IBM ServeRAID M1015 Solaris JBOD?

WiseOldOne said:
A single 3Gb/sec device drops the speed of all devices with most expanders.
Click to expand...

off topic but that's why I roll my eyes whenever I read someone complaining that a SATA-III 6G interface on newer harddisks like the Hitachi 5k3000 must be a "marketing gimmick" because spinning disks can't even saturate SATA-II. they miss the point that spinning disks with a 6G interface allow you to not have to separate them from other 6G devices on a bus, like SSD's. that and the whole consumer storage market is transitioning to 6G host interfaces anyway.
 
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odditory said:
off topic but that's why I roll my eyes whenever I read someone complaining that a SATA-III 6G interface on newer harddisks like the Hitachi 5k3000 must be a "marketing gimmick" because spinning disks can't even saturate SATA-II. they miss the point that spinning disks with a 6G interface allow you to not have to separate them from other 6G devices on a bus, like SSD's. that and the whole consumer storage market is transitioning to 6G host interfaces anyway.
Click to expand...

And don't forget that 6G devices can read from and fill the drive cache much faster too. A big plus when you don't happen to be doing large sequential reads/writes.
 
If anyone's interested in helping to test the IBM M1015's, send me a PM as I'm willing to pass a few along to forum members at my cost, so long as you commit to reporting back your configuration and findings.
 
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odditory said:
If anyone's interested in helping to test the IBM M1015's, send me a PM as I'm willing to pass a few along to forum members at my cost, so long as you commit to reporting back your configuration and findings.
Click to expand...


I'd take ya up on it if I hadn't bought one off another member last night. Whoops.
 
odditory said:
off topic but that's why I roll my eyes whenever I read someone complaining that a SATA-III 6G interface on newer harddisks like the Hitachi 5k3000 must be a "marketing gimmick" because spinning disks can't even saturate SATA-II. they miss the point that spinning disks with a 6G interface allow you to not have to separate them from other 6G devices on a bus, like SSD's. that and the whole consumer storage market is transitioning to 6G host interfaces anyway.
Click to expand...

I think that sentiment comes from the fact (or perception) that the majority of hard disks get sold for use in single-disk systems, where indeed the disk will no way get near to saturating 3Gbit/sec, let alone 6Gb/sec.

Additionally, I might be wrong but I think the consumer storage market is transitioning to 6Gb interfaces simply to help drive the cost of them down, which of course will in turn benefit the enterprise setups which use the SAS expanders you allude to.
 
I've been running 2 M1015s for the last 2 weeks in my nas box and they seem to work fine. I actually run ESXi on the built in controller on my Supermicro H8SGL-F AMD motherboard and passthrough the 2 M1015s to the Solaris Express VM. No issues yet.

I did upgrade to the latest 9240 firmware from LSI.

--MikeP
 
odditory said:
If anyone's interested in helping to test the IBM M1015's, send me a PM as I'm willing to pass a few along to forum members at my cost, so long as you commit to reporting back your configuration and findings.
Click to expand...

I'm willing to help out here. I currently have my ZFS box running:

10 x Samsung 2TB HD401UI
SuperMicro X8SIL-F
Intel L3406
8 GB DDR3 ECC RAM
2 x LSI 1068e cards

Would love to try to test out the IBM M1015's and report back with how I get on!

PM sent!
 
Got my M1015 in today, flashed the Firmware and then moved my disks over. Painless. Boot time initialization takes longer than I'd like but that's the breaks.

In anticipation for this card I pre-loaded the LSI supplied driver. Talk about easy all together.

4x Samsung EcoGreen F2 1.5TB array.


Code: 
dd if=/dev/zero of=zerofile.000 bs=10M count=3200
3200+0 records in
3200+0 records out
33554432000 bytes (34 GB) copied, 132.627 seconds, 253 MB/s
 
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http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12767.15

IBM M1015 ^^ IT ^^ Firmware







Re: LSI Controller FW updates IR/IT modes
« Reply #28 on: May 22, 2011, 12:30:07 AM »

Ok, here is long-awaited, short HOW-TO... reflash IBM m1015, LSI 9240-8i, Intel RS2WC080 (SAS2008 SATAIII) controllers to IT-mode!!!

First off, create a standard bootable DOS USB Flash Drive.

Download and unpack tools from http://www.mediafire.com/?x1t5z0qyohnhopf to USB flash root directory.

