HP SAS92124i

[M.A]

I got this controller for free. It was in a HP workstation and is basically the same controller as LSI-9212-4i4e but without the External port.

It had 9212-4i4e printed on the back of it and it had the stock modified LSI/HP ROM and wasn't in IT mode.
Having nothing to lose I went to LSI's website here and downloaded the IT firmware + bootrom
Created a bootable DOS USB and added the firmware + bootrom files to it (you can download a zipped copy here. This is basically a modified sas2008 IT firmware folder. Thanks to the original uploader). Booted off of it and flashed the card as follows:

** Flashing this card on a UEFI/EFI/Hybrid-EFI mainboard would most probably fail. Find an old/faithful BIOS mainboard and it should work just fine.

cd sas2008
megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
megarec -cleanflash 0

——— >>>> reboot, back to USB stick

sas2flsh -o -f 214i4et.bin -b mptsas2.rom <<<-------- Flash FW + Bootrom

sas2flsh -o -sasadd 500605b0XXXXXXXX <<<-------- Set SAS Adapter Address

** X is the numbers of your adapter's SAS address. It is usually printed on a label at the back of the adapter

The adapter works just fine. See pix :)

 

[danb35]

Thanks for sharing. But why did you flash it to P19? FreeNAS calls for P16.

 

[marbus90]

https://www.lsi.com/support/pages/d...ettype=Firmware&productname=LSI+SAS+9212-4i4e

click on archived, there are the required older versions.

 

[M.A]

@danb35
Good point. I was just testing the feasibility of flashing the card with IT firmware. I didn't know for sure it will work so I grabbed just any FW from LSI's site. I'll drop it back to P16 since I use FreeNAS 9.3. See marbus90's reply below for a link to P16.

@marbus90
Thanks for the link!

** I have updated the ZIP archive linked above so now it contains P16 FW + Bootrom, which are compatible with FreeNAS-9.3-STABLE

 

[Ericloewe]

Can't argue with free LSI controllers.

 

[Boolve]

Hi
Have you some luck whit this upgrade? I brought one for my vServer, I was hope that this one have feature 'direct path I/O' in it. But unfortunately this controller not appears in this list. But controllers with SAS2008 chip have this option. Do you think I will grand this option with this fw ubgrade?
Thanks for any reply.

 

[Boolve]

Direct path I/O option required in virtualization for FreeNAS to grand full disk control.

 

[Boolve]

OK, I have upgrade my HP 636705-001 LSI SAS9212-4i controller to http://www.avagotech.com/products/server-storage/host-bus-adapters/sas-9212-4i4e#downloads Installer_P16_for_UEFI and my VMware ESXi host still says that no DirectPath I/O hardvare available. I don't know what to do next. Ot this card just not good ft this ? Thank you for any help..

 

[Darren Myers]

you need to enable it in BIOS options, you should find intel VT-d and enable it

 

[Boolve]

In first take you make my day, but after few minutes when I did find out that my Supermicro A1SAi-2750F without VT-d on the platform :(((
Thank you.

 

[Darren Myers]

ah yes, the avatons sadly dont support it...

 

[averyfreeman]

I got this controller for free. It was in a HP workstation and is basically the same controller as LSI-9212-4i4e but without the External port.

It had 9212-4i4e printed on the back of it and it had the stock modified LSI/HP ROM and wasn't in IT mode.
Having nothing to lose I went to LSI's website here and downloaded the IT firmware + bootrom

I have one of those, I got it for $15 2-3 years ago on eBay. It's just an HP OEM card, I just used the HP Firmware, turned the raid off and used it for ESXi datastores... (use it to this day)... they're not bad and dirt cheap (or free, apparently!). Nice score... :)

Might try and flash mine IT - thanks for the guide. I've got a "real" 4i4e I'm trying to work on right now, having firmware upload issues (grumble).

 

[DJABE]

Flashing this card from IR to IT mode is easy (and frankly only possible from UEFI shell).
All you need is sas2flash.efi (UEFI version), desired firmware binary file, and optional BIOS ROM. No need for megarec.

 

[averyfreeman]

Flashing this card from IR to IT mode is easy (and frankly only possible from UEFI shell).
All you need is sas2flash.efi (UEFI version), desired firmware binary file, and optional BIOS ROM. No need for megarec.

YEP! UEFI only!

Hopefully someone who needs to flash theirs will see this before banging their head against the wall with msdos boot disks for hours like I did... :P

 

[DJABE]

We all did - I have tried with 5 machines... no luck xD hehe
MSDOS simply does not play nicely with new machines which implements UEFI. And finding non-UEFI MoBo with a PCI-e slot is rather difficult to find these days.

So very good card - very simple procedure flashing it with UEFI.

 

[Ericloewe]

It's not like "Use the UEFI flasher" isn't plastered all over all threads dealing with this subject...