HP SAS Expander Owner's Thread

That's why I put the 1045 in the FAQ section of the OP as "not compatible" since Adaptec needs to fix their bios and/or drivers. I know the SAS chip is fine because the Areca 1300 series cards use the same one, but as usual Adaptec screws up the implementation. The ARC-1300-4x works beautifully with the HP expander.

Also I wouldn't bother with an HP P212 -- don't assume HP is going to be updating the firmware too much more. The main update was in 1.52 for SAS2/SATA3 and now that that's done, any other updates will be minimal if at all. It's not like they're going to be updating or patching it for compatibility issues with non-HP cards.
 
Last edited:
Well I got my 9690SA-4I in last night to use with the sas expander, and it hasn't been a fun ride. I have yet to get the controller to initialize while connected to the HP SAS expander.

I have tired using 5 different cables to connect the controller and the expander, if you connect the cable while the controller is already initialized, it hangs after about 10 seconds. And if you boot with them connected the controller will never initialize.

My Expander has firmware 2.0.2, and the 9690SA-4I has the latest firmware 9.5.3. I opened a ticket with 3ware and will see if I can get some information.
 
I'm beginning to wonder if there are two factions of SAS Expanders which cannot communicate with each other.

On one hand, there is the HP SAS Expander, and (of course) the HP controllers, and the Areca SAS controllers which seem to get along fine with it.

On the other hand, there is the Supermicro/LSI SAS Expander that are used in Supermicro's backplanes, and the LSI/3ware controllers like the 9690SA, and other LSI-based HBAs. The 9690SA is on the compatibility list for the Supermicro SAS Expander, by the way. That same list also has a couple Adaptec controllers on it (and Adaptec seems to have issues with the HP SAS Expander)
 
danman said:
Try switching PCIe slots with the 9690.
Click to expand...

No luck. I have even tried them different systems. The expander could be bad, since I also just got it, but don't have another controller to test it with. I know the 9690 works as I can connect it direct to the drives and it works.

I'm thinking that the 3ware has the same issue with the expanders after firmware 1.5.2 as the Adaptec cards. Since the only person that has said they used this card with the expander was unsure of the firmware but bought direct from HP.

So it looks like I will be RMAing something, and going with the twice as pricely areca card. Since they are confirmed to work with the expander with the 2.0.2 firmware.
 
So I hooked it all up and powered up the system and .... I can't see any drives on the expander cards :(

Tried all kinds of things.

I have the Areca ARC-1680i connected via two SFF-8087 cables to two HP SAS expander cards (F/W 2.02). From those two expander cards, I have a SFF-8087 cable running to each back plane. Each back plane is loaded with 4 WD20EADS 2TB drives for a total of 48 2TB drives. They all have their shinny blue light on meaning they are powered up (I can also see this via the Kill-A-Watt meter that they are in fact powered).
If I enter the McBIOS RAID controller software or the McRAID web based configuration via the Ethernet port, the RAID card tells me that there are NO IDE drives available :(

So I took a single SFF-8087 cable and connected a single back plane directly to the Areca ARC-1680i and voila, I can see the 4 drives that are plugged into that back plane. I can also use the Identify enclosure or Identify Drive function to enable the red fault LED next to all four or each individual drive, so the controller works just fine and I can access the drives too, just not through the HP expander... What a bummer.

There are 6 green LEDs on the expander right next to the mounting bracket. Both of my expander cards have 4 of them lit. the top most, skip two and the bottom 3 are all lit. Should they all be lit in normal working mode or is this normal that they are like this:
Top to bottom:
1: ON
2: OFF
3: OFF
4: ON
5: ON
6: ON

Also, I went into the McRAID web based setup and disabled the SES2 control function as I had read some people needed to disable that to get their setup working. Didn't make any difference on my setup.

I also downloaded and installed F/W 1.48 on the ARC-1680i. The card came with version 1.47 installed.

Any input on this would be GREATLY appreciated!!
 
might be a dumb question but you did plug it in to port 9c of the HP Expander right?
 
