does RAID specifics so depending on which firmware you have flashed the IR (RAID) or IT (Basis SAS) will determine which you use? MEGARAID_SAS: LSI Logic MegaRAID SAS RAID Module. Module for LSI Logic's SAS based RAID controllers. SCSI_MPT2SAS: LSI MPT Fusion SAS 2.0 Device Driver. This driver supports PCI-Express SAS 6Gb/s Host Adapters. Hmmm.... Yes, I thought in a similar direction but then I coudn't find an IT-mode Firmware for the LSI-9240-8i. When connecting drives and leaving them unconfigured, they are presented as JBOD, individual drives with the RAID-mode FW. They work as such with FC14/RHEL6 and Win7 - Win7 needs driver install from LSI - RH/FC - Linux loads the megaraid.ko module ...haven't tested with unRAID up until now...maybe I can give it a shot during the weekend. Link to comment
Ford Prefect Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 Getting 16 or 32(22) full speed drives out of a single pcie slot makes this card worth it. But SMART reports are necessary. No USB mice? What else it there? OK, here are some updates... All drivers gave me the HDIO_GET_IDENTITY Error and drives were sometimes not recognized or working reliably..smartctl did also not work...up until now. I just made a test on a FC14_64 box. FC14 comes with LSI megaraid module v4.17. I downloaded the latest driver v4.37 (published dec17) from LSI site and build it from source. HDIO_GET_IDENTITY Errors are now gone and drives can be accessed fine...copied some ISOs over just to be sure. smartctl also can see the drives, issues a report but issues also some kind of error I do not understand. I have attached a sample report...used smartctl v5.40 from the FC14 repos. ..is this good enough for being used with unRAID (provided that the newest driver gets included)? regards, Ford WDEARS-LSI92408i-fc14-megaraid-v4.37-SMART.txt Link to comment
opentoe Posted January 8, 2011 Author Share Posted January 8, 2011 This is what I could make sense of the drivers... Here is where I found the first support of this chipset: Linux mpt2sas announcement on Fri, 13 Mar 2009. In my Linux 2.6.32.x kernel I do see two different options show up as MEGARAID_SAS and SCSI_MPT2SAS. Maybe there's two different drivers, one that does basic HBA and one that does RAID specifics so depending on which firmware you have flashed the IR (RAID) or IT (Basis SAS) will determine which you use? MEGARAID_SAS: LSI Logic MegaRAID SAS RAID Module. Module for LSI Logic's SAS based RAID controllers. SCSI_MPT2SAS: LSI MPT Fusion SAS 2.0 Device Driver. This driver supports PCI-Express SAS 6Gb/s Host Adapters. Hmmm.... Yes, I thought in a similar direction but then I coudn't find an IT-mode Firmware for the LSI-9240-8i. When connecting drives and leaving them unconfigured, they are presented as JBOD, individual drives with the RAID-mode FW. They work as such with FC14/RHEL6 and Win7 - Win7 needs driver install from LSI - RH/FC - Linux loads the megaraid.ko module ...haven't tested with unRAID up until now...maybe I can give it a shot during the weekend. I found the IT firmware for that 9240, to throw it in IT mode which 'should' work with unRAID. Link to comment
Ford Prefect Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 I found the IT firmware for that 9240, to throw it in IT mode which 'should' work with unRAID. Hmm...you did? ...willing to share a link for downloads? Since I am running the IBM M1015 I cannot make use of it anyways, as it seems. But the AutoJBOD mode should also do. I found an interesting thread comparing the two LSI cards and the IBM-M1015 feature- and FW-wise, here Link to comment
Ford Prefect Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 I found the IT firmware for that 9240, to throw it in IT mode which 'should' work with unRAID. Hmm...you did? ...willing to share a link for downloads? Since I am running the IBM M1015 I cannot make use of it anyways, as it seems. But the AutoJBOD mode should also do. I found an interesting thread comparing the two LSI cards and the IBM-M1015 feature- and FW-wise, here ...there's a similar card named 9211-8i which to me appears to be the HBA version...with a slightly different layout. For this card, an IT-FW is provided. I can confirm, as stated in the link from my previous post, that the IBM M1015 (based on LSI 9240-8i) can NOT be flashed to IT mode using the LSI utils "sas2flsh". Since the card puts all unconfigured disks in JBOD mode, the remaining overhead from the RAID FW won't play a significant role with an unRAID setup, I think. ...thinking if I am going to bake a kernel with the latest drivers and see how it will turn out with unRAID. Link to comment
opentoe Posted January 12, 2011 Author Share Posted January 12, 2011 Please let me know how it works out. Link to comment
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