Int/Ext HBA Question or Feedback

[Nvious1]

Looking for some feedback on an internal / external HBA. I found this one LSI SAS 9217-4i4e based on the SAS2 2308 chip.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-LSI-8-P...S9217-4i4e-725904-001-725504-001/292636168789

The intent is to have one chassis with a drives off an expander connect internally and then have another DIY jbod chassis that will go SFF-8087 to SFF-8088 to the external port. Will this work? I realize there are basically only 2 ports and each connection would have either a limit of 4 devices or multi-lane attachment to a SAS expander.

I found on the HBA vendor site that they only sell these 9217 to OEM which is why its an HP branded one but I would guess that doesn't really matter.

 

[HoneyBadger]

The card will ship with HP IR (RAID) firmware by default, so you'll need to crossflash it with the LSI IT firmware - I did find a thread on ServeTheHome that mentions the port enumeration gets flipped if you do this, but that shouldn't be an issue for your use case.

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/hp-9217-4i4e-ports-swapped-around.12191/

It does sound like there were a few issues with early-revision (PCIe 2.0) chips being shipped out in the very first of those HP OEM cards, so while IT firmware should be available, you'll want to do some research first to make sure you don't accidentally brick it.

With regards to your proposed config of an SFF-8087 internally to an expander and the DIY JBOD externally, as long as both the internal expander and the one in the JBOD will play nice with just one mini-SAS plug connected (and don't throw a cascade of "OMG I'm failing" errors) then that should work. You'll have a bandwidth limitation (4x6 = 24Gbps) but unless you plan on piling lots of SSDs behind them then I don't expect you'll run into it.

 

[Chris Moore]

It appears to still be programmed with the HP firmware. You would need to reprogram it with the LSI firmware for IT mode operation and it should be fine.

 

[Nvious1]

Thanks for the information. I will definitely do more research.

You'll have a bandwidth limitation (4x6 = 24Gbps) but unless you plan on piling lots of SSDs behind them then I don't expect you'll run into it.

So we talked my buddies company who was retiring some older flash SAN stuff (Legacy Whiptail) to sell us just the drives after they wiped them instead and we ended up with 60+ 512 GB 6 gbps SSDs (micron). We don't care about the IOPS, we just basically want to use the drives into an aggregate store pool for a lab environment. So the plan is to have like 2 x 24 bay chassis of these 2.5 SSDs. The one chassis we have now is a supermicro cse-216 with one SAS2-EL1 backplane. In light of your comment around the DIY expander fighting, maybe I just try to snag another one of these so I have the same expander talking to the HBA? Thanks for your feedback.

 

[Nvious1]

It appears to still be programmed with the HP firmware. You would need to reprogram it with the LSI firmware for IT mode operation and it should be fine.

Thanks Chris. Not that I am not willing to try to tackle the reflash but do you all have a different recommendation? Like maybe going 2 different cards one with internal and one with external that might have native LSI firmware already. Maybe this addresses some bandwidth issues that were brought up by @HoneyBadger or I need to look at the 3000 chip series cards but not sure if that runs into compatibility issues with the expanders.

 

[Chris Moore]

So we talked my buddies company who was retiring some older flash SAN stuff (Legacy Whiptail) to sell us just the drives after they wiped them instead and we ended up with 60+ 512 GB 6 gbps SSDs

Nice, in that case, you might run up against that bandwidth limitation, but it will still be massively fast.
Did you get all those drives for free? Can I have some? If so, 16 would be plenty for me. I guess not, you said they sold them to you.

Thanks Chris. Not that I am not willing to try to tackle the reflash but do you all have a different recommendation? Like maybe going 2 different cards one with internal and one with external that might have native LSI firmware already.

This is the kind I would use, because it is PCIe 3.0, and your drives are 6Gbps. I use this model with my FreeNAS which has two SAS expander backplanes with 24 drives on each and I have had zero problems with it:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-H220-6G...0-IT-Mode-for-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID/162862201664
The equivalent card with external ports would be this one:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-9207-8...TA-External-ZFS-JBOD-IT-Mode-HBA/162563989119
I have used this type of controller both at home and at work with a variety of SAS2 expander enclosures and had no problems with them.

 

[Nvious1]

Sorry if this is a silly question but the supermicro BPN-SAS2-EL1 expander card has 3 ports on it. Does running multiple cables increase the bandwidth lanes?

 

[Johnnie Black]

Does running multiple cables increase the bandwidth lanes?

It supports dual link, so double bandwidth if you connect two cables to the HBA.

 

[Chris Moore]

Sorry if this is a silly question but the supermicro BPN-SAS2-EL1 expander card has 3 ports on it.

If I recall correctly, the two connectors that are close together are the "IN" connections and the third one is an "OUT" that would allow you to cascade to another backplane. Probably want to verify in the documentation which is which..

 

[Nvious1]

If I recall correctly, the two connectors that are close together are the "IN" connections and the third one is an "OUT" that would allow you to cascade to another backplane. Probably want to verify in the documentation which is which..

Yes, this confirms that. https://www.supermicro.com/manuals/other/BPN-SAS2-216EL.pdf - Chapter 3.