NickBarrett
Cadet
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2014
- Messages
- 6
First let me start with a warning!
This card only work in some Intel Server motherboards! While not very scientific or anything, I have tried this card in a desktop motherboard, both before and after cross flashing, and it was not recognised by the board. My understanding is that it will not even work in Intel workstation motherboards.
When I bought this card I felt it was a bit of a gamble, as I couldn't find anything related to cross flashing it. That said, I had a compatible motherboard (Intel S1200V3RPL Server Motherboard) and it was the cheapest (about two thirds the price of an IBM ServeRAID M1015) LSI based card I could find from my suppliers. The Intel Integrated RAID Module RMS25KB040 uses the LSI SAS2308 I/O controller just like the LSI SAS 9207-8i. So, I used the phase 16 firmware for the 9207-8i to cross flash it to IT mode. There's quite a bit online about how to cross flash LSI based card's but here's the steps I used.
Getting the firmware (This is how it could be done at time of writing 2014/05/15)
1) At LSI's download search page (http://www.lsi.com/support/pages/download-search.aspx) set "Component Type" to "Storage", "For which product family?" to "Host Bus Adapters", "For which product?" to "LSI SAS 9207-8i" and "For which asset type?" to "Firmware" and click on "Search".
2) Open the search results. It will list all the "Current" firmware. Click on "Archived".
3) At time of writing, FreeNAS was supporting Phase 16 of the firmware, so I downloaded "9207_8i_Package_P16_IR_IT_Firmware_BIOS_for_MSDOS_Windows" and "Installer_P16_for_UEFI"
4) Extract both of these zip files and copy the following to a FAT32 formatted flash drive
\Installer_P16_for_UEFI\sas2flash_efi_ebc_rel\sas2flash.efi
\9207_8i_Package_P16_IR_IT_Firmware_BIOS_for_MSDOS_Windows\Firmware\HBA_9207_8i_IT\9207-8.bin
\9207_8i_Package_P16_IR_IT_Firmware_BIOS_for_MSDOS_Windows\sasbios_rel\mptsas2.rom (This is optional, I'll explain later)
Cross flash the card using EFI
1) If you can, make a note of the card's SAS id before installing it (I didn't but managed to get my phone to take a pic of it while installed). It will be on a sticker on the card and usually starts with SAS ID: 500xxxxxxxxxxxxx. (Mine was 16 hexadecimal characters long. I presume they all are.)
2) After installing the card and starting up the computer, use F2 (or what ever it is for your motherboard) to get to the BIOS settings of the motherboard.
3) While in the BIOS settings, load up the EFI shell.
4) Mount the flash drive (for me, I think did this with the the command "fs0:" but I'm not sure on that)
5) Clear the ROM using the command "sas2flash.efi -o -e 6".
6) Flash the new image either using the command "sas2flash.efi -o -f 9207-8.bin" or "sas2flash.efi -o -f 9207-8.bin -b mptsas2.rom". My understanding is that if you are planning on using multiple LSI based cards then you'll want to add the "-b mptsas2.rom". Not entirely sure why but I'm sure you'll be able find info as to why online. <- Edit: Only required if you want to boot which makes no sense for FreeNas, so don't bother.
7) Set SAS address using the command "sas2flsh -o -sasadd 500xxxxxxxxxxxxx". Again, I think this step is only necessary if you are using multiple cards but I did it anyway as it can't hurt, and if I do decide to add another card in the future then I know this is already done.
8) Reboot using the command "reset".
Done! The card will now work in IT mode as a host bus adapter. I have done this twice now (two identical server boards). I have one driving four 640GB drives and the other driving one 4TB drive without any issue so far.
Notes
1) I don't have more than one card in the same machine so I don't know for sure, but if I were to, I would go through this process one by one, as in, only have one card in at a time. And, of course, I would use the "-b mptsas2.rom" option. <- Edit: Only required if you want to boot which makes no sense for FreeNas, so don't bother.
2) I don't have one, but I would guess that this method would work for the RMS25KB080 as well. It might even work for the RMS25JB040 and RMS25JB080. These are all guesses though!
3) I used EFI because I hadn't before and it was a good excuse to try it out. There are other guides online as to how to do this using DOS etc. The process is pretty much the same.