System req: ONLY ONE LSI card in your system at reflash time!!!


Boot from USB Flash Drive Smiley


1. Save original sbr (serial boot rom) - i have only original IBM 1015 sbr file, another (intel/LSI) controller users, pls, upload and share
your sbr files in this forum!


Megarec -readsbr 0 backup.sbr


2. Write clean sbr file to controller:


megarec -writesbr 0 empty.bin


3. Erase controller Flash (Yes, this is safe procedure)

megarec -cleanflash 0


4. Power cycle your system (yes, no boot-time bios screen appear, this is normal)


5. Reflash controller to IT-mode.

sas2flsh -o -f 2108it.bin -b mptsas2.rom

6. Program SAS address in IT-mode:

sas2flsh -o -sasadd 500605bxxxxxxxxx

where "500605bxxxxxxxxx" SAS address from small green sticker on yor card, without "-"

All done Smiley


Pros: You have low-cost(65$ on ebay), fast, high-quality LSI 9210-8i Unraid 5.6a+ compatible controller. IT-mode Wink

http://lsi.com/storage_home/products_home/host_bus_adapters/sas_hbas/internal/sas9210-8i/index.html



Cons:


1. No hdd spindown.

Workaround:

add "hdparm -S242 /dev/sdX" in boot script and poweroff.sh (program spindown after wake-on)


2. Hdd Temp/Smart att. do not show in Unmenu/Mymain

Workaround: find and delete all strings

"-d ata" from "smartctl -a -d ata" in unmain scripts


==============================================================


It is possibly to re-flash controller back?
Yes.


Megarec -writesbr 0 m1015.bin

Download LSI 9240-8i firmware from lsi site: http://lsi.com/storage_home/product...as/entry_line/megaraid_sas_9240-8i/index.html
Extract imr_fw.rom file.

MegaRec -m0flash 0 imr_fw.rom

Power cycle your system

Megacli -adpfacdefset -a0

Rreboot

Waaaaiiiittt (about ~3 min frosen boot-screen)

All done!
 
No comments? I'm afraid to flash this myself. I'm still testing the M1015 w/ZFS but if I have problems, I will give this a shot. Worst case is I have a $35 paperweight.
 
unclerunkle said:
No comments? I'm afraid to flash this myself. I'm still testing the M1015 w/ZFS but if I have problems, I will give this a shot. Worst case is I have a $35 paperweight.
Click to expand...

I don't use ZFS or Solaris, so I cannot comment on that. But I have three M1015 cards that I flashed to LSI 9240-8i firmware about 5 months ago that are running fine in my linux file server, passing through 24 drives straight to the OS (no hardware RAID). Linux uses the megaraid_sas.ko driver for them, and since I did not define a RAID, the cards automatically pass the drives straight through to the OS. As far as the OS is concerned, each drive is directly connected -- mdadm and smartctl both work fine on all the drives. I think that the megaraid_sas linux driver is less buggy than the mpt2sas driver that is used for IT mode cards like the LSI 9211. I base that statement on bug reports I have read about mpt2sas cards in linux, not on personal experience. My experience is with the megaraid_sas driver, and it has been problem free for five months now.

I think others have used the M1015 with Solaris and ZFS without cross-flashing it to IT mode. Maybe they will chime in. But my advice is to stick with what you have if it is working for you. Why cross-flash it if it is working fine as it is?
 
M1015 flasehd to 9240-8i works perfectly on Solaris, but you've got to load the drivers from LSIs web site. It also works just fine using the IBM firmware as long as you have a recent update. In fact, there is no evidence that the IBM M1015 firmware is any different at all from what you will get from LSI for the 9240-8i. There is no need to go to the 9210/11-8i IT mode firmware for Solaris - you only need to do that if your OS have no drivers for the 9240.
 
So in Solaris 11 Express you're good with the IBM driver with it's latest IBM firmware? Do you need to download any specific driver?
 
I have done this LSI 9210-8i x flash but still yet to get the drivers to load ...

