SOLVED Fujitsu D2607 IT mode not seeing Serial Numbers

[victort]

TL:DR = It wasn’t in IT mode.

I have a (above mentioned) LSI megaRAID card that has been flashed to IT mode, and works fine with unRAID, but not TrueNAS. It sees the disks and everything, but not the serial numbers. It also names the disks (mfisyspd0, mfisyspd1, mfisyspd2, mfisyspd3, mfisyspd4, mfisyspd5) which accorign to @jgreco means it is not properly flashed to IT mode.

Dell PowerEdge R510
64GB ECC RAM
2x Xeon CPU

It comes off ebay and was flashed to IT mode. (before purchase)

sas2flash and sas3flash commands don't show anything...

 

[victort]

And after reading all the resources by @jgreco I'm leaning towards a (this probably isn't the best card to use)
But I want to know if it's even a good idea to use this model of card.

 

[jgreco]

Yeah, sorry, despite what your seller might have told you, if it doesn't answer to sas2flash or sas3flash, that's bad. I believe that "sas2flash -list" and "sas3flash -list" (off the top of my head) are the correct commands to get a device list.

If you type "dmesg" at the prompt or look at /var/run/dmesg.boot, you should be able to find a line starting with "mfi", "mpr", "mps", or "mpt" which would also help clarify what the controller itself thinks it is.

I have no familiarity with the Fujitsu cards, having never seen one here.

 

[victort]

Yes there are many lines starting with mfi. A few of which

mfi0: Megaraid SAS driver Ver 4.23
mfi0: Using MSI

 

[victort]

Yes there are many lines starting with mfi. A few of which

mfi0: Megaraid SAS driver Ver 4.23
mfi0: Using MSI

But later down the dmesg.boot there is also pass0, pass1, and pass2, that show all the serial numbers of the drives.

When rebooting, the serial numbers also show.

 

[jgreco]

But later down the dmesg.boot there is also pass0, pass1, and pass2, that show all the serial numbers of the drives.

When rebooting, the serial numbers also show.

That's irrelevant. Of course there are ways to get the serial numbers off of the drives. That's not the problem. The problem is that you've got a RAID card using the RAID driver, and this is not usable for TrueNAS as your card is behaving as a RAID controller in MFI mode, rather than the HBA controller in IT mode that we need it to be. Sorry. :-( There are likely a few guides on the Internet about how to take it over to IT mode, but as I haven't had to do a Fujitsu card, I cannot really advise on what bumps or bruises might be in your future.

 

[victort]

Hmmm….

TrueNAS SCALE sees them all fine.
CORE doesn’t…

sas2flash and sas3flash still don’t pick anything up.

FreeBSD vs Linux perhaps…

 

[jgreco]

Still not relevant. It doesn't stop being a RAID controller just because the host is running Linux. Do not use an MFI controller to attach disks, you risk data loss, corruption, and problems doing disk replacements, among other hazards.

 

[victort]

Still not relevant. It doesn't stop being a RAID controller just because the host is running Linux. Do not use an MFI controller to attach disks, you risk data loss, corruption, and problems doing disk replacements, among other hazards.

Even in IT mode?

 

[victort]

I prefer not to have to crossflash, so would anyone be able to recommend a good one?

Preferably one that is already flashed.

 

[jgreco]

Even in IT mode?

You either have the MFI firmware or the IT firmware. Your card has made it clear that you have the MFI firmware loaded. This isn't really a "mode", any more than it's a mode to put FreeBSD or Linux on your PC instead of Windows.

I prefer not to have to crossflash, so would anyone be able to recommend a good one?

There is a seller known as "The Art of Server" on eBay who I would generally trust. I've exchanged words with him in the past about counterfeit cards. However, his current inventory of cards is a bit pricey. On the other hand, some of the other cards on eBay appear to be obvious fakes. It's a "pick yer poison" situation.

 

[victort]

Thank to this guide it is now in IT mode.

Cross-Flashing a Fujitsu D2607 RAID Controller

I recently picked up a few Fujitsu D2607 RAID Controllers (cheap off eBay!) to replace the Rocket RAID controller in my NAS, which I have come to distrust as it has at times been a little flaky (plus, they have never provided a single firmware update, and support if asking anything is...

davewinfield.au

 

[jgreco]

Awesome! Hopefully it was not too difficult. Some OEM cards such as the Dells are a bit prickly requiring downgrade to ancient firmware prior to the crossflash. Please tell me that your serial numbers are now working as expected so we can celebrate with a beer.

 

[victort]

Awesome! Hopefully it was not too difficult. Some OEM cards such as the Dells are a bit prickly requiring downgrade to ancient firmware prior to the crossflash. Please tell me that your serial numbers are now working as expected so we can celebrate with a beer.

Everything is functioning as expected.

Serial numbers.
Device names (dax)

sas2flash working as expected showing IT firmware.

I don’t drink, but I’d take a chocolate milk…

 

[victort]

Do I need to do anything special to boot from one of the devices connected there?

Booting from motherboard sata currently.

 

[Samuel Tai]

You'll need to flash the boot ROM to the HBA to enable booting.

 

[victort]

This video shows how to set it up.

How to select boot device in LSI IT mode HBA SAS controller

In this video, I show you how to select the preferred and alternative boot devices in an LSI IT mode HBA SAS controller.For pre-flashed IT mode HBA SAS contr...

youtu.be