M1015 Flashing

[jeffprandall]

I have been reading countless articles and I can't seem to get it to work. I purchased an "M1015" off of ebay that when I boot into the controller settings it says it's a BR10i. The card also has stickers that say SAS3082-ER as well. I assume I am stuck at step 1 which is clearing the configure with megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin but it says it can't find a card. I have download 2 or 3 different versions and still no luck. Currently I can access the card via the bootup gui and if I place it on a Windows box I use MegaRAID to see it.

And I believe all the sas2flash stuff is failing because thats looking for an LSI card..

And Freenas does see the drives currently but it's only showing the 4TB HDD's as 2TB's.

 

[Stux]

BR10i is an older generation LSI 1068 chip not the 2008 used in the M1015/M1115 etc.

And I believe only supports up to 2TB drives.

You need to return it if it’s a BR10i and not an m1015

https://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-br10i-lsi-sas3082e-r-pciexpress-sas-raid-controller/

 

[Chris Moore]

I have been reading countless articles and I can't seem to get it to work. I purchased an "M1015" off of ebay that when I boot into the controller settings it says it's a BR10i.

Definitely looks like you got the wrong card. I would suggest getting one like this. It is already flashed to the correct firmware and it is a newer card that is PCIe 3.0 instead of the older PCIe 2.0 of that IBM card.

Drive Controller: SAS PCI-E 3.0 HBA LSI 9207-8i P20 IT Mode for ZFS FreeNAS unRAID - - US $69.55
https://www.ebay.com/itm/162862201664

Drive Cables: Mini SAS to 4-SATA SFF-8087 Multi-Lane Forward Breakout Internal Cable - - US $12.99
https://www.ebay.com/itm/371681252206

 

[jeffprandall]

Thanks for the help. I reached out to the seller on Ebay and he sent me the wrong card.

 

[Chris Moore]

They are going to swap out the card?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[jeffprandall]

I actually ordered an M1015/SAS9220-8i but received the card mentioned above so they are sending the card I really did order. And I have been getting conflicting information, can the SAS9220-8i with updated firmware handle larger than 2TB drives?

 

[Chris Moore]

I have been getting conflicting information, can the SAS9220-8i with updated firmware handle larger than 2TB drives?

The IBM M1015 card uses the LSI SAS2008 controller chip and should be fully compatible with drives larger than 2 TB once it is flashed with the LSI firmware. There may be some upper limit of the drive size it will handle, but I think I have heard of users on the forum using them with drives as large as 8 TB successfully. At one time, a couple years ago, I used a Dell branded card with the same LSI SAS2008 controller chip and had 4 TB drives running on it without any trouble.
Just for your situational awareness, the IBM M1015 is an older card that is only PCIe 2.0 and I have been suggesting for around a year now that it should not be considered the "go to" card any more because it is older, but it will certainly work and they are inexpensive.

 

[jeffprandall]

Thanks for the heads up. I ordered the card you recommended as well so I think I will just put the card they sent me back up for sale on ebay..