LSI 9211-8i / H310 issues: SAS drives show 0 bytes disk size

2fanatyk2

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Dec 13, 2020
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Hi,

It seems I have issues with H310 flashed in IT mode with LSI9211-8i firmware.

Out of 3 SAS drives (6TB each, Dell Enterprise, some toshiba and Exos) I tried to use (1 new, 2 pre-used but confirmed good) I've had 2 that were showing disk size of 0 bytes on Storage/Disks page, and one (from toshiba), that showed 1.82TB instead of ~5.5TB my other drives are showing.

On 0 B drives wipe from Freenas returned an error (operation not permitted), wiping 1.82TB drive succeeded, but didn't affect disk size. Tried creating pool with 1.82TB drive and destroying it - didn't help either. I also did full format using DBAN on each disk - but nothing changed. Sector sizes reported were 512 bytes for each disk.

I've tried using other port on LSI9211-8i, moved it to other PCI-E port, checked firmware version (20.07.00.00, most recent I believe) etc. Tried also a number of different approaches towards formatting it in freenas (gpart, dd etc.), but none of those helped. My 6TB SATA drives work fine with that HBA. Also tried disconnecting all drives from the system, keeping only one of the problematic drives connected, rebooting etc.

Any ideas what might be wrong? I'm afraid I don't have any other hardware compatible with SAS drives. I was thinking maybe something is wrong with HBA, but with SAS drives it works OK.

My setup is in my signature below.
 

2fanatyk2

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Dec 13, 2020
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You can use SATA drives on a SAS controller. No need to spend the extra money that SAS drives usually cost.
Hi Chris, I do realize that (even mentioned, that SAS drives work just fine on that HBA), however:
I already have SAS drive & I have better deals on SAS drives where I live :smile:
 

Chris Moore

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2fanatyk2

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Dec 13, 2020
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How are they confirmed good?

Well, since those 2 didn't work for me I sold them to a friend, who is happilly using them :smile: Thought maybe it was some random compatibility issue, but since now I've bought new one, and previous ones turned out to work fine - I see that's not where the problem is

Check for T10 protection settings.

camcontrol identify daX tell you if any of that is in use?
Thanks, will try that!
 

2fanatyk2

Dabbler
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Dec 13, 2020
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Check for T10 protection settings.

camcontrol identify daX tell you if any of that is in use?
Hey,

Finally had a moment to install the disk. Here is the output:
1609170374535.png
 

2fanatyk2

Dabbler
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Dec 13, 2020
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17
Hmm. Can you do smartctl -a /dev/da0 to see if there's something in there?

Thanks! Was a bit busy (all drive trays are populated, so have to install it every time :smile: ) Output below:
1609368301729.png
 

HoneyBadger

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iXsystems
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The "device is NOT READY" line in SMART seems to indicate that the drive itself is alive but likely spun down. Thinking check the firmware on that for potential updates; a quick search pulled up firmware DS23 for the Dell ones that addresses a "not ready" condition supposedly.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-ca/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=y76gf

For the other ones - is it possible they've been short-stroked for performance? Would be odd, but if they're reporting 512b sectors and still undersized that would be my next guess.
 

djb

Explorer
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Nov 15, 2019
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i have the same issue with HP server and SAS seagate constellation drives. show 0MB size
 

TheNoobyOne

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Apr 21, 2023
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A low-level format fixed this for me:

# sudo sg_format --format --fmtpinfo=0 /dev/[your drive]

You can thank me later, from my understanding it's mainly due to it either being a protected drive format or some possible proprietary raid formatting.
A friend told me you can also just dd the first few bytes of the drive and set them to zero but I have not tried that approach.

also, a low-level format takes about 8-10 hours on a 4 TB drive.
 
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