Treadstone that is the same issue I'm having with my 3ware 9690SA. I see you also bought your expander from Dustin, I wonder if he sent out a bad bunch.
 
iceboi714 said:
might be a dumb question but you did plug it in to port 9c of the HP Expander right?
Click to expand...

I plugged the ARC-1680i SCN1 into Port 9C, 8C, 2C no go...

same cable going from SCN1 to the back plane direct works fine.

Is there any indication anywhere that an expander card is connected to the Areca controller card?
So that I can verify that the connection between controller and expander actually works?

I also tried to strap the drives for 1.5GB PHY setting. That didn't do anything either.
 
QQ~ said:
Treadstone that is the same issue I'm having with my 3ware 9690SA. I see you also bought your expander from Dustin, I wonder if he sent out a bad bunch.
Click to expand...

Yes I did and I don't know if the card works or not. Sure hope it's not a bad controller (I should say controllers as I have two of them).
 
QQ~ I forgot to ask, when you have your expander connected to your 9690SA, those LEDs I referred to above, are they lit on yours too?
 
treadstone said:
QQ~ I forgot to ask, when you have your expander connected to your 9690SA, those LEDs I referred to above, are they lit on yours too?
Click to expand...

Yep same lights are on/off on my card, and I ordered mine Monday the 1st. I would say your controller works fine since you can see drives when connected straight to them.

Although your PC will boot when your controller is connect to the expander, and mine will not.
 
danman said:
Did you upgrade the Transport as well as all 4 BIOS files? The Transport is the SAS firmware.

ftp://ftp.areca.com.tw/RaidCards/BIOS_Firmware/ARC1680/Transport/

Once you disable SES2 you have to reboot for it to take effect. Does the Expander show up on the Areca web page?
Click to expand...

I updated 4 files via the web interface:

ARC1680BIOS.BIN
ARC1680BOOT.BIN
ARC1680FIRM.BIN
ARC1680MBR0.BIN

Then rebooted the system.

Under System information, it shows:

SAS Firmware Version: 4.7.3.0

which according to Areca's ftp site is the latest version.

I don't see any expander cards listed on the web page. Under what section should I see this?

Do you have a screen capture so that I have something to compare it to?
 
QQ~ said:
Yep same lights are on/off on my card, and I ordered mine Monday the 1st. I would say your controller works fine since you can see drives when connected straight to them.

Although your PC will boot when your controller is connect to the expander, and mine will not.
Click to expand...

Booting up my system has never been an issue.

I also have two additional 2TB drives in slot 49 and 50 which are directly connected to the mother board and are now setup as RAID1 via the Intel RAID manager setup. Those will be the OS drives.

I plugged all 52 drives I bought in batches of two into those two slots and ran the WDIDLE3 and WDTLER programs on each and everyone of those drives.
 
Did you disable SES2?
Also there is a tab for enclosure management. You should be able to see the hp card here
 
nitrobass24 said:
Did you disable SES2?
Also there is a tab for enclosure management. You should be able to see the hp card here
Click to expand...

I disabled SES2 via the web interface as it is not visible via the BIOS screen. I have yet to see the expander cards listed anywhere on ANY page in the controller either via the BIOS or the web page. :(
 
Hi, I'm wondering if anyone's had any success with the HP SAS Expander and an Adaptec Card. I have tried it with both a 3805 and a 51245 and while both cards recognize the HP SAS Expander on the BIOS screen (shows up as "Box" and firmware version 2.02 is reported by both Adaptec cards), any drives I connect to the SAS Expander is not recognized by either Adaptec card.

I know the FAQ says they are not compatible with each other, but I have a very recent 51245 revision that supports 3.0 Gbps with 2TB drives and was hoping that whatever fix was made to support 3.0 Gbps also fixed the negotiation "issues" other forum members theorized was the problem with the HP SAS Expander working with an Adaptec card. I can't tell from others posts if others are actually seeing the Adaptec card recognize the HP SAS Expander or not. In my case, it reports the existence of the Expander, but not drives atteched to it. I have tried connecting the Expander with both a 8088 to 8088 cable or 8087 to 8087 cable and same issue with both.

