Am I correct in believing that the required driver for these cards is the 'LSI MPT Fusion SAS 2.0 device driver', as included with 5.0beta3?

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.

 

 

odditory is hammering the IBM M1015 with Solaris ZFS, so far the lack of IT-firmware do not prove to bring any problems to him.

 

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1036852036&postcount=21

 

We can request Tom to add the official driver into the main distribution, or launch a precompiled version in a package.

I have a 4 ports card with the mpt driver - it won't show the smart data and temps

 

I have read (sorry, I've lost the link) that there is a problem of byte alignment with this chip/driver when requesting SMART data.  Apparently that is fixed with the 2.6.37 Linux kernel.  unRAID 5.0b6 comes with 2.6.36 ... perhaps Tom will update the kernel for the next beta release?

I have a Dell PERC 6/i Integration Controller which uses the LSI 1078 chipset.  I have each disk setup as JBOD using the following command:

 

./MegaCli -CfgEachDskRaid0 -aAll

 

The issue I'm having is that this card appears to only work with the megaraid_sas module which is loaded automatically with my Knoppix v6.2.1 Live DVD.  However, the latest version of unRAID 5.0b6 does not include the megaraid_sas module only the mptsas and mpt2sas modules which do not appears to work with this card.  I'm guessing this is because the card is in IR mode and not IT mode.  There doesn't appears to be a firmware availability to switch it to IT mode so unless I want to create a custom kernel of UnRAID that includes megaraid_sas I can't uses this controller.

 

I'm curious if anyone else hit this problem and came up with a solution.

Rather than trying to operate in IR mode, you would be much better off in IT mode and using the drivers included with unRAID.  Does this thread help you at all?

Rather than trying to operate in IR mode, you would be much better off in IT mode and using the drivers included with unRAID.  Does this thread help you at all?

 

Yes, I'm very familar with this thread.  The following command:

 

MegaCli64 -PDMakeJBOD -PhysDrv [0:0] -aAll

 

Doesn't work for the model of RAID card I have.  I had to use the command mention above that makes a virtual disk against to one physical disk in raid0 without a mirror.  And the card I have will not go into IT-mode it only support IR-mode and I haven't found a firmware which works to switch it to IT-mode. 

 

I'm able to access each disk via /dev/sd* using megaraid_sas but Unraid doesn't include this module even in the latest 5.0 beta.

 

So basically I need to find a firmware that will convert it to IT-mode so it will use the mptsas module included with 5.0 beta or create a custom kernel of unraid which includes megaraid_sas or replace this controller with the Supermicro SAS x8 card.  Those are pretty much my options as it stands right now.

Okay, in that case, a friendly message to Tom might encourage him to include the required driver into the next release of unRAID - if you can wait.

 

I'm planning to purchase the Supermicro USAS2-L8i card, for which IT firmware does exist (only because the IT mode-only equivalent - the L8e - is more expensive!), and is supported by the mpt2sas driver.

 

I wonder what the cost, in terms of resource, is of including the various drivers in the unRAID image.  At some stage, I'm sure that it will be advantageous to be able to 'softload' the less commonly used drivers.

Any updates anyone could share, especially with a SAS 2008 chipset?

After several hours of researches, I have received a way and the software to reflash  IBM M1015 (LSI9240-8i, INTEL RS2WC080 and other rebadged version  LSI SI9240) to IT-mode. Now i have the full functional adapter for Unraid.  Not bad for a card which costs 50-65$ on ebay!!

All it, unfortunately, costed to me one physically destroyed IBM M1015 (physically cracked 1 SFF-8087  socket) and as indemnification for the publication good idea would be 1 license Unraid Pro.  Joke

Anyway, IT mode it is possible...

 

P.S. Also, it was possible to include RAID5 on original IBM M1015 RAID firmware, but it another story altogether

If anyone needs help with flashing a SAS 2008 Chipset card let me, got it down to a science.

Including my own X8SI6-F motherboard.

Great news!  Care to write up a tutorial?  I'm sure many will benefit from it (myself included).

Great news!  Care to write up a tutorial?  I'm sure many will benefit from it (myself included).

 

Yes will do, preparing a X8SI6-F motherboard Post soon (hoping to make sticky status as new BEAST config  ) and was going to include it there, but maybe I should just post the tutorial here or a post with a specific title? What do you guys recommend?

I would recommend starting a new thread with your tutorial as the first post (or first few posts if it is too long for a single post).  We can then add links to it in the wiki.

 

Alternatively, you could create it in the wiki, if you prefer to work in that format.  Wouldn't really matter either way.

 

I'm very excited to hear that the X8SI6-F board is working out for you, I can't wait to give it a whirl.  Give me a preview...are the SAS connectors working just like SASLP cards?

So far its SO sweet  , both unraid and ESXi to unRaid. This Norco thing (i know its just I got a bad apple) is killing my time with the stuff I want to and need to test so I can post and ask questions. I am also testing varies cards to help others (will not be in my final build but will help other if a certain card/slot combo will work) and waiting (by end of next week) on a surprise card (for my final build)   to share with all.

Is there a how to posted for this raid card I would like to test.

I would recommend starting a new thread with your tutorial as the first post (or first few posts if it is too long for a single post).  We can then add links to it in the wiki.

 

Alternatively, you could create it in the wiki, if you prefer to work in that format.  Wouldn't really matter either way.

 

I'm very excited to hear that the X8SI6-F board is working out for you, I can't wait to give it a whirl.  Give me a preview...are the SAS connectors working just like SASLP cards?

 

Ok, I got everything ready, what do you recommend (service/site) I can/should use to store these zip files for all?

You can just attach the zip files to posts on these forums.  Or are they too large?

You can just attach the zip files to posts on these forums.  Or are they too large?

 

Definitely to large (LSI 1068E Controller 3.79 MB, LSI SAS2008 Controller 2.23 MB)

 

Ok post is up, be nice my first post 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12767.msg121128

 

Looks great!  Stickied.

I tried this with my ibm serverraid m1015 card and it would not detect it to flash.  Card works fine.  I'll try to flash in another motherboard to see if it will work.

Thank you for the write up and the files.