Mainboard BIOS picks up HDD's ) FreeBSD Pre Boot (before its boot options show ) shows all the HDD's but when Freebsd boots up <mass storage, SAS> at device 0.0 (no driver attached)

I also tried going back to the LSI 9240-8i firmware it said all tests passed .. but controller no longer worked ( no lights or posts )


tried re flashing with

MegaRec -m0flash 0 imr_fw.rom

MegaCli -adpfwflash -f imr_fw.rom -a0

commands but adaptor was not picked up



so i have the card functionign in IT mode .. but FreeBSD is not playing along .. using Diag disks al my test OS's seem to work with it ( DOS / WIN )
 
Garuda888 said:
So in Solaris 11 Express you're good with the IBM driver with it's latest IBM firmware? Do you need to download any specific driver?
Click to expand...

Best choice is the LSI 9240-8i driver for Solaris. Download from lsi.com. The M1015 firmware and 9240-8i firmware are pretty much the same.
 
I got my M1015 today, works great under both Esxi and windows.

The problem: How do I update the firmware?
I found the newest on IBMs website (http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5082826)
But since I don&#8217;t have a dell server I get &#8220;Package and System Mismatch, Update failed&#8221; running the .exe file on a Windows 2008 x64 R2 SP1 installation. Can anyone here provide me with instructions on howto flash this card with newest firmware?

Can it be done through some command line utility if I somehow manage to extract the &#8220;rom/bin&#8221; file from that exe?

I&#8217;m obviously making some kind of mistake since it should not be that hard to update the firmware.

Thanks!

Edit: i just noticed i could open the .exe with winrar and see the m1015fw.rom, now in only need to figure out the MegaCLI commands

Edit2: i managed to update the adapter to the latest DELL firmware this morning, thanks anyway. :)
 
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PigLover said:
Best choice is the LSI 9240-8i driver for Solaris. Download from lsi.com. The M1015 firmware and 9240-8i firmware are pretty much the same.
Click to expand...

Heya, thanks for your reply. I notice the only Solaris Driver on LSI's site is for Solaris 10. That's a-ok?

I just flashed my M1015 to the latest Latest 9240i firmware. The March 03 2011 4.24.00 shows as 2.120.54-1235 in the Controller's BIOS and is still listed as a IBM adapter also.

I had to do a MegaCli -adpfwflash -f imr_fw.rom -NoVerChk -a0 as I got a version is older error
 
I too am wondering the same as Garuda, will the Solaris 10 x86 driver work for OpenIndiana x64?

edit: I was able to get the LSI 9240 driver installed (OpenIndiana 148), but once I restarted after that OI will no longer boot, it just loads at splash screen for a while and then restarts >< I'm not trying to boot from drive that's attached to the card...
 
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http://www.lsi.com/downloads/Public/MegaRAID Common Files/3.03_2008_Solaris_Driver.zip

Is what I used and it appears to work without issue. That's the LSI Solaris 10 driver directly from LSI's website.

Step by step of how to Install the M1015 in Solaris 11 Express

-logon then do a su root
-now that you're in root browse to the tmp folder
-do a mkdir lsi
-cd lsi
-wget http://www.lsi.com/downloads/Public/MegaRAID Common Files/3.03_2008_Solaris_Driver.zip
-unzip 3.03_2008_Solaris_Driver.zip
-do a ls you'll see two files a componets tgz and a txt file
-tar -zxvf components.tgz
-you'll see 4 additional files extracted. of which the imr_sas.Z is the one we need
-uncompress imr_sas.Z you'll now see a file called imr_sas
-unzip imr_sas a fairly large number of files will be extracted into the directory imrsas
-don't cd anywhere to check just run the following command
-pkgadd -d . <-- notice the .
-you'll be prompted to install the
The following packages are available:
1 imrsas LSI MegaRAID FALCON SAS 2.0 HBA driver
(i386) 03.03.00
-just hit enter which is default which is all
-reboot
You're set.


Before doing the above driver install I did a firmware flash on the controller. Having done so all the drives appear as JBOD in the M1015 controller. You can set them to JBOD or unconfigured. Given that I see no reason to go through the hoops to flash to a 9211 IT firmware.. unless I'm missing something.

Flashed the M1015 using a DOS bootable USB key. Available from
http://www.biosflash.com/e/bios-boot-usb-stick.htm It's a HP utility in which you format a USB key to have the bootable DOS files. There's a directory in the package that you'll point it to with those DOS files for the format to be successful. See that linked page for the step by step instructions. On creating the bootable USB disk.

