Problem with SMART commands in a Dell SAS Perc H200A

[sanbaan]

Hello, the first thing to say hello to you all since I just registered in the forum.

I have a Dell PowerEdge T110 server with a Dell SAS Perc H200A controller that apparently works fine, since I have generated a 24Tb logical volume (6Tb x 4 hdd) and mount and access it without problem, but I cannot get the controller to report the status SMART of the disks. I have tried both OpenMediaVault and Ubuntu but neither is able to read SMART values from connected disks.

In the bios of the controller there is an option that allows disabling the sending of SMART notifications but I have it disabled. If I run a smartctl it tells me the following:

Errors: da0 smartctl 7.1 2019-12-30 r5022 [FreeBSD 12.2-RELEASE-p2 amd64] (local build) Copyright (C) 2002-19, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org Short offline self test failed [unsupported field in scsi command]

Server configuration:

Dell PowerEdge T110

8Gb RAM​

IDE Internal controller

1 HDD 200 Gb for TrueNAS installation​

1 HDD 1Tb to download and temporary​

SAS PERC H200A

4 x 6Tb HDD​

​

Thanks a lot. a greeting

 

[Chris Moore]

since I have generated a 24Tb logical volume

Have you placed any data on this storage yet?

If you plan to use ZFS (FreeNAS / TrueNAS) you will want to use a SAS controller that has been flashed with the IT (initiator / target) firmware. This allows the SAS controller to function as a simple HBA instead of as a RAID controller. Once this is done, the OS can pull SMART data from the drives without interference from the controller firmware.

In ZFS, the file system that FreeNAS and TrueNAS uses, the storage pool is created at the file system level so the NAS operating system can directly manage the storage and monitor the health of the individual drives.

Here is a link to a guide that will help you with flashing the correct firmware on your controller:

Detailed newcomers' guide to crossflashing LSI 9211/9300/9305/9311/9400/94xx HBA and variants

There's hundreds of threads on crossflashing variants of LSI 9211/9300/9305/9311/94xx cards here, on ServeTheHome, and on blogs. But they don't always discuss the subtleties of doing it on an EFI board for users who may never have used EFI...

www.truenas.com

Here is a link to documents that will tell you more about ZFS:

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC for noobs!

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC and other newbie mistakes! I've put together a Powerpoint presentation(and PDF) that gives some useful info for newbies to FreeNAS. I decided to create this slideshow because in the last 5 months I've been on this forum I've seen a lot of people...

www.truenas.com

 

[Heracles]

since I have generated a 24Tb logical volume (6Tb x 4 hdd) and mount and access it without problem,

That is a big No-No. Never create a logical volume on a Raid controller then pass it to FreeNAS / TrueNAS. A ton of people ignored this and ended up loosing everything. You probably do not wish to join them in that league.

Here, in my T-110, I do not even have a Perc at all. In my T-330, I do have one but it is switched to HBA mode. That way, the physical drives are passed directly to TrueNAS for it to handle them, including doing the Smart tests.

I confessed that I still use the manufacturer's firmware on that one (i actually recently upgraded it to latest version), but I confirmed that the drives are physically managed by TrueNAS. The system is also protected by a UPS to avoid uncontrolled shutdowns and I have a complete backup solution to restore from if anything goes wrong.

But the logical drive created in a controller, that is a recipe for catastrophe.

 

[sanbaan]

Hello, the first thing to say hello to you all since I just registered in the forum.

I have a Dell PowerEdge T110 server with a Dell SAS Perc H200A controller that apparently works fine, since I have generated a 24Tb logical volume (6Tb x 4 hdd) and mount and access it without problem, but I cannot get the controller to report the status SMART of the disks. I have tried both OpenMediaVault and Ubuntu but neither is able to read SMART values from connected disks.

In the bios of the controller there is an option that allows disabling the sending of SMART notifications but I have it disabled. If I run a smartctl it tells me the following:

Errors: da0 smartctl 7.1 2019-12-30 r5022 [FreeBSD 12.2-RELEASE-p2 amd64] (local build) Copyright (C) 2002-19, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org Short offline self test failed [unsupported field in scsi command]

Server configuration:

Dell PowerEdge T110

8Gb RAM​

IDE Internal controller

1 HDD 200 Gb for TrueNAS installation​

1 HDD 1Tb to download and temporary​

SAS PERC H200A

4 x 6Tb HDD​

​

Thanks a lot. a greeting

Hello, thank you very much for responding so quickly. Unfortunately I have more than 12Tb stored on the disks, which will complicate the migration a bit.

As soon as the data backup is finished, I will follow the steps in the tutorial. Thank you very much for your help.

 

[sanbaan]

That is a big No-No. Never create a logical volume on a Raid controller then pass it to FreeNAS / TrueNAS. A ton of people ignored this and ended up loosing everything. You probably do not wish to join them in that league.

Here, in my T-110, I do not even have a Perc at all. In my T-330, I do have one but it is switched to HBA mode. That way, the physical drives are passed directly to TrueNAS for it to handle them, including doing the Smart tests.

I confessed that I still use the manufacturer's firmware on that one (i actually recently upgraded it to latest version), but I confirmed that the drives are physically managed by TrueNAS. The system is also protected by a UPS to avoid uncontrolled shutdowns and I have a complete backup solution to restore from if anything goes wrong.

But the logical drive created in a controller, that is a recipe for catastrophe.

Thank you very much for the advice, I thought that generating the raid by a dedicated controller would improve performance, and from what I see what it can be is a great catastrophe.

Greetings

 

[jgreco]

See

https://www.truenas.com/community/t...s-and-why-cant-i-use-a-raid-controller.81931/

for more information.

 

[sanbaan]

Hi, once I have made a copy of the data, I have followed the steps in the tutorial to convert the H200a into an LSI 9211-8i but I have had problems and now I think I have bricked the controller.

The command sas2flsh.exe -c 0 -list when executed returned the controller information, although in the version only questions appeared, SAS2008 (???) instead of SAS2008 (B2) as in the screenshot of the tutorial.

Running the command megarec.exe -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin did not return any output and the cursor was blinking for more than 2 hours. In the end I ended up restarting the server and now when starting it indicates that it cannot load the firmware of the controller.

If I rerun the command sas2flsh.exe -listall it tells me that it finds an unsigned controller and asks me for the name of a firmware to load. I have instructed it to load the firm 6GBPSAS.FW and it returns that it has been flashed ok, but I can't follow the tutorial steps, any ideas?

Thank you very much for the help. a greeting

 

[sanbaan]

Finally, after several attempts, I have managed to install the 2118it.bin firmware.

I have started the server and I have seen that the disks are recognized by both the controller and TrueNas and it has allowed me to generate a pool of disks.

My doubt if there will be a problem is that if I enter the bios of the SAS controller it returns several reading errors of the non-volatile bios area. Is this error normal? Attached screenshot of the error (3 errors appear with different memory positions) as well as another capture in which it is seen that the card is flashed with the IT bios and the disks detected.

Thanks a lot. Cheers