LSI 9300 8i and 9.2.1.3

[Fran hodnett]

Hi,
Just built a new system and have purchased a LSI 9300 8i HBA. Installed Freenas, but i can't get the Freenas to see any of the drives attached to it. I have serached the forums and figure i need to install a new driver for it,

I have downloaded the latest driver ( and updated firmware and bios to latest version ) and followed the instructions that i have found but i believe my problem is removing the old drivers from the system. I have found guides indicating how to do this on older versions such as 8 and have tried to follow and adapt them but have got now where. Was just wondering if someone could point me in the right direction of where to find relevant.

Thanks

 

[dlavigne]

Please create a feature request at bugs.freenas.org requesting that the driver be added and post the issue number here. Include the URL to the driver in the request.

 

[datarimlens]

Please create a feature request at bugs.freenas.org requesting that the driver be added and post the issue number here. Include the URL to the driver in the request.

Am I mistaken or does this feature request already pertain to the HBA/driver in question:
https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/3823

The 9300-4i4e is just a variation of the 9300-8i but the same chips and 12Gb architecture. It is noted that a) LSI does only provide a BSD driver for that architecture up to BSD 9.0.0. There has been no reply or posting from LSI regarding updated BSD drivers that I am aware of. I have a 9300-8i myself and would like to see either a FreeNAS, meaning BSD 9.2, or BSD 10 driver myself. b) it appears that the issue is one of organization and integration of the new lsi naming scheme into the BSD driver tree. LSI sees the ball in the BSD court to integrate the new driver scheme/architecture into the BSD tree from what I could gather.

It certainly would help the community if someone with better communication channels to LSI and the BSD community would help to bridge that gap and bring the new LSI drivers and therefore the 12Gb architecture to work with something more updated than 9.0.0 (or 9.1 with errors). Certainly I learned my lesson spending on gear that I had expected to work shortly, back in January.

I hope the alpha code in this link also makes progress ...

 

[cyberjock]

datarimlens:

The real problem is that companies typically set the pace for driver development. They know how the hardware works, and it's trivial for them to provide a driver. This really isn't a "bridging the gap" situation. It's more of a "convince the company that the development resources will pay off in the long term".

Considering that this card is so new and considering LSIs history with providing good FreeBSD drivers I'm guessing LSI has it on their to-do list, we just have to wait it out. Now, if you were a company like Intel that called and said "I'd buy 10,000 of these right now if there was a FreeBSD 10 driver" you could expect there would be one within a week. :) Money has a way of setting good priorities.

 

[datarimlens]

cyberjock, usually I would agree with you that it is just insufficient cash to grease the skids. :)

But, and I can't find the post right now, but http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-scsi/2013-October/006085.html points into a similar direction: there was an issue discussed regarding where the lsi gen 3 (12Gbit) drivers get integrated into the BSD tree if I understood it correctly and the BSD folks where the ones who had to move.

You may consider:
a) The 9300 cards are out for ~7-8 months (September), i.e., not exactly "brandnew", although newish for the server world.
b) The support level currently for the 3rd Gen cards stops with BSD 9.0.0 (and 9.1 running with issues), both are out for a while. 9.2 support might actually get the card into the current FreeNas support, so this is an interesting one.
c) in a proper architecture, the 12Gb adapter (which is perfectly 6Gb capable) should/could run in a system if handled appropriately, no?

The issue about integrating the driver into the BSD architecture at least rings close to true given some of what I found out. Now it would interesting if you had more information here on the BSD integration process and we could follow up.

And of course if everyone who has a 9300 (3008-based) adapter sitting on the shelf, but would like to run BSD, could please write a nice letter to the LSI folks ... :)

 

[cyberjock]

1. That's bleeding edge for servers. Most people don't jump on new tech when its released. Too much risk of data loss, downtime due to unknown bugs, etc.
2. Can't comment on that as I'm not privvy to LSI's choice on what to support.
3. In terms of disks being backwards compatible, yes. As for hardware reusing old drivers, almost certainly not.

