Add raid card after configuration

[striker79]

Hello freenas community. I hope you can help me out. I am fairly new to the freenas world. My configuration is listed below.

I am having a problem with my setup. One of my drives is failing the S.M.A.R.T test and is making my array degraded. This is not the first time it has happened on the same SATA port though. This happened when I first built my rig, and I replaced the drive thinking it was bad. Now I am thinking it isn't the drive, as what are the chances of two red pro drives failing within a month of eachother. Maybe its a cable or port? I did install the firmware to enable IT mode on the mb.

If I want to test the ports, does it matter what order I plug the drives back in?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SL7-F-O
Intel Xeon E3-1241 v3 Haswell 3.5 GHz 8MB L3 Cache
Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC
8 x WD Red Pro 6TB
EVGA 210-GQ-0650-V1 650W
Fractal Design Node 804
CRYORIG H7 Tower Cooler

 

[Mr_N]

No, you can plug the drives in any order it wont affect your pool

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

One of my drives is failing the S.M.A.R.T test and is making my array degraded.

Care to post the results (between CODE tags) so we can take a look?

what are the chances of two red pro drives failing within a month of eachother.

Low, but it happens. Did you burn them in?

 

[striker79]

Thank you Mr_N. I will try some new sata cables and ports and see if this continues to happen.

Robert, I did burn them in. After updating Freenas the codes are not there anymore, and everything is functioning correctly, but that drive does have a 2 under Checksum...

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

When SMART attributes look good but there are checksum errors, one recommendation is always to triple-check all cables (data and power). A bad SATA port is also a possibility.

 

[striker79]

So I received my new LSI 9211-8i and expander cables today. All drives are read, but freenas notes that the firmware P19 needs to be updated. The newest available is P20 V: 20.00.04.00. I am not sure how to install this. I made my usb bootable and copied the BIOS, firmware, and sas2flash.efi files to the drive, but when I select boot to my USB, I get "Reboot and Select proper boot device"? Any recommendations? Am I missing a step? I read numerous articles, including a couple from linustechtips, but some were different and I am not sure what steps I should take...

 

[Marcet]

So I received my new LSI 9211-8i and expander cables today. All drives are read, but freenas notes that the firmware P19 needs to be updated. The newest available is P20 V: 20.00.04.00. I am not sure how to install this. I made my usb bootable and copied the BIOS, firmware, and sas2flash.efi files to the drive, but when I select boot to my USB, I get "Reboot and Select proper boot device"? Any recommendations? Am I missing a step? I read numerous articles, including a couple from linustechtips, but some were different and I am not sure what steps I should take...

You have to select UEFI Shell from the boot menu.
If this option is not present, you can make a FreeDOS bootable USB Stick and use sas2flash.exe.

 

[striker79]

I am now able to boot using UEFI, but when I mount the drive and type is ls to display the content, i get "Cannot open current directory - Not Found"

Below is an image

 

[Marcet]

It must be a problem of partition table on the usb stick. Is it GPT ?

 

[striker79]

Not that I am aware of. It is a 16GB flash drive formatted to FAT32

 

[Marcet]

I'm not sure EFI Shell can mount MBR disks. Try to reformat your USB stick using a GPT partition table.

 

[striker79]

I just tried and got the same result...

 

[Mirfster]

You should be able to use the "sas2flash" that is in FreeNas itself to update it. Just copy the files to a location, run it and you are good.

 

[Mirfster]

I read numerous articles, including a couple from linustechtips, but some were different and I am not sure what steps I should take...

Tsk Tsk.... :p

 

[striker79]

So you are saying to just load the files on a usb and flash the card while I am in freenas? I read that it doesn't work and results in an error that reads something along the lines of, "cannot change mode from IR to IT" or something like that. I'll give it a shot though.

 

[Mirfster]

I would assume that your card is already in IT Mode.. Check to see by running: sas2flash -list; Then look at the "Firmware Product ID ". It should show something like: 0x2213 (IT)

Example:

Code:

[root@ASC-FREENAS01] ~# sas2flash -list
LSI Corporation SAS2 Flash Utility
Version 16.00.00.00 (2013.03.01)
Copyright (c) 2008-2013 LSI Corporation. All rights reserved

        Adapter Selected is a LSI SAS: SAS2008(B1)

        Controller Number              : 0
        Controller                     : SAS2008(B1)
        PCI Address                    : 00:01:00:00
        SAS Address                    : 099152d-0-0029-216d
        NVDATA Version (Default)       : 14.01.00.08
        NVDATA Version (Persistent)    : 14.01.00.08
        Firmware Product ID            : 0x2213 (IT)
        Firmware Version               : 20.00.04.00
        NVDATA Vendor                  : LSI
        NVDATA Product ID              : SAS9211-8i
        BIOS Version                   : 07.39.00.00
        UEFI BSD Version               : N/A
        FCODE Version                  : N/A
        Board Name                     : SAS2 Mezz
        Board Assembly                 : N/A
        Board Tracer Number            : N/A

        Finished Processing Commands Successfully.
        Exiting SAS2Flash.

 

[striker79]

It is already in IT mode. I just purchased it already flashed, and the drives all showed up, but I received a warning to upgrade the firmware. That is where I am stuck. I can't seem to get any of the instructions I have read to work. Having a newer board, I am able to hit F11 and get the option for UEFI, but I cannot do fs0:\> ls and get the files to show...

If there is an easier way, I am all for it. I have been struggling with this for the past 5 hours...

 

[Mirfster]

Yeah, give me a minute (I need to grab some coffee). I will get you instructions.

 

[striker79]

Coffee? After all of this I'm already hitting up the moonshine. lol

 

[striker79]

Sorry. Didn't mean that literally. It's just been a long day, and it seems as if I have tried everything, and I just can't get this to work.