Problem with LSI Logic Controller Card LSI00301 SAS 9207-8i Logical unit not ready

[Lothian]

I migrated from Core to Scale on May 30 so that I could use the Plex plugin to enable hardware transcoding on my CPU. Recently Plex dropped support for this in FreeBSD. After I migrated, I found that I was getting data corruption from my old SATA card and I purchased a new LSI Logic Controller Card LSI00301 SAS 9207-8i card from Amazon. I switched my Exos 16 TiB drives to this new controller and the number of errors was reduced but then came back. They were not associated with any particular drive, but just to make sure, installed my spare and the errors showed up on it too. When I looked into the log, I found the following:

Jun 15 17:51:36 nas kernel: zio pool=Riverdale vdev=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/6155bea5-8b54-11ec-a029-a0369f1ff640 error=5 type=1 offset=270336 size=8192 flags=b08c1
Jun 15 17:51:36 nas kernel: sd 0:0:4:0: [sdb] tag#9453 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=0s
Jun 15 17:51:36 nas kernel: sd 0:0:4:0: [sdb] tag#9453 Sense Key : Not Ready [current]
Jun 15 17:51:36 nas kernel: sd 0:0:4:0: [sdb] tag#9453 Add. Sense: Logical unit not ready, cause not reportable
Jun 15 17:51:36 nas kernel: sd 0:0:4:0: [sdb] tag#9453 CDB: Read(16) 88 00 00 00 00 04 8c 3f fa 90 00 00 00 10 00 00

These happen randomly, I can run for up to 24 hours with no errors but then they show up in clusters. I upgraded my firmware to SN04 on my Exos drives but the errors continued. I have 2 pools, Midvale and Centerville. The Midvale pool of 5 drives was attached to the motherboard and the Centerville pool of 6 drives in Z2 was attached to the controller card. All the errors happened to the Centerville pool on the controller card. To debug, I swapped the cables so that Centerville is now attached to the motherboard SATA and Riverdale is attached to the controller. Now the errors are happening on the Midvale pool. I think this is good evidence that the problem is the SAS Controller card. As far as I can tell my controller is updated to the latest firmware in IT mode as shown in the sas2flash list output below. Also, I did a surface scan on 3 of the drives, and no errors. I don't believe that I am actually getting corrupted data, just failing responses from the card.

I am getting a bit desperate. Does anybody have any suggestions on how I should proceed?

Adapter Selected is a LSI SAS: SAS2308_2(D1)

Controller Number : 0
Controller : SAS2308_2(D1)
PCI Address : 00:02:00:00
SAS Address : 500605b-0-08de-5000
NVDATA Version (Default) : 14.01.00.06
NVDATA Version (Persistent) : 14.01.00.06
Firmware Product ID : 0x2214 (IT)
Firmware Version : 20.00.07.00
NVDATA Vendor : LSI
NVDATA Product ID : SAS9207-8i
BIOS Version : 07.39.02.00
UEFI BSD Version : N/A
FCODE Version : N/A
Board Name : SAS9217-8i
Board Assembly : H3-25566-00C
Board Tracer Number : SV41941105

 

[Lothian]

I have had a thought about my problem... I took a laser thermometer and tested the temp of the big cooler chip on the card and it is running 157F or about 70C. Could this be causing me a problem? I have ordered a video card cooler to chill the card.

 

[artlessknave]

157F or about 70C.

abso-(^*%*^($%-lutely. most of these cards expect passive airflow similar to what you would find in a server chassis.

 

[Lothian]

abso-(^*%*^($%-lutely. most of these cards expect passive airflow similar to what you would find in a server chassis.

FYI, I think I fried the card... a cooler reduced but did not end my problems. In the end, I bought a GLOTRENDS PCIe 4X SATA Adapter Card with six SATA ports on it and my problem has completely gone away but my transfer rates are terrible... More work to follow.

 

[jgreco]

A card with six SATA ports on it is likely to be a SATA port multiplier and is a horrible thing to use.

Multiply your problems with SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers

In the last year or two, we've had a resurgence of users asking about SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers. Please, do NOT use port multipliers, and use cheap SATA controllers only after extensive research. SATA controllers and SATA...

www.truenas.com

 

[Lothian]

A card with six SATA ports on it is likely to be a SATA port multiplier and is a horrible thing to use.

Multiply your problems with SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers

In the last year or two, we've had a resurgence of users asking about SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers. Please, do NOT use port multipliers, and use cheap SATA controllers only after extensive research. SATA controllers and SATA...

www.truenas.com

Yes, not the best but at least it has eliminated my errors. I have a new SAS controller coming and hopefully, it will work.

 

[randorog]

Came here to ask if you had to do anything special to get the drives attached to your Glotrends card working. I've got the same 6 port sata expansion card, I've got 4x 3TB drives hooked up to it and every time I try to add those drives to my existing pool TrueNAS gives me an error that it's not able to GPT format the drives.

 

[artlessknave]

Glotrends card working

unlikely as these cards are e-waste. get one of the recommended HBAs from the resources section.
even if you fight with it to get it "working" you will just get garbage speeds, garbage reliability, and endless frustrations.