SOLVED SATA Controller Warning

[LeoSum]

Hi there,
I recently moved my FreeNAS setup (9.10) to new hardware (Dell T20).
Since it only offers only 4 SATA connectors and I have 5 drives, I bought a cheap SATA controller card (~15€) with an ASMedia ASM1061 chip. I had previously read, that this was working for some people.

However I kept getting errors like this:

Code:

(ada0:ahcich0:0:0:0): WRITE_FPDMA_QUEUED. ACB: 61 20 40 02 76 40 15 00 00 00 00 00
(ada0:ahcich0:0:0:0): CAM status: Uncorrectable parity/CRC error
(ada0:ahcich0:0:0:0): Retrying command
(ada0:ahcich0:0:0:0): WRITE_FPDMA_QUEUED. ACB: 61 20 40 57 67 40 01 00 00 00 00 00
(ada0:ahcich0:0:0:0): CAM status: Uncorrectable parity/CRC error
(ada0:ahcich0:0:0:0): Retrying command
(ada0:ahcich0:0:0:0): WRITE_FPDMA_QUEUED. ACB: 61 38 70 a1 46 40 10 00 00 00 00 00
(ada0:ahcich0:0:0:0): CAM status: Uncorrectable parity/CRC error
(ada0:ahcich0:0:0:0): Retrying command

Additionally the system was unresponsive and top showed a rather high load (around 1.00) while the cpu was 99% idle.
When I switched around disks and cable to rule stuff out I pretty soon figured out that the errors came from the controller.

So now I bought a used LSI controller (like I should have done in the first place, I know) and installed it.

The controller I bought is a "RAID HBA LSI Megaraid 9212-4i 6G PCIe x8 IT Mode m1015" so that I wouldn't have to do the flashing myself.

With this installed, all disks were immediately recognized.
All is running smoothly now, no errors and the load is back to normal.

So up to here this is more a documentation for others who might want to try the cheap way like me and wonder why their performance sucks.

Now to my question:

I am getting a warning on the GUI that my controller's firmware version (12) does not match the used driver (21).

I read from other threads, that firmware 21 does not exist and that the warning can be ignored, but those people were already on version 20.
So should I too ignore that warning (never change a running system)?
Other than the warning in the GUI I don't have any issues and the system runs perfectly now.
I couldn't find any information on what specifically can go wrong with a firmware/driver mismatch.

Or should I go ahead and flash to version 20?

I did some reading on the flashing process prior to buying the controller and was a little discouraged by what can go wrong and how it only works from UEFI shell and not from FreeBSD and that others had to install the card in a different machine to flash it. That was the reason why made sure I bought a card that was already flashed to IT mode.

If flashing to 20 is what is recommended, would this be the right source for firmware: https://www.broadcom.com/products/storage/host-bus-adapters/sas-9212-4i4e#downloads ?

I am unsure because the specs on that page state "PCIe x4" and mine is supposedly "PCIe x8". Also mine is only called "9212-4i" while the Boradcom page says "9212-4i4e"

Would this be the right procedure to flash, provided that my System is capable of "UEFI boot":
https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/37925/#post-257603

Sorry if I'm being overly cautious, but I don't want to brick the card.

I'm grateful for any hints

 

[BigDave]

I am getting a warning on the GUI that my controller's firmware version (12) does not match the used driver (21).

I read from other threads, that firmware 21 does not exist and that the warning can be ignored, but those people were already on version 20.

Should I too ignore that warning or go ahead and flash to version 20?

Other than the warning in the GUI I don't have any issues and the system runs perfectly now.

It's not recommended to run with a driver/firmware mismatch. The 21driver/20firmware warning has actually
been removed in the more recent versions of FreeNAS and can safely be ignored. The P20 firmware
with the P21 driver is without issue at this time so the Devs have "turned off" the warning for this IIRC.
As far as updating your card's firmware, I'm not familiar with that model and will leave that issue to others.
Don't apologize for your caution, it's better to ask questions first than to regret hasty decisions.

 

[LeoSum]

After some more reading I now successfully flashed my controller.

By doing so, I learned that I somehow hadn't bought a card that was already in IT mode.

I read this thread: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/confirmation-please-lsi-9211-i8-flashing-to-p20.40373/

When I tried to do it the quick, online way I was told that I couldn't flash IT firmware over IR.

So I created a uefi boot stick and then issued these commands:

1. sas2flash.efi -listall /show the controller and verify the current version
2. sas2flash.efi -o -e 6 / erase the BIOS
3. sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom / write the new firmware and BIOS
4. sas2flash.efi –listall / verify the updated card
5. Reboot and press Ctrl-C to get into the LSI BIOS and make sure you’re actually in Initiator Target (IT) mode.

Now all is golden.

I assume that the next updates will be easier with the online method, however this wasn't too hard after all.

Thank you for the help @BigDave!