For the purpose of this post specific hardware details are not important. Just maybe this story will save someone else a little time in the future. For most it is probably old news.
One goal of my first TrueNAS build was to use LSI HBAs along with an intel i9 processor with the expectation of running PLEX and doing GPU transcoding. Sounds easy enough but due to my lack of knowledge it took a while to get it working.
I had read that the LSI HBAs needed P20 IT firmware and that BIOS code was not needed. True enough as long as you can boot your system in compatibility mode. In my case enabling compatibility mode was greyed out in the BIOS so I figured I would try booting with UEFI. No joy, the system started up just fine but I could not see any of the drives connected to the LSI HBA. In retrospect that makes complete sense but I was still learning. So I set off to try to figure out how to boot in compatibility mode, like so many articles and post claim is necessary.
What I found was that my BIOS automatically disables compatibility mode when using the graphics built into the i9 processor. Apparently Intel designed the graphics part of the chip in a way that it is not compatible with compatibility boot mode. Can’t tell you exactly which processors are like that but mine was definitely one of them. The first solution was to dig into my treasure trove of parts and dig out an old video card. Voila, it kind of works. Booting the system automatically turned on compatibility mode (it was an old graphics card) and all the drives connected to the LSI HBA were now visible.
Now I installed PLEX in anticipation of using the processor GPUs for transcoding but nooo. Using a non UEFI expansion card for video disabled the graphics built into the processor completely or more precisely, booting in compatibility mode did. So now what? More research…
Found there is an EFI BIOS that can be installed on the LSI HBA card. I am slowly learning. Downloaded it, did the whole EFI shell boot thing to flash the EFI BIOS into the HBA (booting in compatibility mode on an UEFI enabled system does not work, SAS2FLSH throws an error, learned the hard way), took out the expansion graphics card and booted again. Success! BIOS automatically switched back to UEFI boot mode and disabled compatibility mode again. Now everything is working. Drives were visible. Was able to assign a processor GPU to PLEX which it happily used when needed. Could even do an UEFI boot from a drive connected to the HBA.
Moral of the story is that you need to flash the EFI BIOS into LSI HBAs. Ignore all those articles and posts that say a BIOS is not needed, unless that is, you are ok with booting in compatibility mode.
One goal of my first TrueNAS build was to use LSI HBAs along with an intel i9 processor with the expectation of running PLEX and doing GPU transcoding. Sounds easy enough but due to my lack of knowledge it took a while to get it working.
I had read that the LSI HBAs needed P20 IT firmware and that BIOS code was not needed. True enough as long as you can boot your system in compatibility mode. In my case enabling compatibility mode was greyed out in the BIOS so I figured I would try booting with UEFI. No joy, the system started up just fine but I could not see any of the drives connected to the LSI HBA. In retrospect that makes complete sense but I was still learning. So I set off to try to figure out how to boot in compatibility mode, like so many articles and post claim is necessary.
What I found was that my BIOS automatically disables compatibility mode when using the graphics built into the i9 processor. Apparently Intel designed the graphics part of the chip in a way that it is not compatible with compatibility boot mode. Can’t tell you exactly which processors are like that but mine was definitely one of them. The first solution was to dig into my treasure trove of parts and dig out an old video card. Voila, it kind of works. Booting the system automatically turned on compatibility mode (it was an old graphics card) and all the drives connected to the LSI HBA were now visible.
Now I installed PLEX in anticipation of using the processor GPUs for transcoding but nooo. Using a non UEFI expansion card for video disabled the graphics built into the processor completely or more precisely, booting in compatibility mode did. So now what? More research…
Found there is an EFI BIOS that can be installed on the LSI HBA card. I am slowly learning. Downloaded it, did the whole EFI shell boot thing to flash the EFI BIOS into the HBA (booting in compatibility mode on an UEFI enabled system does not work, SAS2FLSH throws an error, learned the hard way), took out the expansion graphics card and booted again. Success! BIOS automatically switched back to UEFI boot mode and disabled compatibility mode again. Now everything is working. Drives were visible. Was able to assign a processor GPU to PLEX which it happily used when needed. Could even do an UEFI boot from a drive connected to the HBA.
Moral of the story is that you need to flash the EFI BIOS into LSI HBAs. Ignore all those articles and posts that say a BIOS is not needed, unless that is, you are ok with booting in compatibility mode.
