LSI 3108 IT Mode

[Chris Moore]

I guess it's not the HD, Backblaze has written about reading the Helium level status of this drive through a unknown smart attribute. But I didn't test had the chance to check it myself on a system with only a HBA.

BackBlaze uses the SATA version of the drive. The SAS version doesn't report all the same information.

 

[boris_lee]

Well ,It's 2 years later now,do we have any updates about this problem?I've just got a server With 3108 Raid controller

 

[Ericloewe]

Nothing's changed. The SAS3108 does not support IT mode, but it does support presenting disks as direct-attach devices to the OS via the mrsas driver, which is now the default. It's less optimal due to less testing (and some minor inconveniences with SMART at the moment), but it should work.

 

[Elliot Dierksen]

It's less optimal due to less testing (and some minor inconveniences with SMART at the moment), but it should work.

I can say that it does work (LSI 9271), but the SMART inconveniences are considerably more than minor IMHO. Significant enough that the 9271's are in a box on my shelf now, and I replaced them with 9207-8i's.

 

[Ericloewe]

Wasn't it just a matter of slightly changing smartd.conf?

 

[Elliot Dierksen]

Wasn't it just a matter of slightly changing smartd.conf?

After every reboot, yes. It is the SMART discovery process that fails. If you manually rebuild smartd.conf after each boot, it seems to work fine.

 

[Ericloewe]

After every reboot, yes.

Every reboot? Ah, crap.

 

[Chris Moore]

Well ,It's 2 years later now,do we have any updates about this problem?I've just got a server With 3108 Raid controller

Sounds to me like it is not supportable. I would suggest changing to a controller that actually works under FreeNAS. There are many options. What hardware are you using, besides this hardware RAID controller that you need to sell on eBay so you can buy a true SAS HBA?

 

[happydude57]

Wow, hard to imagine it's been over a year since my last update. Sorry.

@Ericloewe - note the partial solution to the empty smartd.conf file below.

A little catch up:
- FreeNAS-11.1-U6
- Supermicro AOC-S3108L-H8iR (LSI 3108)
- pciconf -> mrsas0@pci0:3:0:0: class=0x010400 card=0x080915d9 chip=0x005d1000 rev=0x02 hdr=0x00
mrsas auto loaded when we built the box

We lost a couple of Admins and have been struggling with Windows file share backups on this box as well as the S.M.A.R.T. config. We've been using the box some, but not as much as we'd like. Trying to get back to it.

The box has given us zero problems so far ... but we haven't had an opportunity really put it to the test. We have performed manual steps like pulling drives, upplugging NICs, pulling power and such. All seems to be good.

We've been searching high and low for a solution to the problem that @Ericloewe reported, that smartd.conf gets wiped clean on reboot. We also noted that no S.M.A.R.T. changes to drive config in the GUI would be saved to smartd.conf ... ever. It's been driving us nuts since building and rebuilding the box from the start. I stumbled upon lots of threads about similar symptoms, but most of them were related to USB drives. That is not my case.

I stumbled upon a reference in https://redmine.ixsystems.com/issues/35998 that led me to add the following to the "/etc/ix.rc.d/ix-smartd" script:

# LSI MegaRAID 6Gb/s and 12Gb/s SAS+SATA RAID controller (not supported)
${disk}:mrsas)
propdev=/dev/$disk
break
;;

I realize it's not ideal, but it beats editing the smartd.conf after every reboot. All I need to is audit the ix-smartd script after updates to FreeNAS. It seems to be working great now.

Hoping to get more real-time load on this box so I can contribute more about the stability of this card.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[mosh]

Wow, hard to imagine it's been over a year since my last update. Sorry.

@Ericloewe - note the partial solution to the empty smartd.conf file below.

A little catch up:
- FreeNAS-11.1-U6
- Supermicro AOC-S3108L-H8iR (LSI 3108)
- pciconf -> mrsas0@pci0:3:0:0: class=0x010400 card=0x080915d9 chip=0x005d1000 rev=0x02 hdr=0x00
mrsas auto loaded when we built the box

We lost a couple of Admins and have been struggling with Windows file share backups on this box as well as the S.M.A.R.T. config. We've been using the box some, but not as much as we'd like. Trying to get back to it.

The box has given us zero problems so far ... but we haven't had an opportunity really put it to the test. We have performed manual steps like pulling drives, upplugging NICs, pulling power and such. All seems to be good.

We've been searching high and low for a solution to the problem that @Ericloewe reported, that smartd.conf gets wiped clean on reboot. We also noted that no S.M.A.R.T. changes to drive config in the GUI would be saved to smartd.conf ... ever. It's been driving us nuts since building and rebuilding the box from the start. I stumbled upon lots of threads about similar symptoms, but most of them were related to USB drives. That is not my case.

I stumbled upon a reference in https://redmine.ixsystems.com/issues/35998 that led me to add the following to the "/etc/ix.rc.d/ix-smartd" script:

# LSI MegaRAID 6Gb/s and 12Gb/s SAS+SATA RAID controller (not supported)
${disk}:mrsas)
propdev=/dev/$disk
break
;;

I realize it's not ideal, but it beats editing the smartd.conf after every reboot. All I need to is audit the ix-smartd script after updates to FreeNAS. It seems to be working great now.

Hoping to get more real-time load on this box so I can contribute more about the stability of this card.

Thanks for the feedback!

Worked like a charm. Thanks!

 

[Chris Moore]

I realize it's not ideal, but it beats editing the smartd.conf after every reboot. All I need to is audit the ix-smartd script after updates to FreeNAS. It seems to be working great now.

Hoping to get more real-time load on this box so I can contribute more about the stability of this card.

Thanks for the feedback!

Did you submit a change request or trouble ticket on this?

This is the new site for that: https://jira.ixsystems.com/projects/NAS

 

[toolshed]

What is the status of controllers using the 3108? I currently have 8 drives run by an LSI 9311-8i connected through an 826A backplane. I need to connect 4 more drives.

I was about to buy a Supermicro AOC-S3108L-H8iR, will it work? Or should I just play it safe and get another LSI 9311-8i?

 

[Ericloewe]

They should be okay, but with extra bloat and fewer hours of operation. Why pay more? Sick to the HBAs.