HP SAS Expander Owner's Thread

Are you using this in a G9 proliant with an HP or HP approved HBA (I guess not since you mention the M5210?) It is not guaranteed by HP to work if not, and I have seen problems with third party controllers. Are you using the cables that came with the controller or third party cables? There have been issues with cheaper third party cables and 12G SAS. The error you are getting is a Hardware Error sense code, that is the 0x04 in the sense code. It could be a hardware or a compatibility problem, unfortunately HP will not entertain the problem unless you are using it with a HP controller in an HP environment. 2.10 that you have installed is the latest firmware for that expander. I realize it isn't the answer you necessarily want, but HPE is very unfriendly to sompatibility with non-HPE hardware not on their HCL.
 
mwroobel said:
Are you using this in a G9 proliant with an HP or HP approved HBA (I guess not since you mention the M5210?) It is not guaranteed by HP to work if not, and I have seen problems with third party controllers. Are you using the cables that came with the controller or third party cables? There have been issues with cheaper third party cables and 12G SAS. The error you are getting is a Hardware Error sense code, that is the 0x04 in the sense code. It could be a hardware or a compatibility problem, unfortunately HP will not entertain the problem unless you are using it with a HP controller in an HP environment. 2.10 that you have installed is the latest firmware for that expander. I realize it isn't the answer you necessarily want, but HPE is very unfriendly to sompatibility with non-HPE hardware not on their HCL.
Click to expand...

Thanks for kind answer !
- I just flashed it with 3.14 firmware (very tough without HP RAID controller) - no improvements whatsoever.
- Tried it on IBM HBA, various IBM and LSI RAID controllers; different cables (HP cables too with LSI controller), and all show same problem which is disk reads. (not cable issue; it has issues with plain/simple HBA IT passthru, can't be compatibility, rather malfunction)

I had older 6GB HP Expander; (looks same actually, just older CPU inside), it works with everything. Taking all above into account, I tend to believe that this particular board simply doesn't work... What do you think taking account above facts ???

PS: Interesting article to flash Expanders without HP hardware. Not for 12G model; but it gives the idea how to approach the problem.
 
Last edited:
d9166331 said:
hello,
how do you remove the heatsink
Click to expand...
d9166331 said:
hello,
how do you remove the heatsink
Click to expand...

I did it very very carefully - push them in the opposite direction first so you don't damage board while you squeeze them a bit (not too much so you can expand them later). Use tiny forge or mobile phone repair tools .... why do you want to remove sink; original paste is very good.

Btw, I mounted slim fan on raid controller, that thing gets so hot that even warms up a battery which send me high temp warnings....
 
Last edited:
This thread is Massive and I have been trying to go through every page to find the info I am looking for but I haven't found it yet. I have been lurking for years on this thread and reading through things and learning about Expanders.

My question is, is there a way to name the PD ports in MegaRaid Storage Manager for the SAS Expander? I would like to at least be able to name the drive for the SAS Port and the drive off that port at the very least. If I could manualy name them, that would be even better.

A little history:
I setup, a couple years ago, a Norco 4224 system with 2x cheap 16-port SAS Adaptec Raid Controllers that worked well for me. I ran it with 16x2TB in Raid6 and a 8x2TB in Raid6 on a Windows 7 Pro OS. Once the drives started filling up, I decided a month ago to switch things up a bit for a more powerful Raid adapter and I went with one of the HP 6Gb/s SAS Expanders. I ended up with a LSI 9270-8i Raid card and I wanted to create a full 24x2TB setup in Raid6 with a single Hot Spare drive. I got all of the data transferred off the old array and was ready to swap for the new parts. I set it all up and turned it on. To my surprise it all booted up and all 24 drives were detected. I proceeded to setup a few arrays to test performance and settings. I ended up with a 23x2TB in Raid6 and a Hot Spare. Running Atto, I am consistent at 1.8GB/s Write performance and 2GB/s Read. HD Tune shows a pretty solid 1.6-1.8GB/s for most of the array. I am quite happy with these results since the old Adaptec setup was max at about 400MB/s on a good day. Over the weekend I tested out a simulated drive failure and it rebuilt the missing drive in about 6hrs with light server load. I mainly store Movies and TV Shows on it, so there isnt much of a load most of the time.

