HP SAS Expander Owner's Thread

I see from the OP that LSI's 1068e is supposed to work with the HP SAS Expander; does that include the Dell SAS 6/iR, since it has the same chip?

Odd thing is, Dell claim that the SAS 6/iR supports SAS expanders, but then they go on to note that the SAS 6/iR supports 10 drives, which I find a little odd, since it supports 8 out of the box anyway.

Has anyone here used the expander with Dell's SAS 6/iR (or SAS 5/iR) HBAs?
 
So in taking it step by step I ordered a cheap external 26-pin to interal 36-pin SAS bracket.

This way I can connect my ATTO RAID HBA to each SAS backplane in the 4220 directly and rule out either defective backplane or cable issues.

Additionally it will allow me to connect Port 8 and 9 of the HP SAS expander to the ATTO card (as recommended) to see if that makes any difference.

Hopefully I'll be able to determine whether it's actually compatible or not. If not, I'll build a second array that works with a lower cost SAS HBA and the HP Expander card.

For the ATTO-centric array I have an Intel expander on the way as well - in case.

Is there any way to tell on the HP Expander itself what the date of manufacture is? Could my perceived incompatibility be simply that it's running firmware that's out of date?
 
@parityboy: You have to take into account that Dell possibly only considers solutions using products they actually offer to customers. If they support the 6/iR in any given system that can accomodate 10 drives and if that is their largest system in terms of harddrives then it supports only 10 drives since they can't sell you any product where you could connect more than that.
That doesn't actually mean that it is a hardware limitation.

I don't have a Dell SAS HBA so I can't tell you for sure but I just wanted to mention it as a sort of hint. I would refer to the specs given by the manufacturer, LSI, in the first place.

@dialing_wand: You can tell which hardware revision it is by the color of the PCB as it is stated in the first post of this thread. There is no way I know of to determine the production date and/or the firmware version just by looking at it.
It is always a good idea to have a recent firmware though so you should update it anyway.
 
JensS said:
@parityboy: You have to take into account that Dell possibly only considers solutions using products they actually offer to customers. If they support the 6/iR in any given system that can accomodate 10 drives and if that is their largest system in terms of harddrives then it supports only 10 drives since they can't sell you any product where you could connect more than that.
That doesn't actually mean that it is a hardware limitation.

I don't have a Dell SAS HBA so I can't tell you for sure but I just wanted to mention it as a sort of hint. I would refer to the specs given by the manufacturer, LSI, in the first place.
Click to expand...

Cheers for that. There's a distinct possibility that you are correct, rather like those external drive cases that support "a maximum of 3TB" using 2x 1.5TB drives, simply because those were the largest drives on the market at that time. :)

However, there's also the possibility that Dell may have altered the firmware on the SAS 6/iR to support an artificial limit. Sounds silly, but they also crippled the PERC 5/i and 6/i to only see 8 drives, even when connected to an expander, in order to protect the markets for the PERC 5/e and PERC 6/e. Both families of PERC also use LSI chips. :)

I suppose I'll have to take a punt at some point, if someone doesn't beat me to it. :p
 
JensS said:
@dialing_wand: You can tell which hardware revision it is by the color of the PCB as it is stated in the first post of this thread. There is no way I know of to determine the production date and/or the firmware version just by looking at it.
It is always a good idea to have a recent firmware though so you should update it anyway.
Click to expand...

Hi there, and thanks for answering JensS. I'm sorry about being unclear - I knew I had the newer hardware revision - was just hoping to find out the rest.

I don't have a way to update it, but perhaps I'll be able to find someone locally here to do it.

I received a 26-pin external miniSAS to 36-pin internal SAS bracket today so that I could test out all the other components to make sure I crossed them off as points of failure.

So, plugging my ATTO R680 directly into the SAS backplanes provided with the Norco 4220 chassis (using the bracket to convert the external connection from the HBA to an internal one), drives immediately show up in the configuration tool.

After trying drives and cables and backplanes, it's definitely the HP SAS Expander which isn't playing nice with the R680. It's a continued source of puzzlement, but not the end of the world. I ordered an Intel SAS expander and we'll see if that works out.

