LSI (Avago) SAS3008 P13 IT firmware

[wafliron]

I'm in the middle of building / burning in a new all-in-one home NAS which includes a LSI SAS3008-based controller built into the motherboard (SuperMicro X10SRH-CF).

After reading https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...re-does-not-match-driver-cant-solve-it.43637/, I went ahead and installed the P12 IT firmware on the SAS3008 controller.

However, I've noticed that Avago appear to have (finally) released the P13 firmware earlier this month - it appears on http://www.avagotech.com/products/server-storage/host-bus-adapters/sas-9311-8i#downloads, the downloads page for their 9311-8i (SAS3008-based) controller.

This leads to two questions:

1) Has anyone tried the P13 IT firmware with FreeNAS yet?

2) For those of us with a HBA built into our motherboard, should we be waiting for the motherboard manufacturer to publish firmware updates themselves before we install them? Or is it safe to install firmware "intended" for add-on cards on to our motherboard-integrated controllers (e.g. in this case, intall the P13 IT firmware intended for the 9311-8i add-on card onto the SAS3008 controller integrated into my X10SRH-CF)?

Thanks!

 

[Ericloewe]

Always use the firmware version that FreeNAS tells you to use. If FreeNAS doesn't complain, all is well.

For those of us with a HBA built into our motherboard, should we be waiting for the motherboard manufacturer to publish firmware updates themselves before we install them? Or is it safe to install firmware "intended" for add-on cards on to our motherboard-integrated controllers (e.g. in this case, intall the P13 IT firmware intended for the 9311-8i add-on card onto the SAS3008 controller integrated into my X10SRH-CF)?

Empirical evidence suggests that using the generic SAS3008 firmware is fine and dandy.

 

[Ceetan]

I am in the same sitch, ans until now I hade my sites set on p12 (that is what was on supermicros' ftp-site) . but this stirs thingss up a bit. Folowing with great intrest.

 

[Ericloewe]

As I said, if FreeNAS doesn't complain, all is well. Some idiot at LSI/Avago/Broadcom decided that offsetting the firmware and driver versions by 1 was good idea.

 

[wafliron]

Always use the firmware version that FreeNAS tells you to use. If FreeNAS doesn't complain, all is well.

Aye. But, I was curious, as the thread (and associated bug in the FreeNAS issue tracker) I linked to suggested that FreeNAS used to complain about P12 firmware with P13 driver, and an exception had to be added to the code to stop it complaining about the mismatch. Hence, I assumed that it also wouldn't complain about P13 driver and P13 driver.

I just had another read of the bug in the issue tracker though, and realised that I missed some of Josh Paetzel's commentary - specifically, that for the SAS3008 controllers the correct firmware is one version behind the driver. So P13 driver and P12 firmware is actually correct, not just an "acceptable" mismatch that FreeNAS added an exception for. I guess now we wait for the P14 driver!

Thanks for helping to clarify.

Empirical evidence suggests that using the generic SAS3008 firmware is fine and dandy.

Great - thanks.

 

[Elmo]

Aye. But, I was curious, as the thread (and associated bug in the FreeNAS issue tracker) I linked to suggested that FreeNAS used to complain about P12 firmware with P13 driver, and an exception had to be added to the code to stop it complaining about the mismatch. Hence, I assumed that it also wouldn't complain about P13 driver and P13 driver.

This is interesting, as I have more or less the same problem - but the opposite! I'm using the new LSI 9305-24i (3224 controller) for my FreeNAS build and as this card has the P13 firmware,
my FreeNAS is complaining about the driver being P12 only and doesn't match the firmware version...