Intel 910 series SSD compatibility

[Marlberg]

Just recently purchased a SuperMicro SYS 4048B-TRFT Following are the specs:
Supermicro 4U 24x 3.5in Drive Bays
Server Chassis/ Case: SYS-8048B-TRFT
Motherboard: X10QBI Ver 1.01
Backplane: BPN-SAS3-846EL1 24-port 4U SAS3 12Gbps
PCI-Expansions slots: 8x PCI-E 3.0 slots w/ 96 memory slots
CPU: 4x E7-4850V2 2.30GHz 12C
Memory: 1TB DDR3 ECC
Hard Drives: 24x 4TB SAS-3 7.2k 12GBs
Controller: 1x AOC-S3008L-L8E HBA Controller JBOD Mode
NIC: 1x AOM-X10QBI-A Add-on Module support 1x VGA, Dual 10GBase-T
ports X540
Caddies: 24x 3.5" Supermicro caddy
Power Supplies: 4x 1620 W Power supply
2x intel 910 series SSD

It is currently up and running Truenas SCALE Bluefin. However neither the BIOS nor SCALE recognize the 2 Intel 910's

I have access to the BMC so I can get into the machine remotely (I also have physical access to the server)

I did some research and it appears that in order for the drives to be recognized by the BIOS and or the OS it needs drivers installed. I have the correct drivers for Debian.

My question: What is the process for making these PCIe based SSD cards visible to either the OS? Step by step guide would be most helpful but at this point I will take whatever advice I am given that allows the drives to be seen by the OS

 

[HoneyBadger]

The Intel 910 SSDs are actually an interesting piece of hardware - they are either 2x or 4x 200GB SAS/SATA based SSDs behind an LSI SAS2008 controller, all on a single card.

If the cards aren't visible in the BIOS, as a SAS2008/LSI based device, they may not be getting recognized properly at the hardware level.

 

[Marlberg]

The Intel 910 SSDs are actually an interesting piece of hardware - they are either 2x or 4x 200GB SAS/SATA based SSDs behind an LSI SAS2008 controller, all on a single card.

If the cards aren't visible in the BIOS, as a SAS2008/LSI based device, they may not be getting recognized properly at the hardware level.

They are not being recognized by the BIOS but from what I have found out they need a driver to be installed in order to be recognized. I have a kernel based driver for them and access to the BMC but the issue I am having is being able to "flash" the Intel 910's. Ideally I need a solution that allows me to do that without having to reinstall SCALE but even if I do have to do that its not a big issue as this system doesn't have data on it yet

 

[Marlberg]

They are not being recognized by the BIOS but from what I have found out they need a driver to be installed in order to be recognized. I have a kernel based driver for them and access to the BMC but the issue I am having is being able to "flash" the Intel 910's. Ideally I need a solution that allows me to do that without having to reinstall SCALE but even if I do have to do that its not a big issue as this system doesn't have data on it yet

One thing I will say is that boot time on that box is 4 evah. It has to check every stick of RAM and when you are talking 1TB of ECC DDR3 it takes...A While...

 

[HoneyBadger]

They are not being recognized by the BIOS but from what I have found out they need a driver to be installed in order to be recognized. I have a kernel based driver for them and access to the BMC but the issue I am having is being able to "flash" the Intel 910's. Ideally I need a solution that allows me to do that without having to reinstall SCALE but even if I do have to do that its not a big issue as this system doesn't have data on it yet

There shouldn't be a driver necessary for them to be detected at the BIOS level, as that would happen before a driver is loaded.

Are they detected in the output of lspci (they may show up as LSI SAS2008 devices as previously stated)?

 

[NickF]

Hmm. There are similar flash devices from this period, some of them are in IR mode and some of them are in IT mode, but you aren't having that issue from what you are describing.
According to StorageReview at the time:

Intel SSD 910 Series Enterprise PCIe Review

The Intel SSD 910 is Intel's first effort at a PCIe-based application accelerator for…

www.storagereview.com

It absolutely is just a SAS2008, which is what is used in most HBA cards of that time period that are recommended for TrueNAS. I too think it would be interesting to see what lspci says?