I'll either put this HP Expander up for sale or use it with a compatible HBA in a FreeNAS box at some point. I guess my worry (and hope) is that it isn't somehow defective and I'll be stuck with a $350 paperweight when I finally get around to using it.
 
If there are any [H] users in Montreal or Ottawa who can upgrade the HP SAS Expander firmware I'd be happy to meet and, of course, offer something in exchange for the time it takes. ;)
 
Has anyone tested if the expander would work with the onboard-SAS-controller of a Supermicro X8DT3? The SAS-Chip is a LSI 1068E.
 
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@Origin_Unknown: The 'simple' HBA needs to be able to support more devices than it has physical ports or in other words, it needs to be able to support expanders, otherwise you will not be able to talk to any drives at all!
 
It appears, and perhaps this could be noted in the first post, that the ATTO R680 is not compatible with the HP SAS expander.

The Intel SAS expander, also mentioned in the first post, arrived today and worked without issue.

Anyone need a nearly new HP SAS Expander? ;) I have the box and the cables it shipped with of course....
 
Does anybody know whether the LSI 2108 or LSI 2208 work with the expander? Specific the MegaRAID SAS 9265-8i or MegaRAID ® SAS 9260/1-8i.

Additionally i can verify the expander works fine with the LSI 2008 on X8DTH-6 with Raid5 Key (LSI Megaraid 9240-8i Firmware and stock SM Firmware).
 
Are there any reasons to pick up the LSI2008 insteand of the HP P410? In particular considering that they both use the LSI2008 chip (does the HP P410? first post does suggest it and then IT-mode would be possible as well), but the HP P410 allows firmware upgrades as well as RAID5 and via a SAAP upgrade RAID6 also. Does dual-linking work with a P410?
 
Stay away from P410 unless you're running it inside an HP Proliant in a business scenario -- this topic has been covered many times in this thread. Just search on "P410". And nowhere does the OP indicate a SAS2008 chip on the P410, don't know where you got that idea. P410 has a PMC chip. And you absolutely cannot run a P410 in any kind of IT-mode.

If you're on a budget you can get an IBM M1015 off ebay and use one of the flashing tutorials found in this forum to flash it to IT-mode w/ LSI firmware.
 
odditory said:
Stay away from P410 unless you're running it inside an HP Proliant in a business scenario -- this topic has been covered many times in this thread. Just search on "P410". And nowhere does the OP indicate a SAS2008 chip on the P410, don't know where you got that idea. P410 has a PMC chip. And you absolutely cannot run a P410 in any kind of IT-mode.

If you're on a budget you can get an IBM M1015 off ebay and use one of the flashing tutorials found in this forum to flash it to IT-mode w/ LSI firmware.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice! I got the impression of the annotation mark * after all listed HP cards and below the MB section.
 
I would strongly agree on not using a P410 (or in fact any HP SmartArray controller) based on the experience I have with them. They are absolutely fine in a ProLiant server but mostly rubbish anywhere else.
They work on many desktop boards though but I had all sorts of trouble on nearly all server boards I have at home.
They also wouldn't let you enable their write back cache unless you have a BBU installed which is just a HP marketing thing a.k.a. "we just want you to buy a BBU so we can make more money".

I could go on about it but to put a long story short: Just avoid them for home use!
 
JensS said:
I would strongly agree on not using a P410 (or in fact any HP SmartArray controller) based on the experience I have with them. They are absolutely fine in a ProLiant server but mostly rubbish anywhere else.
They work on many desktop boards though but I had all sorts of trouble on nearly all server boards I have at home.
They also wouldn't let you enable their write back cache unless you have a BBU installed which is just a HP marketing thing a.k.a. "we just want you to buy a BBU so we can make more money".

I could go on about it but to put a long story short: Just avoid them for home use!
Click to expand...

I agree here, but I will go one step further. We have a P411 in a HP workstation. Worked fine in the HP server it used to be in but now that its in a workstation we have had nothing but problems with it. In fact, we currently have to hit F1 on every boot to continue the boot and cannot view/create/remove arrays on it :(
 
runt said:
I agree here, but I will go one step further. We have a P411 in a HP workstation. Worked fine in the HP server it used to be in but now that its in a workstation we have had nothing but problems with it. In fact, we currently have to hit F1 on every boot to continue the boot and cannot view/create/remove arrays on it :(
Click to expand...

