Dell R510 with LSI 9211-8i Problems with FBSD 9.0 and FreeNAS 8.04

[ZFSLover]

Not sure anyone has seen this or if it is a known issue, but it is driving me crazy!

Working config: Original hardware Dell R510, H700 Raid controller, 12x2TB SAS Toshiba HDD (hot swap), 2xInternal Fuji HDD (non hot swap). I setup all the 2TB HDD's as RAID 0 and everything works fine with FBSD 9.0, FreeNAS 8.x, OpenIndiana 151a, etc.

Device ID's are 0 - 11 for hot-swap, and 12,13 for 2.5" internal hdd's.

Non working config: I replaced the H700 card with an LSI 9211-8i flashed with latest v12 IT firmware, connected both SAS ports to the controller. LSI Bios see's all 14 devices just fine. Initial boot loader for FBSD and FreeNAS see all 14 devices, however when you get to the installer section, it only see's 8 hdd's, 6 of the hot swap, and the 2 internal.

I replaced the 9211-8i with 2x9211-4i, and I plugged one SAS port into each controller. Each controller see's all HDD's, which is odd!

I replaced the 9211 series cards with aoc-sas2lp-mv8 card, and it acts the same as the 8i card.

Not the kicker, I installed RHEL 5.8 and 6.2 just fine with the 9211-8i card for testing, it saw all the ports, created software raid, and installed the OS without issue.

Am I running into an expander issue on the Dell R510 that isn't compatible with BSD? 3 days of chasing this, and I haven't gotten any further to resolving the issue, frustrating. Any ideas on how to chase this one down?

Thanks!

 

[louisk]

So, seems odd that the problem would be the R510 when the first part of the post is about a working config.

I would think it more likely that the drivers for the LSI card aren't reporting correctly. I would probably see about filing a ticket with iX and see what they say.

 

[peterh]

A more genetral advice is to sell the lsi board and install a "plain" sata board. hardware-raid is obsolete and will only mess things up !

 

[ZFSLover]

A more genetral advice is to sell the lsi board and install a "plain" sata board. hardware-raid is obsolete and will only mess things up !

Peterh, that's exactly what is causing the problem! Read my post, the H700 with the drives set in raid0 mode worked just fine.

I replaced the RAID card with a HBA, and a very popular one, LSI 9211-9i, and I'm having all sorts of issues.

Also, the bios is current on the SAS expander and on the HBA.