Would love to get this to work so if anyone has any experience they can share, it would be much appreciated.

I've asked Adaptec about this and they told me the HP Expander is not on the compatibility list and nor is the PM8005 chip. Next release of the compatibility list will be in several months.

Thank you! Hammer8
 
Hi Hammer8,

well at least you got a little further than I did. At least your controller cards (Adaptec) show the existence of the HP expander card. My controller won't even show that :(

Just a quick question, where did you get your HP expander from?
 
treadstone said:
Hi Hammer8,

well at least you got a little further than I did. At least your controller cards (Adaptec) show the existence of the HP expander card. My controller won't even show that :(

Just a quick question, where did you get your HP expander from?
Click to expand...
I got the expander on ebay. I think the same place was selling to this forum in earlier posts.

Do you know of any settings I may need to adjust to get the drives on the expander to show up on the Adaptec card (since it recognizes the Expander, it seems they're at least talking to each other). I have never used an Expander before.
 
Hammer8 said:
Hi, I'm wondering if anyone's had any success with the HP SAS Expander and an Adaptec Card. I have tried it with both a 3805 and a 51245 and while both cards recognize the HP SAS Expander on the BIOS screen (shows up as "Box" and firmware version 2.02 is reported by both Adaptec cards), any drives I connect to the SAS Expander is not recognized by either Adaptec card.

I know the FAQ says they are not compatible with each other, but I have a very recent 51245 revision that supports 3.0 Gbps with 2TB drives and was hoping that whatever fix was made to support 3.0 Gbps also fixed the negotiation "issues" other forum members theorized was the problem with the HP SAS Expander working with an Adaptec card. I can't tell from others posts if others are actually seeing the Adaptec card recognize the HP SAS Expander or not. In my case, it reports the existence of the Expander, but not drives atteched to it. I have tried connecting the Expander with both a 8088 to 8088 cable or 8087 to 8087 cable and same issue with both.

Would love to get this to work so if anyone has any experience they can share, it would be much appreciated.

I've asked Adaptec about this and they told me the HP Expander is not on the compatibility list and nor is the PM8005 chip. Next release of the compatibility list will be in several months.

Thank you! Hammer8
Click to expand...

The Hp expander running software 1.00 runs well with my adaptec 5085. However, it doesn't see any disks if the firmware on the expander is upgraded to 2.x.
 
Here are a few questions for those that have the HP SAS expander working with an Areca ARC-1680 controller:

1) What connection do you use between the two cards (internal SFF8087 or external SFF8088)?

2) If internal, do you use the exact same cable between the controller and the expander as the cable(s) you use between the expander and the drives or back planes?
 
1) Both, but both connections work just fine by themselves as well.
2) No I have a half meter intenal cable, and 5 1-meter fanout cables.

Post a screenshot of your settings from the RAID controller.

Also does your backplane have a builin expander? Does it have onboard logic?
 
nitrobass24 said:
1) Both, but both connections work just fine by themselves as well.
2) No I have a half meter intenal cable, and 5 1-meter fanout cables.

Post a screenshot of your settings from the RAID controller.

Also does your backplane have a builin expander? Does it have onboard logic?
Click to expand...

The back planes have logic and the logic works fine via the SGPIO (with or without SES2 enabled) when the ARC-1680 is directly plugged into the back plane. The logic controls the fault LEDs for each of the 4 HDD slots. There are a total of 12 of these 4 port back planes, hence my two HP expander cards.

There are two different types of SFF8087 cables that include the sideband connections:

1) Controller to Backplane
2) Controller to Controller

The difference is in the way the sideband connections are wired out. I'm wondering if the sideband connections are also used to communicate between the expander and the controller for more than just the enclosure management features. If that's the case, the regular SFF8087 style 1 cables may not work?!?

I have to fire up the server again and see if I can do a screen capture of the web interface. What specific page are you interested in?
Give me the sub menu header info that shows up in the left pane so that I can capture the right screen!
 