I know many companies add their own drivers. Look at Intel for an excellent example. They provide their own stuff directly to the tree AFAIK. If LSI is choosing to not put it in the tree on their own, that's their hangup(and your loss unfortunately). I updated the driver for a Highpoint controller that the driver didn't support. It was 3 lines of code to make their driver detect and use my card. Yet highpoint didn't do it themselves. I also opened a support ticket for a newer controller asking for some assistance. It's been 19 months and they still haven't responded to it. ;)

To be honest, I wouldn't have bought a 9300 card for a FreeNAS machine. Not only is it listed as not being supported by FreeBSD 9.2, it's 12Gbps. Sure, faster is better. But is faster *really* better? Considering you're going to likely be running Gb, or even 10Gb, your bottleneck is not going to be the SAS channel speed. It's going to be your actual disks or your LAN throughput.

Even forward thinking, hard drives themselves are not going to hit 12Gb/sec for quite a while. Especially considering the fact that hard drives barely hit SATA-1 speeds, and that spec was ratified in 2003 or so!

Then, considering the fact that even if you were "stuck" with 1.5Gb/sec for each hard drive, just 8 hard drives could saturate a 10Gb link.

So either you are going to have crazy fast LAN speeds, or you're raising the speed bar for something that wasn't your limitation(and probably won't be before you throw the server away because its 15 years old).

There's just no reason I see to buy something that new, at that cost, when the stuff that is cheaper:

1. works
2. is cheaper
3. isn't going to be a limitation at any point in the forseeable future

I wish you luck though. It's always nice to have drivers for newer/faster/better hardware. Even if it was supported, I'd still be recommending the M1015 since it's 1/3 the price. ;)

 

[datarimlens]

1) I agree now to the bleeding edge, and have been cut. :( Should have known better because of having put together data centers etc. before.
3) LSI uses some form of unified driver model, look at NVIDA doing the same. So the new parts are typically extensions of the old one. And the "old mode" would have just done it ... just in this case ... they moved it around a bit more.

- Don't know about trusting Intel drivers. I have some recent experiences with their motherboards ... (not my choice).
- Yup, it is about getting around to put those "3 lines" of code in usually.
- If I would have gone for FreeNAS directly, it would not have been the 9300 card. It was originally for BSD 10 and I thought I get away with the new card and use the whole new plug type stuff in my "experimental" system.
- Target was an "all enclosed" local BSD setup for ZFS or in an ESXi type setup. So the LAN bottleneck did not necessarily apply, but the disk bottlenecks ... or SSD bottlenecks ... or power consumption ... anyways ...
- it was relatively affordable in comparison actually ... until the driver was a no show, the 9300 card was about $50 more then a M1015 at the time when I needed it, crazy expensive for the M1015. Mind you I had checked and even asked LSI support about the card and BSD support before purchasing. My bad was not rifling through the driver details myself.

Crazy world, where it takes that much luck to find a driver, thank you for your wishes anyways :)

 

[cyberjock]

I'm not a fan of Intel motherboards either. I've been accused of being an Intel fanboy around here because AMDs statistically make bad FreeNAS servers. But I'm not. I like Intel CPUs, I like Intel SSDs, but their Motherboards "suck" for all definitions of "suck".

 

[Market Guru]

Since, new version 9300 has being added to MPR would you recommend take a plunge to try it?

 

[diehard]

Since, new version 9300 has being added to MPR would you recommend take a plunge to try it?

absolutely.

 

[cyberjock]

What I'd recommend is you not reply to every thread you read Market Guru. I've seen you resurrect at least 4 threads that are more than a month old.

 

[datarimlens]

Assume the request (in this case, can't speak to the others) is then to open a new one: "testing of 9300 HBAs" or is there already a better place where this should go? I was really curious what his results would be when Market Guru follows diehard's advice, ... thanks for advising .

 

[jgreco]

Yes. Start a new thread. Closed.