X10SDV-7TP4F, LSI2116 and firmware issue with FreeNAS 9.10.1

[Gana]

Hi,

I am new to freenas and this is my first freenas build. I am having some issues and hoping to get some help from the community to help me resolve them.

I have the supermicro X10SDV-7TP4F motherboard (with Xeon D-1537) which has 16 port LSI2116 SW controller on board. I installed Freenas 9.10.1 U2 successfully. But I get an alert to upgrade the P19 firmware version to P21 to be compatible with the v21 of the driver. I called supermicro, but they said that the latest version they have is only p19. So I am a bit confused.

Looking through this forum, I found some threads that mentioned that there is no P21 and only P20 available and that it would not be an issue to use this with v21 of the driver. Now for my questions.

1. Can I ignore the alert? Pls. note that I have P19 version and not p20 version of the firmware.
2. If there is a p20 or p21 version available for LSI2116, how/where do I get it given that supermicro has only p19.

Thanks for your time. Any help would very much be appreciated.

 

[Ericloewe]

Can I ignore the alert? Pls. note that I have P19 version

No, you do need P20.

2. If there is a p20 or p21 version available for LSI2116, how/where do I get it given that supermicro has only p19.

http://www.avagotech.com/products/storage/host-bus-adapters/sas-9201-16i#downloads

Also, you're using 9.10.1-U2 and you're getting a notification that says you need P21? If so, that needs to be fixed, so please file a bug report.

 

[Gana]

Thanks for the quick response.

That link takes me to 9201 HBA page, which apparently uses the sas2116 controller.

1. Can I use the firmware listed for this controller to flash my motherboard lsi even though the interface is different (mine is mini sas hd vs mini sas on this hba)
2. Should I download the FreeBSD version of the firmware to use?
3. Can I still use this even though it is not from super micro?

Apologies for the newbie questions.

 

[Ericloewe]

Can I use the firmware listed for this controller to flash my motherboard lsi even though the interface is different (mine is mini sas hd vs mini sas on this hba)

That is literally completely irrelevant. It's like asking "does this USB NIC driver work on my card which uses the same chip but on an M.2 card?".

Should I download the FreeBSD version of the firmware to use?

You'll find that only the Windows package has the firmware files. The others only have sas2flash.

Can I still use this even though it is not from super micro?

Several people have reported great success doing this with many different LSI SAS controllers used on Supermicro motherboards, with not a single report of an issue.

 

[Gana]

Thanks again for the quick reply Ericloewe.

I resolved this issue and am proving the details in case anyone else faces the same issue in future.

After I spoke to Supermicro and I was informed that the latest version they had was P19, I was asked to email their support team and notify them of the issue/request. I did and they got back to me just after Eirclowe's reply above. The support member sent a secure ftp site from where I could download the P20 version of the firmware. I did download it, but found that the firmware contained only the DOS version. I reached back to them and asked them how to update this in FreeBSD. They responded quickly again (within minutes) that this could be done only through DOS and also sent me a link on how to create a DOS bootable USB.

On searching online, I learnt about Rufus and used that to create the FreeDOS bootable usb stick and copied the firmware files to the stick. I used this to boot to DOS and ran the bat file in the disk and the flash update started. One hiccup I encountered was that the final step asked me to enter the remaining 9 digit SAS address, which was cryptic message. Once again google pointed me to get the SAS address from the mainboard. On checking the mainboard, there was a sticker that started with "SAS" and as instructed I used the last 9 digits of the number on the sticker. Everything went smoothly and process completed successfully. On rebooting the system, the flash seemed to have been updated and there were no alerts.

Hope this helps in case someone faces this in future.

Once again thanks for your quick replies Ericloewe. Very much appreciated.

Now the journey begins :).

 

[Ericloewe]

. They responded quickly again (within minutes) that this could be done only through DOS and also sent me a link on how to create a DOS bootable USB.

They're wrong!

FreeNAS includes sas2flash, so you don't need anything else. If you're paranoid, do it from the EFI shell, especially because sas2flsh on DOS is unreliable.

 

[kathode]

Thanks again for the quick reply Ericloewe.

I resolved this issue and am proving the details in case anyone else faces the same issue in future.

After I spoke to Supermicro and I was informed that the latest version they had was P19, I was asked to email their support team and notify them of the issue/request. I did and they got back to me just after Eirclowe's reply above. The support member sent a secure ftp site from where I could download the P20 version of the firmware. I did download it, but found that the firmware contained only the DOS version. I reached back to them and asked them how to update this in FreeBSD. They responded quickly again (within minutes) that this could be done only through DOS and also sent me a link on how to create a DOS bootable USB.

On searching online, I learnt about Rufus and used that to create the FreeDOS bootable usb stick and copied the firmware files to the stick. I used this to boot to DOS and ran the bat file in the disk and the flash update started. One hiccup I encountered was that the final step asked me to enter the remaining 9 digit SAS address, which was cryptic message. Once again google pointed me to get the SAS address from the mainboard. On checking the mainboard, there was a sticker that started with "SAS" and as instructed I used the last 9 digits of the number on the sticker. Everything went smoothly and process completed successfully. On rebooting the system, the flash seemed to have been updated and there were no alerts.

Hope this helps in case someone faces this in future.

Once again thanks for your quick replies Ericloewe. Very much appreciated.

Now the journey begins :).

Hi,

Apologies for digging this topic again, but I've recently installed FreeNAS on the same platform (X10SDV-7TP4F) on ESXi and have come across the same problem. I've e-mailed supermicro but still haven't received a reply regarding the firmware issue. I wonder if there is any more appropriate means to obtain the required firmware from supermicro?

I am also wondering whether I should perform the update on bare metal rather than through ESXi (using passthrough of the controller to the VM). Is there a difference or recommended guidance?

Thanks