Differences between LSI 9207-8e and LSI 9300-8e

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Big upgrades are afoot in the Nerdvana I call my home office. For the most part it went pretty well, but I did run into one strange issue. My old system used a 9207-8e to connect to two HP external storage arrays (D2700 on port 1, port 2 on D2700 controllers connected to port 1 on D2600). This worked great for quite some time. When I was building the new system, it seemed like a cool idea to upgrade to a 9300-8e just because. Yes, I do know that these external arrays only support 6G. The 9300-8e only sees the array to which it is directly connected, but not the daisy chained D2600. The 9207-8e still sees both external arrays.

Old system:
Cisco C240 M3S
2 x E5-2637 v2
256G RAM
LSI 9207-8i for internal drives (LSI 2308 chipset)
LSI 9207-8e for external arrays (LSI 2308 chipset)
Chelsio T580-CR NIC for storage network
Intel i350 2 port LAGG for management
FreeNAS 11.2-U8

New system
Cisco C240 M4SX
2 x E5-2637 v3
256G RAM
Cisco SAS HBA for internal drives (LSI 3108 chipset)
LSI 9207-8e for external arrays (LSI 2308 chipset)
LSI 9300-8e for external arrays (LSI 3008 chipset)
Chelsio T580-CR NIC for storage network
Intel i350 2 port LAGG for management
FreeNAS 11.3-U3.1

The new system also sees both external arrays when they are connected to the 9207-8e, so this is definitely an HBA thing and not a FreeNAS version thing.
 
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@HoneyBadger do you have any ideas? You are very knowledgeable on the HP side of things.
 

HoneyBadger

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@HoneyBadger do you have any ideas? You are very knowledgeable on the HP side of things.
Aw, shucks.

From the sounds of it you've cascaded the shelves correctly (HBA to D2700 A1, D2700 A2 to D2600 A1, makes a single chain)

Silly question; if you put the D2600 first, does the 3008 pick it up and not the D2700? Wondering if it's something in the 3008 logic that doesn't like 6G expanders.
 
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From the sounds of it you've cascaded the shelves correctly (HBA to D2700 A1, D2700 A2 to D2600 A1, makes a single chain)
I am using both ports on the HBA. The first port goes to the first controller module/io module in the D2700, and the second port goes to the second controller module/io module in the D2700. I assume that is correct. The 9207-8e likes it. The dual port disks in those arrays show up as multipath devices.
Silly question; if you put the D2600 first, does the 3008 pick it up and not the D2700? Wondering if it's something in the 3008 logic that doesn't like 6G expanders.
No, I haven't tried that yet. Do I need to pull the controller module/io module(s)? The D2700 shows #01, and the D2600 shows #02.
 

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I am using both ports on the HBA. The first port goes to the first controller module/io module in the D2700, and the second port goes to the second controller module/io module in the D2700. I assume that is correct. The 9207-8e likes it. The dual port disks in those arrays show up as multipath devices.

No, I haven't tried that yet. Do I need to pull the controller module/io module(s)? The D2700 shows #01, and the D2600 shows #02.

That should work, unless your 9300 is expecting something different as far as multipathing. Might be worth leaving the second cable unplugged just to troubleshoot.

For testing the other way, don't swap I/O modules in the DAEs; just change the cable order so that the D2600 is plugged in first. If you have a boot ROM/BIOS on the 3008 then you could enter the topology screen and just refresh between cable swaps to see what works and what doesn't.

There's no logical reason why the newer SAS 12G card would have an issue with the HP DAEs ... so we have to start looking at illogical ones like "HP doesn't like LSI3008s"
 
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There's no logical reason why the newer SAS 12G card would have an issue with the HP DAEs ... so we have to start looking at illogical ones like "HP doesn't like LSI3008s"
I may just give up and save the 9300 for the possibility of having an external array that supports 12G in the future. My motivation to play around with it is flagging since I get nothing from making the 9300 work, except being able to remove the 9207 so I can throw it in a box. My motivation was in case the BMC in the new server got cranky about the older cards and wanted to run the fans at high speed. It isn't doing that, so it looks like the $$$ on the 9300's was a waste. Sigh.
 
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