Not detecting disks with HBA DELL H200E (LSI 9200-8E) card

[demetri90]

Hello. I purchased a flashed (IT mode) DELL H200E (LSI 9200-8E) card and am using a SFF8088 to SATA breakout cable to an enclosure and am not having any luck with TrueNAS Core detecting the disks. I've shut down the system multiple times but no luck.

Here's the output of sas2flash -list

Code:

root@Draco[~]# sas2flash -list
LSI Corporation SAS2 Flash Utility
Version 16.00.00.00 (2013.03.01)
Copyright (c) 2008-2013 LSI Corporation. All rights reserved


        Adapter Selected is a LSI SAS: SAS2008(B2)


        Controller Number              : 0
        Controller                     : SAS2008(B2)
        PCI Address                    : 00:01:00:00
        SAS Address                    : 590b11c-0-29d6-1100
        NVDATA Version (Default)       : 14.01.00.07
        NVDATA Version (Persistent)    : 14.01.00.07
        Firmware Product ID            : 0x2213 (IT)
        Firmware Version               : 20.00.07.00
        NVDATA Vendor                  : LSI
        NVDATA Product ID              : SAS9200-8e
        BIOS Version                   : 07.39.02.00
        UEFI BSD Version               : 07.27.01.01
        FCODE Version                  : N/A
        Board Name                     : 6Gbps SAS HBA
        Board Assembly                 : TECHDUDE
        Board Tracer Number            : N/A


        Finished Processing Commands Successfully.
        Exiting SAS2Flash.

My server is a Dell R220 with

• Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1281 v3 @ 3.70GHz
• 32GB ECC Ram
• TrueNAS-13.0-U5.1

I am not super familiar with TrueNAS so any assistance diagnosing this would be helpful. Thanks.

 

[Alecmascot]

During the system boot can you "enter" the HBA card and see the drives ?
Is that the correct cable ?

 

[demetri90]

During the system boot can you "enter" the HBA card and see the drives ?
Is that the correct cable ?

I'll try and find a monitor and check that. This is the cable I am using: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013G4EZ1G

 

[HoneyBadger]

I'll try and find a monitor and check that. This is the cable I am using: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013G4EZ1G

SATA specification limits cable length to approximately 1m in length - your link is pointing to an external SFF-8088 breakout to 4x SATA cable that is 2m in length.

What is the enclosure you're using?

 

[demetri90]

SATA specification limits cable length to approximately 1m in length - your link is pointing to an external SFF-8088 breakout to 4x SATA cable that is 2m in length.

What is the enclosure you're using?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HS23QZO

 

[rvassar]

Your cable is out of spec on length. Tell us about the drives. Specifically, are they SATA 3.1 spec that go to sleep when 3.3 volts is asserted to pin 3? The quick fix for that enclosure would be to use a 4 pin molex to dual SATA power adapter, which eliminates the 3.3v supply.

 

[HoneyBadger]

Edited the posts to remove the link shorteners.

As mentioned before your cable is out of spec on length - further, the 3x3.5-into-2x5.25 hot swap bay is not intended for external use. The combination of this may just mean that it can't get a reliable signal to/from the drives.

Can you confirm that the disks themselves spin up and are detected in another system?

 

[rvassar]

Just to be clear: We keep mentioning the cable length because 2 meters is out of spec for SATA drives. The bit left unsaid is that SATA and SAS drives are pretty much electrically identical, and all SAS controllers can talk to a SATA drive, but no SATA controller can talk to a SAS drive. The data & power pinout are essentially the same, but a SAS drive will have a plastic bit in between the two ports to prevent a SAS drive from being plugged in to a retail SATA system. The other minor difference is a SAS topology will run the voltage a little bit higher to provide better signal integrity, this is why SAS can go all the way out to 4 or 5 meters. So the 2 meter cable you have may or may not be a problem, it's a SAS cable with SATA end pieces. It may or may not be the problem. Hence why I asked about the drives. They're likely either asleep, or incommunicado due to the cable.