PCI-E sata card for ssd boot drive?

[Bidule0hm]

No, FreeNAS doesn't care about the drive's cable order :)

 

[ethereal]

what he said

 

[avalon60]

Well I have flashed the LSI card and my system is back up and running again after a couple of reboots. During the boot process I noticed a fail message pop up before it stopped booting, so I hard rebooted and this time all was ok.

I missed this line during the flashing process : Set controller to 6GB/s mode with sas2flsh -o -e 6
from this site: https://fogelholk.io/reflash-lsi-megaraid-9240-8i-to-9211-8i/
Is there any way I could do this inside FreeNAS, that is set the controller to 6GB/s, or do I have go back to the EFI screen and set it

I have connected 2 Green Drives and 1 Red NAS drive to the card at the moment, but wondered if there was a preferred way of connecting what drives to the card.

 

[avalon60]

I have just noticed that , yes the version I flashed the LSI card with was p16, and have found a p20 version here, but wich one:
It says download the Package_P20_Firmware_BIOS_for_MSDOS_Windows, and its just the 2118it bin file I need

http://www.avagotech.com/products/server-storage/host-bus-adapters/sas-9211-8i#downloads

I have just re flashed the card with the p20 version of 2118it.bin file and according to the output on the screen, there didn't seem to be any problems as I am sure it said it was version 20.something. Now in FreeNAS I am getting this: CRITICAL: June 2, 2016, 2:10 p.m. - Update failed. Check /data/update.failed for further details.

I recieved a notification email while I was in the process of flashing the card, and when it was all done there wasn't any visible warnings on the screen.
I have just done a reboot and get the same error message again. Maybe the file version was wrong???
2118it.bin dated 11th March 2016

Do I have to go through the process again?

 

[ethereal]

in shell while freenas is running

sas2flash -list

post screenshot - hide your sas address

 

[avalon60]

Here is a copy and paste of the output

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 : *************
NVDATA Version (Default) : 14.01.00.08
NVDATA Version (Persistent) : 14.01.00.08
Firmware Product ID : 0x2213 (IT)
Firmware Version : 20.00.07.00
NVDATA Vendor : LSI
NVDATA Product ID : SAS9211-8i
BIOS Version : N/A
UEFI BSD Version : N/A
FCODE Version : N/A
Board Name : SAS9211-8i
Board Assembly : N/A
Board Tracer Number : N/A

Finished Processing Commands Successfully.
Exiting SAS2Flash.
[root@freenas ~]#

 

[ethereal]

you need to use firmware 20.00.04.00 - which is recommended and i told you twice in this thread you should use it.

you have 20.00.07.00 - i have never seen it recommended anywhere for freenas - and it it were me i'd flash back to 20.00.04.00.

 

[avalon60]

Yes you did and I ignored the part after 20. I will now go and see if I can find this now: firmware 20.00.04.00

I have seen many references to the proper version number but no download links yet, as the ones that are, they are for the latest version number which I don't want.

I'll keep looking

 

[ethereal]

do you want me to email you the firmware

 

[avalon60]

do you want me to email you the firmware

Yes pleas if you would.

 

[avalon60]

Yes please if you would.

 

[ethereal]

click on my profile and write your email address as a message

 

[ethereal]

okay - i sent it.

i had a look on the avago website - i got it there a while ago when it was lsi.
now the site doesn't show it anymore only .06 and .07

 

[avalon60]

Ok thanks for the files but now got this CRITICAL: June 2, 2016, 4:24 p.m. - Update failed. Check /data/update.failed for further details.

I used the 2118it.bin file and the sas2flash.efi file from your zip package, so something else is not right now.

Output from shell:

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 : **********
NVDATA Version (Default) : 14.01.00.08
NVDATA Version (Persistent) : 14.01.00.08
Firmware Product ID : 0x2213 (IT)
Firmware Version : 20.00.04.00
NVDATA Vendor : LSI
NVDATA Product ID : SAS9211-8i
BIOS Version : N/A
UEFI BSD Version : N/A
FCODE Version : N/A
Board Name : SAS9211-8i
Board Assembly : N/A
Board Tracer Number : N/A

Finished Processing Commands Successfully.
Exiting SAS2Flash.
[root@freenas ~]#

 

[ethereal]

i didn't think that would solve your problem - but at least this will stop you getting anymore.

i would recommend starting another thread - hopefully you'll get some help there.

 

[avalon60]

Ok thanks , I will start another thread.

 

[avalon60]

From earlier, is there a preferred method or way of connecting drives to the LSI card.
I have 2 green drives and 1 Red NAS drive connected to it at present. The other drives I have are connected to 6GB/s ports on the motherboard

 

[ethereal]

i don't know what you mean about preferred method - what do you mean ?

 

[avalon60]

There is a 4 way fanout cable connected to the card, and presently only 3 drives are connected, of which 2 are WD Green Drives which are in one pool, and 1 WD Red NAS drive which is part of a 5 disk pool. The other 4 disks are connected to the 6GB/s ports on the motherboard.

Really, I mean does it matter what drives are connected to the card or the board, from what I've said about my setup. Does it matter that 1 of of the 5 disk pool is on the card.

 

[ethereal]

it doesn't matter where the drives are attached - as long as they are attached.

you could even take your drives to a completely different server with different hardware and use freenas to import and access your pools