How to run HighPoint 2640x1 / Marvell 88SE6445-TFJ2 disk controller

[Albert Yang]

I have a HighPoint RocketRAID 2640x1 disk controller with PCIe 1x and 4 SATA interface, the main IC is Marvell 88SE6445-TFJ2.

While FreeNAS booting, it could list all the disks including which connected to motherboard directly and which connect to the 2640x1 HBA.
But after booting, from the WebGUI->View Disk, it only shows the disks to motherboard and does not shows the disks to 2640x1 HBA.

I could find 2640x1's FreeBSD driver on the HighPoint website. I also copied the driver to /boot/kernal dictory. But it does not work.

Could anyone help to check and tell me how to handle it? Should I need to find another HBA?

 

[pirateghost]

stop wasting your time with the highpoint. I had a 2640x1 and a 2640x4 and could never get it to reliably work with FreeNAS. Even if you do, it will break on the next update to FreeNAS. It just isnt worth the work. Go with an IBM serveraid m1015

 

[Albert Yang]

OK. Thank you! I'll stop my work on 2640.

 

[Albert Yang]

I noticed that the IBM serveraid M1015 is required to FLASH to LSI9211-8i before used on FreeNAS system. So, can I buy LSI9211 directly? Seems the price has no difference.

 

[cyberjock]

Where are you getting the 9211 for the same price as the M1015? Normally the M1015 is about $100USD.

 

[Albert Yang]

I'm in China. I just order a 9211 plus 2 cables, US$80. The price of M1015 is almost same in here.

 

[cyberjock]

interesting!

 

[Albert Yang]

I'd got my 9211-8i card. I've checked it is P17. I install it on my system but it does not work. Should I do something to run it up?

 

[cyberjock]

Post the output of "dmesg" and "camcontrol devlist".

It should "just work". Ideally you should be using P14 since that's what FreeNAS 9.x uses.

 

[Albert Yang]

I do not see 9211i POST screen. Is it right? Should I do something to active it?

 

[cyberjock]

If you flashed it to not provide a POST screen it shouldn't have one. You should actually know the answer to your question if you had read the guides on flashing it.. because you can optionally flash the POST screen/menus or not. I'm not getting instilled with confidence here. :P

 

[Albert Yang]

I did not flash it. I'll double check it if it was set to non POST status. But, with or without POST, the card should detect HDD and I think it would take around 1 minutes. I did not feel the delay.

 

[Albert Yang]

I did not flash it. I'll double check it if it was set to non POST status. But, with or without POST, the card should detect HDD and I think it would take around 1 minutes. I did not feel the delay.

 

[Albert Yang]

If you flashed it to not provide a POST screen it shouldn't have one. You should actually know the answer to your question if you had read the guides on flashing it.. because you can optionally flash the POST screen/menus or not. I'm not getting instilled with confidence here. :p

I did not flash it. I'll double check it if it was set to non POST status.
But, with or without POST, the card should detect HDD and I think it would take around 1 minutes. I did not feel the delay.

 

[cyberjock]

Correct, without the POST screen the card should still detect the hard drive. But you won't have the typical 1 minute delay while the system POSTs. It'll be a faster bootup(which is why the guides say not to include the menu/POST flashing stuff). I don't ever get the menu because I don't want the 1 minute or so delay nor do I want the menu items.