The LSI firmware I used was
http://www.lsi.com/downloads/Public...-0037_SAS_2008_FW_Image_APP-2.120.54-1235.zip

MegaRAID Firmware - (MegaRAID Release 4.6) for: 9240-4i, 9240-8i.
Version: 20.10.1-0037 (APP-2.120.54-1235)
Apr 15, 2011

Download that to your pc where you're creating the bootable USB and copy over the IMR_FW.ROM along with the MegaCli.exe file in the following zip from the IBM page. Yes, LSI doesn't list a DOS MegaCLI on the 9240 downloads area. Not sure why. IBM one works just fine.

http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5082315
Version: V8.00.48
Release Date: 2011-04-25

ibm_utl_sraidmr_megacli-8.00.48_dos_i386.zip

Now you've got the USB floppy loaded up with the firmware image, dos boot files, MegaCli application.
Reboot server/box with USB drive plugged in. it'll bring you to a DOS prompt.

Run
MegaCli -AdpAllInfo -aAll
This shows you adapter details, it is likely a0 if you've only the one LSI controller in your server/box if it's anything other than a0 change the below command to represent it
MegaCli -adpfwflash -f imr_fw.rom -NoVerChk -a0
That will flash your M1015 adapter

Sorry for being long winded but I know this will help people looking to do what I've done. Which is use the IBM M1015 under Solaris 11 Express
 
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Well the good news is that the card seems to have flashed successfully to the newest LSI firmware.

Bad news is that when I reboot after installing the LSI Solaris driver (in OI), I just get a reboot loop (goes to splash/loading screen but never to login prompt) :confused:
 
I've read about that reboot loop somewhere. I can't recall the resolution but I believe there is one. Sorry man but you'll have to try google on that. I'm on Solaris 11 Express and that isn't occuring.
 
I too experienced issues recently. I rebooted my ESXi box and magically all my drives within Napp-It showed up as UNAVAILABLE. Here's my story:

Interesting I thought. Eventually, I checked the device drivers withing OpenIndiana and found that the IBM M1015s (LSI 9240-8i) were "misconfigured". So, I reinstalled the latest driver from LSI for the 9240-8i's (v4.26). No go. "Crap!" I thought. So I reinstalled the OpenIndiana VM completely and updated the driver again. "Crap!" again and then I messed around with a bunch of other stuff.

Now, for the solution.
Eventually, I went and tried the previous driver from last December (v3.01), and it worked! So, it appears that OpenIndiana grabbed the newest drivers from the OpenIndiana repository on it's own. I ran a manual update from CLI (Package Manager is broke in OpenIndiana b151) "pkg update --accept" and haven't had any issues since, but I'm keeping my eye on it. At least I know what's happening now.

So, it seems that LSI decided to "break" the M1015s with their newest 4.26 driver. I'm assuming this is because they want us to buy full retail and not these OEM models. If someone is feeling ambitious, I'm sure there is a way to get these newer drivers working with a hack, but I'm just not experienced enough with Solaris drivers to be able to do it myself.
 
PigLover said:
Curiously, as I continue to read sub.mesa's posts on ZFS, he is becoming more and more convincing - convincing me that outside of Sun/Oracle supported configurations, ZFS is bug filled, fragile and not yet ready. I'm amused every time he writes things like "ZFS excersizes the weaknesses of SAS expanders", etc., when what he really should be writing "SAS expanders expose the fragility of ZFS".
Click to expand...
I beg to differ. You got it totally backwards. Your conclusion is not really correct here.

"SAS expanders expose the fragility of ZFS" is totally wrong. What happens is that ZFS DETECTS all those problems, whereas no other solution detects those problems. But believe me, those problems still exists with the SAS expanders, but you are never notified of the problems. However, ZFS is extremely sensitive and reacts immediately.



Here some proofs. For instance, a guy installs ZFS and immediately ZFS reports errors. What does that mean? Do you draw the conclusion that ZFS corrupted the disks? No, he trusted on ZFS' error reports and it turned out that his model of the power supply is flaky! No one noticed that, except ZFS. But he recalled that from time to time, with his old solution, there were some data corruption, but he did not think that was a serious problem. Read here, and see how ZFS immediately picks up all sorts of problems:
http://blogs.oracle.com/elowe/entry/zfs_saves_the_day_ta



Here is another proof about ZFS sensitivity. ZFS is installed, and immediately reports about data corruption. Does this mean that ZFS corrupts data? No, that is not a correct conclusion. It turned out that there was a flaky switch between the server, and the storage server! ZFS detected that immediately. No one else noticed.
http://jforonda.blogspot.com/2007/01/faulty-fc-port-meets-zfs.html


The thing is, ZFS has end-to-end checksums. Is the bits in RAM, correctly stored on the disk? ZFS compare checksums from the beginning (RAM) of the chain to the end (disk) and compares. No one else does that. That is the reason ZFS can detect flaky switches. Some solutions checks the data on disk, but the data might be corrupted when data passes to another domain (RAM - to controller) or Controller - disk. But most hw-raid never checks the data at all. Hw-raid does parity - but that it not checksums against silent corruption, bit rot, etc.