P411 are rarely, if almost never used in a workstation.


That said, I have 4 expanders in stock today.
 
Killer Chris said:
Does anybody know whether the LSI 2108 or LSI 2208 work with the expander? Specific the MegaRAID SAS 9265-8i or MegaRAID ® SAS 9260/1-8i.

Additionally i can verify the expander works fine with the LSI 2008 on X8DTH-6 with Raid5 Key (LSI Megaraid 9240-8i Firmware and stock SM Firmware).
Click to expand...

To answer on my own:
The 9265-8i is working good with the SAS expander, actual firnware on the controller is required.
 
Help with 2nd HP SAS Expander in separate case:

I have a Norco 4220 (Case #1)
-Areca 1880
-HP SAS Expander

In Case #1:
-Port 1 of Areca 1880 connected to 1-Port SFF-8087 to SFF-8088 Adapter
-Port 2 of Areca 1880 connected to Port 8 of HP SAS Expander
-Port 2-5 connected to backplane

Additionally I have a Norco 4116 (Case #2)
2nd HP SAS Expander connected to MOBO in Case #2

In Case #2:
-Output from 1-Port SFF-8087 to SFF-8088 Adapter connected to Port 1 HP SAS Expander
-Port 2-4 HP SAS Expander connected to backplane of 4116

I power on the 4116 (Case #2) then the 4220 (Case #1) but The Areca Card only sees the HP SAS Expander in Case #1 it does not see the one in Case #2. Any thoughts, did I connect something incorrectly?
 
So if the LSI 2208 chip works, that means any card based on that chip should work right? I am looking at the MegaRAID ® SAS 9285-8e myself instead of the Areca 1880.
 
Bigzaj said:
Help with 2nd HP SAS Expander in separate case:

I have a Norco 4220 (Case #1)
-Areca 1880
-HP SAS Expander

In Case #1:
-Port 1 of Areca 1880 connected to 1-Port SFF-8087 to SFF-8088 Adapter
-Port 2 of Areca 1880 connected to Port 8 of HP SAS Expander
-Port 2-5 connected to backplane

Additionally I have a Norco 4116 (Case #2)
2nd HP SAS Expander connected to MOBO in Case #2

In Case #2:
-Output from 1-Port SFF-8087 to SFF-8088 Adapter connected to Port 1 HP SAS Expander
-Port 2-4 HP SAS Expander connected to backplane of 4116

I power on the 4116 (Case #2) then the 4220 (Case #1) but The Areca Card only sees the HP SAS Expander in Case #1 it does not see the one in Case #2. Any thoughts, did I connect something incorrectly?
Click to expand...

I did some further testing and it does not recognize the SAS Expander in Case #2 - Is there a preferred power-on sequence or something? The SAS Expander has power (green light) and is warm...but the Areca just won't see the second one!
 
#1 you haven't indicated how you're powering the expander in the second chassis (empty motherboard, orbit micro board, etc)
#2 look at the working expander's blinking LED(s) and compare to the second expander's led's. I know at least one of them should be blinking if the card is working correctly. if LED's are lit but solid then the card isn't being powered correctly.

power-on sequence can be either way though the second expander being powered on first is preferred so the areca sees it when it initializes.
 
If I use a Norco 4224 filled with 24x 2TB Regular SATA drives would I notice any big difference in speed with dual linking the expander to a Areca 1880x or is one SFF-8088 between the HBA and expander "enough". Probably a vague question but I'm planning my storage solution and I'm not sure if I should go with dual linking from start or add it later.
 
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@Eiktyrner:
That depends entirely on your use cases for your array.
If you are using it with anything like 10 GBit ethernet or slower then you probably will not experience any difference.
If you are using it to read data from or write to any other fast internal array then probably yes.
If you are using something like 40 GBit Infiniband to read data from or write to any other fast array then probably yes.
You will, however, probably feel a difference while verifying or rebuilding the array.
 
Anyone see the port offset change in the middle of the output?




I also saw this when hooking up to the other expander I use in my opensolaris box but a different number:

Am I like using the wrong order of the ports or something but why is it skipping only one?

