IBM M5015 (LSI/Awago 9660-8i) unable to flash with LSI/Awago firmware

[mgrudzin]

Dear All,

I have M5015 card, and wanted to use CacheCade trial. Unfortunately I'm using card in Asus motherboard, and from what I see this card does not support trial cachecade - no option in MSM (LSI/Awago mgmt tool). What I did. I have flashed up M5015 with most current Awago MR4.12P3 using MSM and then DOS bootable cd and megarec, in both options card has been upgraded but still thought that it is IBM instead of LSI/Awago. Did some research and flashed card with some old LSI firmware not sure what version exact (something from year 2011) and success in DOS, card was thinking that was LSI 9260-8i - great :) so i flashed it with most current Awago MR4.12P3 using MSM. After this card back to IBM M5015. Can anyone please explain me why? Can i flash it to LSI 9260-8i permanently?

BR,
Maciek

 

[Mirfster]

Methinks you need the "M1015" (not "M5015").

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/cannot-flash-m1015.32696/#post-204075

 

[Mirfster]

Check out jgreco's "Confused about that LSI card? Join the crowd ..." thread:

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/confused-about-that-lsi-card-join-the-crowd.11901/

 

[jgreco]

Yes, you DO NOT WANT A RAID CONTROLLER. You want an HBA.

 

[mgrudzin]

Jgreco,

thing is that I want to use this as internal RAID instead of HBA for external storage...

 

[INCSlayer]

Jgreco,

thing is that I want to use this as internal RAID instead of HBA for external storage...

that statement makes no sense. what does external storage have to do with it being HBA?

 

[jgreco]

Jgreco,

thing is that I want to use this as internal RAID instead of HBA for external storage...

Please re-read what I said.

Yes, you DO NOT WANT A RAID CONTROLLER. You want an HBA.

That means you want this:


http://www.avagotech.com/products/server-storage/host-bus-adapters/sas-9211-8i

That's an HBA. An HBA is a way to attach your disks to your servers. It has nothing to do with internal vs external.

You do not want a RAID controller. You do not want internal. You do not want external. You do not want RAID at all. (Sam-I-am! heh)

Someone wrote a good sticky about LSI controllers that is referenced above by @Mirfster , please feel free to examine that.

 

[rogerh]

Please re-read what I said.



That means you want this:


http://www.avagotech.com/products/server-storage/host-bus-adapters/sas-9211-8i

That's an HBA. An HBA is a way to attach your disks to your servers. It has nothing to do with internal vs external.

You do not want a RAID controller. You do not want internal. You do not want external. You do not want RAID at all. (Sam-I-am! heh)

Someone wrote a good sticky about LSI controllers that is referenced above by @Mirfster , please feel free to examine that.

If he has enough motherboard ports he would be alright using those, though, wouldn't he? (Avoiding all RAID settings in BIOS.)

 

[Mirfster]

If he has enough motherboard ports he would be alright using those, though, wouldn't he? (Avoiding all RAID settings in BIOS.)

Yep, however since the OP never mentioned his system specs, how many drives he wants to use; it is speculation at best. Short answer though is if you have the SATA ports to support the drives, you are fine that way.

 

[mgrudzin]

Thank you for the answers :)

1. I have read all threads above and did not find my answer
2. For me HBA is FC connection, and I have copper one
3. Mentioned threads are about IBM M1015 based on LSISAS2008 and I have M5015 based on LSISAS2108
4. I'm using 2 HDD's in RAID 1 for ESXi6 host not for freeNAS... (just found some topics on this forum, and saw that people know what they talking about)
5. IBM controller is designed to run in IBM server, and my is Asus workstation :)
6. I have performance of about 150MB /s in Debian 8 x64 VM based on mentioned ESXi
7. I wanted to test performance with aditional SSD using CacheCade
8. My problem :), IBM does not support trial "advanced software features"(no option in WebBIOS and MSM), but regular LSI 9260-8i does. I would like to cross flash my M to LSI. Thing is that I did this but:
* "advanced software features" option did not appear
* I have used some very old firmware cause when I was using new one card was flashed but after reboot like nothing happen still IBM M5015
* When card was flashed with this old firmware and finally reported as LSI 9260-8i I have upgraded/flashed it with MSM to most current, after this card is again IBM
* all the time I was using only firmware images from Avago not IBM or other

Hope that now my question is more clear :)
M.