All those problems that ZFS reports, are actually proof that ZFS works as advertised when Oracle says that ZFS detects all errors, and all the error reported by ZFS is a SUCCESS story. All other solutions did not notice, but ZFS did notice. ZFS ftw. :)



In my opinion, it would be a less optimal decision to go back to a Linux or Windows solution which does not report errors with SAS expanders, and think everything works ok now. The errors are still there, but you are not notified anymore.

ZFS vs Other solutions: 1 - 0
 
I have to agree. There might be things you could criticize ZFS for, but corruption not detected by other systems and SAS expanders that don't work right (at worst, a driver/HW bug - don't see how this is the FS fault) are not them.
 
Correct. As someone explained two reasons why "ZFS is fragile":

"One: The user has never tried another filesystem that tests for end-to-end data integrity, so ZFS notices more problems, and sooner.

Two: If you lost data with another filesystem, you may have overlooked it and blamed the OS or the application, instead of the inexpensive hardware."
 
Sorry, newbie question here, but do you need to flash the M1015 to use it in JBOD mode for Solaris? What's the disadvantage of just using it out of the box?

I'm in need of SATA ports to do a 10 drive NAS box.

Also, what's the consensus? It seems some people say this is a flaky solution? Would I have to worry about my array dying a lot by using this card? :(
 
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dmo580 said:
Sorry, newbie question here, but do you need to flash the M1015 to use it in JBOD mode for Solaris? What's the disadvantage of just using it out of the box?

I'm in need of SATA ports to do a 10 drive NAS box.
Click to expand...

Not really, the Solaris drivers work great with the default M1015 firmware, even with JBOD. You may want to flash to IT mode if you're running Solaris on top of ESXi as I've heard there are some issues with this card, though they may have been fixed by now. Also, I think IT mode support is built-in for Solaris, whereas you have to install the driver from the LSI site to get it to work with the default firmware.
 
Can't speak to the default firmware, but I can absolutely confirm the IT firmware works out of the box with openindiana 148.
 
gotcha, and whats the advantage of IT firmware (9211 right?) versus the 9240 that some people are flashing? Seems like the steps to getting 9240 on there are easier, but would this cut it for ESXi setups?
 
If the disks as presented as JBOD, it probably doesn't matter. There is a school of thought that the raid overhead in the IR code might slow things down, but that's unlikely to matter. I guess I just prefer to have individual drives be individual...
 
The only real advantage to flashing this card to a 9211 is when you are using it with an OS that does not have drivers for the 9240 (i.e., freeBSD). Otherwise running it as a 9240 is fine.
 
PigLover said:
The only real advantage to flashing this card to a 9211 is when you are using it with an OS that does not have drivers for the 9240 (i.e., freeBSD). Otherwise running it as a 9240 is fine.
Click to expand...

Ok, I'm probably gonna stick to Solaris/OpenIndiana and the most I would go to is ESXi 5.0...
 
dmo580 said:
Ok, I'm probably gonna stick to Solaris/OpenIndiana and the most I would go to is ESXi 5.0...
Click to expand...

Then I'd run it as a 9240. Both ESXi and OI are quite happy with that. SE11 is too but you need to load the drivers from LSIs site.
 
Oh, I thought it is not possible to flash the IBM m1015 with the 9211 IT firmware?
Anyone a guide about what to consider flashing to IT mode?
 
So... what is the consensus now about the IBM Serveraid m1015, it works fine with Solaris 11 Express if you flash it to JBOD mode? Or, there is no need to flash? Or...?
 
brutalizer said:
So... what is the consensus now about the IBM Serveraid m1015, it works fine with Solaris 11 Express if you flash it to JBOD mode? Or, there is no need to flash? Or...?
Click to expand...

No need to flash, but you do need to load the 9240 Solaris drivers from LSIs web site.
 
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