Well i would try disconnecting all the SGPIO until you get the drives detected.
My norco has "dumb" Backplanes so I dont have cables with SGPIO. I also have SES2 disabled.

When you plug the expander in does the Areca see the HP expander? On the enclosures page it should show up like this
HP_SAS_1_52.jpg
 
nitrobass24 said:
Well i would try disconnecting all the SGPIO until you get the drives detected.
My norco has "dumb" Backplanes so I dont have cables with SGPIO. I also have SES2 disabled.

When you plug the expander in does the Areca see the HP expander? On the enclosures page it should show up like this
HP_SAS_1_52.jpg
Click to expand...

I didn't see an enclosure page listed on the left side. Even when I just had the HP expander plugged into the ARC-1680 with no other cables attached between the expander and the backplanes, the expander would still not show up in the web interface :(

In regards to the LEDs I had mentioned before, do you have the same lit on your expander card when it is operational?
 
I have no idea about the LEDs, I never really looked.
Im at work but I can check later
 
Thanks, I would appreciate it if you could take a look at your LEDs and let me know if the same are lit as on my expander cards.

Here is an screen capture of the web interface after I log in:



SES2 is currently enabled I believe. I will disable it again and restart the computer to see if it's different, but I am pretty sure I already tested it that way yesterday.

The connections are as follows:

SCN1 (lower connector) on the ARC-1680 is connected via a 600mm SFF8087 cable to port 9C on the HP SAS expander card. SCN2 is connected via the same type of SFF8087 cable to the top most backplane in the enclosure with 4 WD20EADS drives connected and powered up. Those 4 drives show up on port 5 to 8 of the ARC-1680 but nothing shows up in port 1 to 4. Ports 1 (external) and Ports 2C to 8C on the expander card are NOT connected to anything right now (no cables plugged in). I've tried a bunch of different SFF8087 cables from HP, Foxconn, Amphenol and Molex without any success, so I doubt it is a cable issue.
 
SES2 was enabled when I did the screen capture. I disabled it and turned the computer off and powered it back up and after connecting to the web interface, it still does not show the HP expander card (screen looks identical to the one I posted above).
 
treadstone said:
There are two different types of SFF8087 cables that include the sideband connections:

1) Controller to Backplane
2) Controller to Controller

The difference is in the way the sideband connections are wired out. I'm wondering if the sideband connections are also used to communicate between the expander and the controller for more than just the enclosure management features. If that's the case, the regular SFF8087 style 1 cables may not work?!?
Click to expand...

And there are also non-sideband SFF-8087 cables. I had some 3ware cables without the sidebands. Can you try a non-sideband SFF-8087 cable between the Areca and the HP?

Your problem is puzzling since your setup looks identical to that of several people who have reported success here (and I was planning a build using a similar setup).
 
WOW!!!

Got it to work, at least I got one expander working right now! Turns out that the PCIe slot I used it in doesn't work with the expander... Need to figure out why and if there is something I can do to make it work!

So I connected the expander back to the ARC-1680 controller and 6 of the 12 backplanes to the expander. I now see the expander as enclosure #2 and I can see all 24 2 TB drives. Now I need to get the second expander to do the same and I'm finally in business!

Here is another screen capture of the web interface showing the 24 drives:



One thing I noticed however is that the enclosure management via the SGPIO doesn't work right now. I assume that is due to the fact that the signals between the controller and expander are not connected properly to each other and I will most likely need a controller to controller (style 2) SFF8087 cable to get that working.
 
I assume you still have SES2 disabled?
SES2 is the enclosure management setting. So for SGPIO to work you would need to enable it.
Although I thought I had heard that some people had issues when it was enabled, but I may be dreaming.
 
I still have SES2 disabled. However when I had the ARC-1680 connected directly to the backplane, I could use the identify enclosure or identify drive function from either the BIOS or web interface to turn the red fault LEDs next to each drive on that backplane on and off. It did not seem to matter if SES2 was enabled or disabled. I have to look into this a bit more, but I believe that SES2 is not the same as SGPIO control as it is listed separately in the areca manual!

