Dell H200e strange issue

[romastepanov]

hi guys i have dell r620 server with dell h200e card installed in it connected to emc vxn disk shelf,
when truenas is trying to do long smart test it always fails..
my question is anyone here have any idea why this could be?

 

[VioletDragon]

hi guys i have dell r620 server with dell h200e card installed in it connected to emc vxn disk shelf,
when truenas is trying to do long smart test it always fails..
my question is anyone here have any idea why this could be?

Have you flashed it to IT mode ? or is it in IR mode?

 

[romastepanov]

hi i have it in stock , i thnk the stock is IR mode?right?
I tried installing the same LSI card non dell branded but idrac is complaning all the time that its not compatible..
I used LSI SAS 9205-8e H3-25360 card.
Will Firmware Update to it mode will help?

 

[romastepanov]

root@truenas[~]# smartctl -r ioctl -t long /dev/da10
smartctl 7.2 2020-12-30 r5155 [FreeBSD 12.2-RELEASE-p9 amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-20, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

[inquiry: 12 00 00 00 24 00 ]
CAM status=0x1, SCSI status=0x0, resid=0x0
status=0x0
[inquiry: 12 01 00 00 fc 00 ]
CAM status=0x1, SCSI status=0x0, resid=0xeb
status=0x0
[inquiry: 12 00 00 00 24 00 ]
CAM status=0x1, SCSI status=0x0, resid=0x0
status=0x0
[request sense: 03 00 00 00 12 00 ]
CAM status=0x1, SCSI status=0x0, resid=0x0

 

[VioletDragon]

hi i have it in stock , i thnk the stock is IR mode?right?
I tried installing the same LSI card non dell branded but idrac is complaning all the time that its not compatible..
I used LSI SAS 9205-8e H3-25360 card.
Will Firmware Update to it mode will help?

Yes that is normal. ZFS/Smart wants direct Access to the Disk when in IR mode it is different. As for the Firmware you want Dells Firmware, i had the same problem with the Perc H200i it required the H200i Firmware. I did a guide for the H200i. You will need to get the H200e.fw From Dell and Cross Flash it. How to crossflash Dell H200 to IT Mode with H200i Firmware & BIOS This should get you a bit further. DELL 6Gbps SAS HBA FW version 07.03.05.00, A08

 

[romastepanov]

hi i have updated the h200e to IT mode but i still get strange error when i try to do long smart test.

mps1: IOC Fault 0x40007200, Resetting
mps1: Reinitializing controller
mps1: Firmware: 20.00.07.00, Driver: 21.02.00.00-fbsd
mps1: IOCCapabilities: 1285c<ScsiTaskFull,DiagTrace,SnapBuf,EEDP,TransRetry,EventReplay,HostDisc>

could it be something with the controller?could it be some driver incompability?

 

[romastepanov]

hi any help guys?anyone knows how to fix this?

 

[jgreco]

Firmware other than the LSI 20.00.07.00 firmware is not expected to work correctly. The Dell IR is explicitly expected NOT to work correctly, which is why you have to back up to one of the really early phases (I want to say P07), crossflash it over it LSI 9211 IT mode, then update it to P20 with 20.00.07.00 firmware.

 

[romastepanov]

Adapter Selected is a LSI SAS: SAS2008(B2)

Controller Number : 1
Controller : SAS2008(B2)
PCI Address : 00:41:00:00
SAS Address : 5782bcb-0-1442-cf00
NVDATA Version (Default) : 14.01.00.07
NVDATA Version (Persistent) : 14.01.00.07
Firmware Product ID : 0x2213 (IT)
Firmware Version : 20.00.07.00
NVDATA Vendor : LSI
NVDATA Product ID : SAS9200-8e
BIOS Version : 07.39.02.00
UEFI BSD Version : N/A
FCODE Version

this is my cards data ...its already in this firmware...do you mean i have to reflash it using 9211 firmware?

 

[jgreco]

this is my cards data ...its already in this firmware...do you mean i have to reflash it using 9211 firmware?

No, the important bits are

Firmware Version : 20.00.07.00
NVDATA Vendor : LSI

So you're fine. The first thing we look for with "flaky" HBA's is incorrect firmware.

 

[romastepanov]

any other idea why i cant perform long smart test?
my setup is dell r620 connected to two emc JBODS ..i can perform wipe and all other feautures but long test gives me an error could it be some drivers incompability?

 

[jgreco]

Are they SATA or SAS disks? Now that you mention "EMC JBODs", that suddenly suggests you might be using SAS HDD's, and they do not necessarily support SMART (which is really more of a SATA thing).

 

[romastepanov]

sas drives ,flashed with emc firmware,so i cant really check if disks are about to die on me?
is there any way to connect hd sentinel to truenas or some other app like that?

 

[jgreco]

HD Sentinel looks like it monitors SMART. FreeNAS can already monitor SMART if available.

ZFS will always let you know if it is encountering problems with data access on a drive. Be sure to set up alerts in FreeNAS to notify you via e-mail or however you prefer, and you will know right away when problems occur. Be sure to use RAIDZ2, RAIDZ3, three-way mirrors, etc., if you want to retain redundancy even when a disk fails.

ZFS does not rely on SMART, but SMART is nice to have as it augments ZFS-based data protection. Think of it like belt-and-suspenders protection when you do have SMART. You're still okay even without SMART, but you may have to be smart about it by making sure you're proactive about reported problems.

 

[romastepanov]

i am ok without having smart data of the drives.
just want to be extra safe with my data on this truenas build.
thank you for your help it helped me alot.i am going to try other disks i have and see if firmware on those drives is the issue..

but i am just curious where the problem is...

why short smart test works but long smart test isnt working..

 

[jgreco]

SMART is a technology oriented towards consumer hard drives inside PC's, giving the PC an easy way to predict failures.

SAS drives in arrays are designed for enterprise use, designed to be monitored by a RAID array controller, which often do their own proactive monitoring and scanning of array components. There is no reason to expect that such drives would support SMART, or that drive manufacturers would put much effort into doing so. Long SMART tests, in particular, could degrade array performance, so I would be completely unshocked to find this unsupported on a drive with array firmware.

 

[romastepanov]

ok thank you for long explanation,its really cleared a misunderstanding i had about smart data on sas drives.i was sure the drives had a problem with their firmware.

what zfs uses to manage those sas drives and how can i be sure my data is safe?besides RAIDZ3.
anything else i can do to be sure its safe?

 

[jgreco]

ZFS checksums your data and verifies it when being read back. You should run periodic scrubs of your pool to make sure that all the data is intact as well.