Confused about that LSI card? Join the crowd ...

[Ericloewe]

Hey, @jgreco - might I suggest adding a link in the OP that takes people to P16 firmware?

 

[9C1 Newbee]

howe tue gide

 

[bernardc]

I have a late-model LSI 9201-16i that came with firmware Phase 19. I read somewhere in the (non-pdf) manual that 9.3 doesn't tolerate old firmware, so I updated it to the latest which is Phase 20. I created a pool just fine and all appeared good, until it didn't. Before long it was throwing a torrent of disk errors from all disks. I did get the Alert as advertised, but assumed later firmware is better. Wrong. It must be Phase 16. For those with similar travails, you'll need to roll back the LSI firmware. But you can't just "update" to older firmware, so you need to erase what's there first. Here's how:
1. Make a DOS boot stick; I used freeware named Rufus and FreeDOS. Add the following files to that stick: sas2flsh.exe, the Phase 16 *.bin firmware file, and the *.rom bios file. These files are on the LSI site; click the Archive link if needed to get back to Phase 16.
2. Make sure that no other LSI cards are installed except the one you're intending to roll back so that you don't inadvertently operate the wrong one. After booting the target system with that stick, erase nearly everything from the LSI HBA with:
sas2flsh -o -e 6
DO NOT REBOOT AT THIS POINT. You'll brick your card if you do as it won't have any program with which to talk to you.
Then load the new firmware and bios with:
sas2flsh -o -f [name of the firmware file which you should shorten to 8 characters.bin, in my case it's 9201-1~1.bin] -b [mptsas1.rom or whatever your bios file is]
3. You're done. Reboot into FreeNAS and move on to your next debacle.

 

[valsha]

Good day, what is better to buy:
1. IBM M1015
2. LSI 9240-8i
3. LSI 9211-8i
???
Thank you for your help.

 

[jgreco]

9211 - least messing around, the card we'd like to have - 7 watts - usually most expensive option

9240 - 9211 with raid5 and 11 watts. great if you might someday need an entry level raid5 card but useless otherwise, too pricey

m1015 - ibm version of 9240. has cheap going for it, iff you buy on eBay.

 

[valsha]

price on ebay:
1. LSI 9240-8i - 119$
2. m1015 - 123$

 

[jgreco]

Stuff from Asia may or may not be Shenzhen back alley knockoffs or defective cards that failed QC.

 

[valsha]

jgreco thank you for your help.
One more thing, i am planing to buy Supermicro with 4 HDD (3TB) and SATA Raid: Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8
do i need to buy LSI 9240-8i/ m1015 or SATA Raid: Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 is good enough?

 

[jgreco]

The MV8 is a PCI-X SATA card based on a Marvell chipset. Assuming there aren't any issues with the chipset or driver, it'd be suitable for use. We still have a few MV8 cards hanging around and at least at one point they were highly thought of with Nexenta (also ZFS). But I doubt we've tried one lately.

That Tylersburg will not be a great machine - oldish power hungry tech. If you're getting a way awesome deal, maybe....

 

[valsha]

Do you think if i will buy LSI 9240-8i/ m1015 it will give much more advantageit than AOC-SAT2-MV8 ? or will not be a big difference ?

 

[jgreco]

Assuming no driver etc issues, they are equivalent. However, most people here are using the 9211 while I cannot think of anybody who has used the MV8 in recent years. As a result, you may be on your own if you go that route.

 

[9C1 Newbee]

jgreco thank you for your help.
One more thing, i am planing to buy Supermicro with 4 HDD (3TB) and SATA Raid: Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8
do i need to buy LSI 9240-8i/ m1015 or SATA Raid: Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 is good enough?

". 6x SATA2 (3 Gbps) Ports via
ICH10R Controller"

If you only run 4 drives, why do you need more ports?

 

[j_r0dd]

I just purchased the ASRock E3C224D4I-14S which has the 2308 controller. I contacted ASRock and they sent me the files to flash it to IT mode. There are no downloads on their website for this controller. I open the firmware file in a hex editor and it is version MPTFW-17.00.01.00-IT. I emailed them looking for version 16 earlier today. In the interim I have been googling around and I see that the 9207-8i uses the 2308 controller, but the oldest their site has available is version 19 and that is for an add-on card. In general I'm really not sure if the firmware out there is generic for that controller or if I need to be beating down ASRock's door to get the correct firmware for my board.