I have an ASUS P7P55-WS-Supercomputer motherboard and populated the slots as follows:

PCIEX16_1 PCI Express 2.0 x16_1 slot (x8 or x16 link) - HD5450 1GB Graphics Card
PCIEX1 PCI Express x1 slot - Not used
PCIEX16_2 PCI Express 2.0 x16_2 slot (x8 link) - HP SAS Expander #2
PCIEX16_3 PCI Express 2.0 x16_3 slot (x4 link) - Not used
PCIEX16_4 PCI Express 2.0 x16_4 slot (x8 or x16 link) - Areca ARC-1680 RAID Controller
PCI1 PCI slot - Not used
PCIEX16_5 PCI Express 2.0 x16_5 slot (x8 link) - HP SAS Expander #1

I liked this setup because it left a spare slot and enough room for cabling and air flow between the RAID controller and SAS expander cards. For some strange reason however the motherboard doesn't seem to let the SAS expander cards work properly in the PCIEX_2 and PCIEX_5 slots :(
I noticed after I moved the expander #2 into the PCIEX16_3 slot that the top most LED started to blink, where as before it would just be solid on!
 
Put the Expanders in Slots 1&3
GPU on slot 2
Areca on Slot5
 
The HP expander cards obviously seem to use more than just the power connections from the PCIE connector. I'm going to have a look what exactly they connected and if there is a way I can still make this work in those slots...
 
I put together a list of the signals on the different SFF8087 cables for reference purposes:

Code: 
SFF8087 to SFF8087 Cable with Sideband Signals       SFF8087 to SFF8087 Cable with Sideband Signals       SFF8087 to SFF8087 Cable with NO Sideband Signals 
for use as Controller to Backplane connection        for use as Controller to Controller connection                                                         
                                                                                                                                                            