Any way. Hope that helps someone.
Cheers,
Nick
This card only work in some Intel Server motherboards! While not very scientific or anything, I have tried this card in a desktop motherboard, both before and after cross flashing, and it was not recognised by the board. My understanding is that it will not even work in Intel workstation motherboards.
When I bought this card I felt it was a bit of a gamble, as I couldn't find anything related to cross flashing it. That said, I had a compatible motherboard (Intel S1200V3RPL Server Motherboard) and it was the cheapest (about two thirds the price of an IBM ServeRAID M1015) LSI based card I could find from my suppliers. The Intel Integrated RAID Module RMS25KB040 uses the LSI SAS2308 I/O controller just like the LSI SAS 9207-8i. So, I used the phase 16 firmware for the 9207-8i to cross flash it to IT mode. There's quite a bit online about how to cross flash LSI based card's but here's the steps I used.
Getting the firmware (This is how it could be done at time of writing 2014/05/15)
1) At LSI's download search page (http://www.lsi.com/support/pages/download-search.aspx) set "Component Type" to "Storage", "For which product family?" to "Host Bus Adapters", "For which product?" to "LSI SAS 9207-8i" and "For which asset type?" to "Firmware" and click on "Search".
2) Open the search results. It will list all the "Current" firmware. Click on "Archived".
3) At time of writing, FreeNAS was supporting Phase 16 of the firmware, so I downloaded "9207_8i_Package_P16_IR_IT_Firmware_BIOS_for_MSDOS_Windows" and "Installer_P16_for_UEFI"
4) Extract both of these zip files and copy the following to a FAT32 formatted flash drive
\Installer_P16_for_UEFI\sas2flash_efi_ebc_rel\sas2flash.efi
\9207_8i_Package_P16_IR_IT_Firmware_BIOS_for_MSDOS_Windows\Firmware\HBA_9207_8i_IT\9207-8.bin
\9207_8i_Package_P16_IR_IT_Firmware_BIOS_for_MSDOS_Windows\sasbios_rel\mptsas2.rom (This is optional, I'll explain later)
Cross flash the card using EFI
1) If you can, make a note of the card's SAS id before installing it (I didn't but managed to get my phone to take a pic of it while installed). It will be on a sticker on the card and usually starts with SAS ID: 500xxxxxxxxxxxxx. (Mine was 16 hexadecimal characters long. I presume they all are.)
2) After installing the card and starting up the computer, use F2 (or what ever it is for your motherboard) to get to the BIOS settings of the motherboard.
3) While in the BIOS settings, load up the EFI shell.
4) Mount the flash drive (for me, I think did this with the the command "fs0:" but I'm not sure on that)
5) Clear the ROM using the command "sas2flash.efi -o -e 6".
6) Flash the new image either using the command "sas2flash.efi -o -f 9207-8.bin" or "sas2flash.efi -o -f 9207-8.bin -b mptsas2.rom". My understanding is that if you are planning on using multiple LSI based cards then you'll want to add the "-b mptsas2.rom". Not entirely sure why but I'm sure you'll be able find info as to why online. <- Edit: Only required if you want to boot which makes no sense for FreeNas, so don't bother.
7) Set SAS address using the command "sas2flsh -o -sasadd 500xxxxxxxxxxxxx". Again, I think this step is only necessary if you are using multiple cards but I did it anyway as it can't hurt, and if I do decide to add another card in the future then I know this is already done.
8) Reboot using the command "reset".
Done! The card will now work in IT mode as a host bus adapter. I have done this twice now (two identical server boards). I have one driving four 640GB drives and the other driving one 4TB drive without any issue so far.
Notes
1) I don't have more than one card in the same machine so I don't know for sure, but if I were to, I would go through this process one by one, as in, only have one card in at a time. And, of course, I would use the "-b mptsas2.rom" option. <- Edit: Only required if you want to boot which makes no sense for FreeNas, so don't bother.
2) I don't have one, but I would guess that this method would work for the RMS25KB080 as well. It might even work for the RMS25JB040 and RMS25JB080. These are all guesses though!
3) I used EFI because I hadn't before and it was a good excuse to try it out. There are other guides online as to how to do this using DOS etc. The process is pretty much the same.
Any way. Hope that helps someone.
Cheers,
Nick
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