Another LSI 9211-8i question

[deanhuff]

I purchased a used supermicro server with a 9211-8i. The card states the current firmware is V15-IR mode. The attached drives show up in the FREENAS website and look to be ready for me to create a ZRAID.

Must this card be flashed to V20-IT?

It looks like I will need to pursue the EFI boot option to get the card wiped and then flashed...I'm just wondering why the IT over the IR mode and why is V20 the magic firmware?

thanks
-Dean

 

[Chris Moore]

Must this card be flashed to V20-IT?

Yes.

It looks like I will need to pursue the EFI boot option to get the card wiped and then flashed..

I guess that depends on the model system board you have. I have used a FreeDOS boot disk to flash cards in the past, but that was with an old socket 1366 Xeon system. With newer systems, you do need to use the EFI flash utility because the DOS flash utility errors out.

I'm just wondering why the IT over the IR mode

The IT mode firmware removes any ability of the card to mangle the data transfer between ZFS and the disk. It is best practice.

why is V20 the magic firmware?

Latest version firmware because faults were corrected between the older firmware and the newer firmware. It wouldn't have changed if things were not being fixed. It is also because the firmware and the driver version used to change in lock-step, but they stopped updating that card firmware a couple years ago, but they have put out a couple of newer drivers.

You would be in a position where you data is at risk if you did not follow the best practices.

 

[deanhuff]

For me, the efi flash procedure worked fine. for some reason my efi shell didn't scroll the screen so once i typed a command or two i couldn't see what was happening. A little disconcerting when I was erasing the card. anyhow...i'm now on V20 and i've created my zvols in freenas. Thanks!