 

[Ericloewe]

It's actually a good question.

Generally, people use the generic LSI firmware for any card, but only the Supermicro/ASRock one if it's on the motherboard.

I don't know if there's any reason beyond "Stuff * could * break and nobody's been the guinea pig, yet."

 

[j_r0dd]

It's actually a good question.

Generally, people use the generic LSI firmware for any card, but only the Supermicro/ASRock one if it's on the motherboard.

I don't know if there's any reason beyond "Stuff * could * break and nobody's been the guinea pig, yet."

I've been comparing files from LSI to the same version from Supermicro. The bios files are identical, but the firmware files are not. Not willing to be the guinea pig here. Hopefully ASRock will have and tbh they should just have available on their website so there is no searching around like I have had to do. If they don't readily have the firmware files available to flash as needed it's definitely a deal breaker. I don't want to jeopardize my data by having mis-matched drivers and firmware. I probably should have done this research before ordering the board, but glad I'm doing it before my data is on the drives!

 

[estrabd]

Just a note on what I ended up doing to get this sucker flashed onto a Dell PE R900.

1. installed FreeDOS via unetbootin (Mac, using syslinux 5.00 mbr)
2. copied unzipped SAS2008 directory containing necessary files to the USB directly (so not as part of the image)
3. booted R900 using USB into FreeDOS "Live CD"
4. To gain access to files on USB drive, I pulled out the USB and put it back in; it remounted as a regular drive under C:\
5. Ran the first set of commands, reboot
6. booted into FreeNAS again
7. pulled, reinserted usb stick again, cd'd to C:\SAS2008
8. ran final set of commands
9. done, rebooted

I spent a lot of time worrying about how to get the damn flashing files visible in FreeDOS, but because FreeDOS seems to remount USB for you then creating a custom FreeDOS image is not worth doing.

 

[cyberjock]

I've been comparing files from LSI to the same version from Supermicro. The bios files are identical, but the firmware files are not. Not willing to be the guinea pig here. Hopefully ASRock will have and tbh they should just have available on their website so there is no searching around like I have had to do. If they don't readily have the firmware files available to flash as needed it's definitely a deal breaker. I don't want to jeopardize my data by having mis-matched drivers and firmware. I probably should have done this research before ordering the board, but glad I'm doing it before my data is on the drives!

If you can't get satisfaction from AsRock send me a PM. I can see what I can do from my end (I have a contact at AsRock that might be able to help).

On a sidenote, it is, in theory, possible to use the generic firmware. It *should* work, but its not something I would recommend unless there is no choice because it just seems "proper" to use what AsRock should provide.

 

[j_r0dd]

If you can't get satisfaction from AsRock send me a PM. I can see what I can do from my end (I have a contact at AsRock that might be able to help).

On a sidenote, it is, in theory, possible to use the generic firmware. It *should* work, but its not something I would recommend unless there is no choice because it just seems "proper" to use what AsRock should provide.

His response was:
"Our firmware is based on LSI 2308 version 17, so it’s not recommended to flash back to LSI version 16 to avoid some compatibility concerns."

I let him know my concern is my data. Locating this firmware has really been my only gripe with ASRock. They have been more than willing to go out of their way to answer my questions. They even reached out to their contact at Lian-Li for me to find out when the PC-Q26 will be back in stock in the US. Nothing I even requested for him to do. Way above and beyond the call of duty. I will wait for his response before having you reach out to your contact. Realistically, this is a server board and firmware files should readily be available on their website. I could understand not having available for consumer grade boards because 99% of end users are idiots. I guess if worse comes to worst I can always locate the version 17 FreeBSD driver and get that loaded.

 

[cyberjock]

Yeah, you don't want to use the P17 driver. The P16 driver is written and modified by the community and those fixes and optimizations have never been pushed forward. PM me with all the info, names, etc you have and I'll see what I can do. I've performed a few tricks in the past with AsRock, so I might be able to hook you up.

 

[Barry]

edit: nevermind; used wrong firmware.

correct 9240 IT firmware instructions are at https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...80-raid-controller-model-lsi-sas9240-8i.8632/