CONTROLLER <----------> BACKPLANE                    CONTROLLER <----------> CONTROLLER                                                                     
                                                                                                                                                            
GROUND     A1  ---- B1  GROUND                       GROUND     A1  ---- B1  GROUND                       GROUND     A1  ---- B1  GROUND                    
RX0+       A2  <--- B2  TX0+                         RX0+       A2  <--- B2  TX0+                         RX0+       A2  <--- B2  TX0+                      
RX0-       A3  <--- B3  TX0-                         RX0-       A3  <--- B3  TX0-                         RX0-       A3  <--- B3  TX0-                      
GROUND     A4  ---- B4  GROUND                       GROUND     A4  ---- B4  GROUND                       GROUND     A4  ---- B4  GROUND                    
RX1+       A5  <--- B5  TX1+                         RX1+       A5  <--- B5  TX1+                         RX1+       A5  <--- B5  TX1+                      
RX1-       A6  <--- B6  TX1-                         RX1-       A6  <--- B6  TX1-                         RX1-       A6  <--- B6  TX1-                      
GROUND     A7  ---- B7  GROUND                       GROUND     A7  ---- B7  GROUND                       GROUND     A7  ---- B7  GROUND                    
SIDEBAND 7 A8  <--> B8  SIDEBAND 7                   SIDEBAND 7 A8  <--> B11 SIDEBAND 5                              A8       B8                            
SIDEBAND 3 A9  <--> B9  SIDEBAND 3                   SIDEBAND 3 A9  <--> B10 SIDEBAND 4                              A9       B9                            
SIDEBAND 4 A10 <--> B10 SIDEBAND 4                   SIDEBAND 4 A10 <--> B9  SIDEBAND 3                              A10      B10                           
SIDEBAND 5 A11 <--> B11 SIDEBAND 5                   SIDEBAND 5 A11 <--> B8  SIDEBAND 7                              A11      B11                           
GROUND     A12 ---- B12 GROUND                       GROUND     A12 ---- B12 GROUND                       GROUND     A12 ---- B12 GROUND                    
RX2+       A13 <--- B13 TX2+                         RX2+       A13 <--- B13 TX2+                         RX2+       A13 <--- B13 TX2+                      
RX2-       A14 <--- B14 TX2-                         RX2-       A14 <--- B14 TX2-                         RX2-       A14 <--- B14 TX2-                      
GROUND     A15 ---- B15 GROUND                       GROUND     A15 ---- B15 GROUND                       GROUND     A15 ---- B15 GROUND                    
RX3+       A16 <--- B16 TX3+                         RX3+       A16 <--- B16 TX3+                         RX3+       A16 <--- B16 TX3+                      
RX3-       A17 <--- B17 TX3-                         RX3-       A17 <--- B17 TX3-                         RX3-       A17 <--- B17 TX3-                      
GROUND     A18 ---- B18 GROUND                       GROUND     A18 ---- B18 GROUND                       GROUND     A18 ---- B18 GROUND                    
GROUND     B1  ---- A1  GROUND                       GROUND     B1  ---- A1  GROUND                       GROUND     B1  ---- A1  GROUND                    
TX0+       B2  ---> A2  RX0+                         TX0+       B2  ---> A2  RX0+                         TX0+       B2  ---> A2  RX0+                      
TX0-       B3  ---> A3  RX0-                         TX0-       B3  ---> A3  RX0-                         TX0-       B3  ---> A3  RX0-                      
GROUND     B4  ---- A4  GROUND                       GROUND     B4  ---- A4  GROUND                       GROUND     B4  ---- A4  GROUND                    
TX1+       B5  ---> A5  RX1+                         TX1+       B5  ---> A5  RX1+                         TX1+       B5  ---> A5  RX1+                      
TX1-       B6  ---> A6  RX1-                         TX1-       B6  ---> A6  RX1-                         TX1-       B6  ---> A6  RX1-                      
GROUND     B7  ---- A7  GROUND                       GROUND     B7  ---- A7  GROUND                       GROUND     B7  ---- A7  GROUND                    
SIDEBAND 0 B8  <--> A8  SIDEBAND 0                   SIDEBAND 0 B8  <--> A11 SIDEBAND 6                              B8       A8                            
SIDEBAND 1 B9  <--> A9  SIDEBAND 1                   SIDEBAND 1 B9  <--> A10 SIDEBAND 2                              B9       A9                            
SIDEBAND 2 B10 <--> A10 SIDEBAND 2                   SIDEBAND 2 B10 <--> A9  SIDEBAND 1                              B10      A10                           
SIDEBAND 6 B11 <--> A11 SIDEBAND 6                   SIDEBAND 6 B11 <--> A8  SIDEBAND 0                              B11      A11                           
GROUND     B12 ---- A12 GROUND                       GROUND     B12 ---- A12 GROUND                       GROUND     B12 ---- A12 GROUND                    
TX2+       B13 ---> A13 RX2+                         TX2+       B13 ---> A13 RX2+                         TX2+       B13 ---> A13 RX2+                      
TX2-       B14 ---> A14 RX2-                         TX2-       B14 ---> A14 RX2-                         TX2-       B14 ---> A14 RX2-                      
GROUND     B15 ---- A15 GROUND                       GROUND     B15 ---- A15 GROUND                       GROUND     B15 ---- A15 GROUND                    
TX3+       B16 ---> A16 RX3+                         TX3+       B16 ---> A16 RX3+                         TX3+       B16 ---> A16 RX3+                      
TX3-       B17 ---> A17 RX3-                         TX3-       B17 ---> A17 RX3-                         TX3-       B17 ---> A17 RX3-                      
GROUND     B18 ---- A18 GROUND                       GROUND     B18 ---- A18 GROUND                       GROUND     B18 ---- A18 GROUND

Hope this is helpful to some :)
 
nitrobass24 said:
Because it doesnt work like he has it now.
Click to expand...

Right, but avoiding the x4 link slot for the GPU and the Areca, there are, if I count correctly, 36 ways to put the cards in the slots, 1 of which he tried, leaving 35.

Since you listed a specific configuration, I thought that you might have had a reason for it, rather than just being a random trial.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top