 

[Mirfster]

*** Using my best jgreco impersonation...

Bro, do you even FreeNas...?

Seriously though, is this at all related to FreeNas? Because if so, I am failing to see the correlation...

 

[c32767a]

OP uses the term CacheCade. That's a RAID controller concept where an SSD sits as a tier between the controller's cache ram and whatever spinning rust it's connected to. You hear it a lot in DELL land and probably IBM land too. It seems to be a feature in some of the LSI RAID controllers and the manufacturers include it as part of their server builds...

http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/614354/en


If you have a vivid enough imagination, an SSD serving L2ARC and SLOG might compare.. :)

 

[rogerh]

So the question is nothing to do with FreeNAS, just how to cross-flash an IBM RAID controller to become an LSI RAID controller, to use in a RAID system. The problem is that if anyone on this list knows how they still might not answer because it is not a FreeNAS question. But at least the question is clear now. I have no experience, but did you flash the card's BIOS as well as the operating firmware?

 

[mgrudzin]

True, my question is not related to freeNAS and please accept my appologies for this... I have flashed bios and firmware. I have read that Avago is trying to fight with cross flashing and probably this is the reason why after controler is on old LSI softrare, and then upddated to most current Avago it goes back to IBM. I have asked this question tn this forum cause I have founded here a lot of usefull info, and felt like someone may know the answer to my question..

M.

 

[jgreco]

Mod note: Thread booted from the FreeNAS forums over to the off-topic forum. You're certainly welcome to ask random technical questions on off-topic. Asking those questions in the FreeNAS hardware forum implies you want to use the hardware for FreeNAS, which means you'll get everyone telling you that you don't want to do that.

 

[jgreco]

5. IBM controller is designed to run in IBM server, and my is Asus workstation :)

This isn't actually a problem. IBM didn't design the controller (LSI did) and there isn't anything that limits it to an IBM server.

As for the crossflash issue, it may still report that the manufacturer is IBM. That's not important. The important part is that the firmware running on the card is what you wanted. If you load the LSI firmware on and the firmware revision shows that it is loaded, even though it says it is an "IBM" card, you're probably just fine.

 

[mgrudzin]

This isn't actually a problem. IBM didn't design the controller (LSI did) and there isn't anything that limits it to an IBM server.

As for the crossflash issue, it may still report that the manufacturer is IBM. That's not important. The important part is that the firmware running on the card is what you wanted. If you load the LSI firmware on and the firmware revision shows that it is loaded, even though it says it is an "IBM" card, you're probably just fine.

True :), and I think that you are righa about firmware. Card is reporting new firmware. Still there is no option to acces paid features. No opion in bios and in tool to. this is wird, cause according to LSI documentation such option should appear.... I will probably have to use physical key that cost more than I paid for the card, and my plan was to first test trial ssd cachind and then decide is this feature even worth paying... Thanks for the reply :)

 

[jgreco]

True :), and I think that you are righa about firmware. Card is reporting new firmware. Still there is no option to acces paid features. No opion in bios and in tool to. this is wird, cause according to LSI documentation such option should appear.... I will probably have to use physical key that cost more than I paid for the card, and my plan was to first test trial ssd cachind and then decide is this feature even worth paying... Thanks for the reply :)

Uncertain. Never tried it. You might be able to change the SBR. This is probably the wrong place to discuss this. I'm certainly not kicking you out or anything, but I am strongly suggesting you go someplace with more M5015-fu. I'm thinking you especially may need to read

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/ibm-m5015-experiences.397/#post-2957

that specific post and followups. I feel your pain over RAID controllers. They're expensive. I've been buying the 3108's with CacheVault and they do wonders for ESXi, but the little ****'s are super ridiculous expensive.