P16 vs P19 firmware of LSI 2116 controller on Supermicro A1SA7-2750F

[ilmarmors]

I have two 1U Supermicro SuperStorage Servers 5018A-AR12L with 12 disks. They have Supermicro A1SA7-2750F motherboard, which has LSI 2116 SW controller for 16x ports. The same controller is used for LSI 9201-16i HBA card. Servers are fully pre-built, one with 12 x 4TB Constellation ES.3 ST4000NM0033, second with 12 x 5TB Enterprise Capacity ST5000NM0024 disks.

I installed latest stable FreeNAS 9.3 on those servers, but FreeNAS alerts that there is mismatch between version of LSI driver in FreeNAS (P16) and firmware on LSI 2116 controller on motherboard (P19)

Although in theory P19 version shouldn't introduce any incompatibilities to FreeBSD LSI driver for version P16, but I read in forums that it is suggested to use identical version for firmware and driver ports. So LSI controller firmware should be downgraded to P16 in IT mode. And here comes problem:

I found P16 firmware on LSI site
http://www.lsi.com/support/pages/do...0027&assettype=0&productname=LSI+SAS+9201-16i

But it is not possible to get P16 firmware from Supermicro:

The oldest FW that we [Supermicro] could offer for this board is PH18. We don't have any older FW as we didn't use the chip before. FreeBSD/FreeNAS 9.3 are both not validated OS's. We have validated FreeBSD 10.0 on the board.

The [validation] test isn't more than an installation and a quick check whether everything works. The test was likely done with an SSD connected to the standard SATA port.

I can't recommend using the LSI FW as we have seen this go wrong on occasion, but technically it should work.

My question, given Supermicro doesn't have P16 firmware and can't recommend Firmware from LSI site - what would be most sensible way to proceed:

1. Install P16 Firmware from LSI site - controller is the same, but it is for HBA card. Not sure also whether Supermicro has some customizations for their firmware.
   
2. Leave P19 Firmware as it is now. BTW, will FreeNAS 10 have P19 or P20 driver version?
   
3. Something else

Servers are meant for cold storage - storing backup copies, which doesn't change much. Mainly archive for digital image/audio/video files. I don't have time pressure, so I can spend quite a bit of time trying all kinds of torture tests on I/O systems.

 

[Ericloewe]

That's a crummy situation.

Leave P19 Firmware as it is now. BTW, will FreeNAS 10 have P19 or P20 driver version?

The nightlies currently have the P20 driver, which is being validated. I don't know how that process is going, but it opens up the option of using the nightlies, depending on your exact requirements, and after everything is properly tested and burned-in.

If I had to choose between LSI's P16 and Supermicro's P19, I'd probably try flashing the P16 generic driver. Usual warnings about bricking and stuff apply strongly in this case.


Other people have been in similar situations with ASRock and Supermicro boards, but a bit of nudging typically yields the proper firmware version. In any case, keep us posted, as information on these edge cases is always appreciated and in short supply.

 

[jpaetzel]

I'd recommend running the nightly version of FreeNAS with the v20 driver. The more people that are running this the more comfortable we'll feel about merging it to the STABLE train.

Flashing the wrong firmware (eg LSI P16) can cause problems with the controller.

Running p19 firmware with v16 driver has been implicated in a lot of problems. Although we've never found a "smoking gun" there we don't recommend it

 

[ilmarmors]

@Ericloewe quick google search "LSI 2116 site:supermicro.com" didn't show up any other Supermicro motherboard with LSI 2116, so nudging won't help to get any version before P18 as Supermicro support told.

I kind of don't want to risk bricking controller / motherboard by flashing P16 generic firmware - not my own servers.

@jpaetzel FreeNAS 9.3 nightly version? I guess I'll need to flash P20 firmware too, right? Or P20 driver will work with P19 firmware fine?

I guess those servers can serve as guinea pigs using nightly version. There are no production data on them and I'm not pressed to put them in production for a while. What are suggestions for torture tests, to test LSI controller to try to get some exceptions / pool corruptions or any other errors? Maybe it would be interesting for FreeNAS team to get shell access to such servers and smoke the bugs out of nightly versions?

Supermicro 5018A-AR12L could be quite good choice for storing big amounts of data, when you need high density (12 disks in 1U), low power consumption (one server when idle uses ~110W ), but performance is not critical (Intel Avoton C2750). Only thing - first all the possible firmware compatibility issues must be ironed out :)

 

[Ericloewe]

@Ericloewe quick google search "LSI 2116 site:supermicro.com" didn't show up any other Supermicro motherboard with LSI 2116, so nudging won't help to get any version before P18 as Supermicro support told.

Yeah, I was referring to motherboards with SAS 2308 controllers. ASRock even issued P16 specifically for FreeNAS.

I guess I'll need to flash P20 firmware too, right?

Yeah, but that should be easier to acquire.