I just a guess but maybe because on the breakout cables it goes in the opposite order (4 ->1) or something and that is why I have one missing? because I am not using one of the cables on the last four (and might have swapped them) as its a 15 disk enclosure instead of 16 disk.

Oh and in case you were wondering wtf I was doing in JBOD mode... I needed to access a mdadm array I temporarily used to defrag the mythbox I have over at my dad's place and I wanted some of the files accessible on my main system so I needed to access the array again temporarily.. which worked =)

Code: 
root@dekabutsu: 09:39 AM :~# df -H
Filesystem             Size   Used  Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs                 129G   118G    11G  92% /
/dev/root              129G   118G    11G  92% /
udev                    11M   447k    11M   5% /dev
/dev/sda1              129G    43G    87G  33% /winxp
/dev/sdd1               36T    29T   7.5T  80% /data
/dev/md127              39T    11T    29T  28% /mdraid
tmpfs                   13G      0    13G   0% /dev/shm
 
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Anyone know if the 3ware 9750-8i will dual link or should I just buy the 4i and save some dough.
 
It should but I haven't tested it properly with my 9750-8i since that went into another machine in the end.
I would advice using the -4i anyway (as I have done in my storage server) since dual linking isn't really that important in most of the thinkable cases.
The only reason for the -8i might be a second expander ;)
 
JensS said:
It should but I haven't tested it properly with my 9750-8i since that went into another machine in the end.
I would advice using the -4i anyway (as I have done in my storage server) since dual linking isn't really that important in most of the thinkable cases.
The only reason for the -8i might be a second expander ;)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the speedy reply. I have ordered the 3WARE 9750-4i to use with the HP Expander I ordered.
 
So, after my first kick at the HP Expander can, I'm going to try again; this time using it as part of a FreeNAS setup.

I'm considering the HP P410 as the HBA/RAID card for two reasons; there are good deals to be had and, since I don't know what firmware my HP Expander arrived with, it would be the only "easy" way for me to have access to firmware upgrades.

Is that a reasonable solution? Any reason I shouldn't consider the P410?

This particular setup doesn't need to be built for any kind of absolute speed; it will simply be a pool of shared storage/iSCSI targets.
 
The P410 topic has been covered many times in this thread, the last time at the end of the last page and at the beginning of this one (post #1739 and #1741).
I like them in my HP ProLiants and I have used them for this reason for quite some time in other systems as well but it will only be a matter of time when you encounter the first issues.
Among these issues there will be some rather unique "features" as well like the fact that the controller would not use its cache for write access unless you have a BBU installed.

You are right about the expander fimware though but that only works if your system will work with the P410 obviously. For this reason I have put the expander in a ProLiant to flash it since it would not work in any of my systems.
I had some success some time ago on several desktop mainboards. That worked quite well.

At this point I am down to LSI for any controller needs I might have. Adaptec is usually a good choice as well. Most of them will not come cheap though.
If you need to cut some corners because of your budget you should watch out for a IBM M1015 which uses a LSI chip and can be flashed to LSI firmware. This is a pretty basic SAS controller in any way but these are cheap to get as well and are probably a wiser choice than the P410. You will find tons of them on eBay for example.
 
Can you link one expander to another via the external port?
Or would i need another controller card with an external port to connect to the 2nd expander?
 
Daisy chaining is fine, yes. It's not IDEAL though if you have a massive amount of drives on the second expander, because then the first expander is having to process all the additional traffic from the second expander. Obviously the less hops the better in SAS topologies. Otherwise the heatsink heats up a lot more on the first expander if it isn't well ventilated and/or doesn't have a fan installed on it, I've seen such a configuration heat up enough that it starts slowing down or dropping drives or freezing - in a case where drives on both expanders were active, during a multi-terabyte filecopy between arrays. The fix for me was attaching a 40x40x10 fan to the heatsink, fastened with a couple screws from an old VHS tape (since those small fans never come with long enough screws).

Example one of my systems has 24 drives on each of two expanders, and rather than daisy chain them I plugged each expander into one of the two miniSAS port on my raid controller. SAS controller chips are 8-lane native meaning most controllers should have at least two miniSAS connectors (unless its a gimped 4-port SKU like an LSI 9211-4i).

But again I know plenty of people daisy chaining them.
 
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