So to go with my question above, I am trying to figure out how to tell what drive is failing if one does. I tried the Blink Drive option but that doesnt seem to do anything. Since I am using the SAS Expander, all of the drives show Slot: 0, SATA, 1.819TB... It doesnt break them down by Port or any other organization method. Is this possible with MegaRaid Storage Manger or possibly with MegaCLI or another CLI program?

I know this is my first post here, but I hope to be making a home here to discuss my server setup and any future configs.
 
Barry Churchill said:
My question is, is there a way to name the PD ports in MegaRaid Storage Manager for the SAS Expander?
Click to expand...

I'm afraid that's not possible. I ran into the same problem and dug through the CLI doc, but didn't find any way to name ports. IIRC my workaround was labeling the drive caddies with the drives serial numbers, since that's an info MSM shows.
 
Few questions.

Is it possible to tell what firmware could potentially be on the card by any of the numbers/stickers on the pcb?

Can i use drives 3tb+?

If it needs to be flashed, is it possible to do without a hp raid card and if so how would i do that.
 
Yes you can use over 3 tib hdds.. tho.. not sure is it main controller issue more.. expander is kind of just a dummy card.. i use 8 tib hdds with my expander + LSI card..
 
WestSidaz said:
Yes you can use over 3 tib hdds.. tho.. not sure is it main controller issue more.. expander is kind of just a dummy card.. i use 8 tib hdds with my expander + LSI card..
Click to expand...

Thanks, yeah my raid cards fine and i thought that would also be the case. Just wanted to make sure.
 
Hi

I have a hp SAS expander with a HP P410. Can someone point me how to update the firmware on the expander? It is currently 1.00. It seems all the links about how to do it have been removed. I am running windows server 2016 on a HP ML350G6. Thanks
 
Here is a link to a new-ish firmware for that card, 2.1 which seems to be downloadable without contract.
 
BecauseScience said:
Is there a step by step for flashing firmware using one of the supported HP raid cards mentioned in the OP? I read the whole thread and found references to the procedure being in the OP but I don't see it.
I found this describing how to make the update work on non-HP machines:
I also found a procedure for doing a firmware update without an HP raid card: http://serverfault.com/questions/63...as-expander-card-without-smart-array-controll
Click to expand...

I found this procedure very valuable, following the same steps (just have to download new linux firmware for my newer expander) I was able to flash most recent HP 12GB/s expander very easily and all worked like charm. Whoever wrote that article knew what he was doing.
 
This is a really old thread, I'm hoping someone is still checking in. I bought this card on eBay a couple of weeks ago.

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/192366252484

and I'm hooking it up to an LSI SAS MegaRAID 9260-8i RAID card. I've had the raid card for a while, but needed to expand larger than the 8 disks. I backed up my stuff and trying to create new RAID; one RAID with Enterprise class hard drives, and another RAID with just desktop hard drives (yes, I know that can be unreliable - money is tight and slowly migrating to the Enterprise ones). Anyway, the LSI management software in Windows is initializing, but scrolling tonnes of error messages. I googled the messages and most people say that it's just an issue with the RAID card trying to talk to the HDD through the SAS expander card and not an issue. But a select few are saying it's an issue with the firmware and should be updated. Looking at what the LSI MegaRAID Storage Manager says about the HPSASEXPcard is that it's Product Revision Level 2.08. I'm assuming that's the firmware?
Running Windows 10 64bit
 
yes and no. I had a 8 drive RAID hooked up directly to the LSI 9260-8i. They were 3TB Enterprise class drives in RAID 5. I created them wrong so I was tapped out at the 16TB limit. I wanted to add more, as well. I got the expander card, plugged them in, backed up the stuff onto another RAID I created hooked up to the expander with regular desktop drives, and an 8TB NAS drive I have. I had a problem creating the RAID with the desktop drives, getting errors all the time. I thought it was a problem with a drive that I got from my friend that I was adding to the RAID since the 4 I originally had was already in a RAID 5 on a highpoint card and it ran fine.
Anyway, I finally got the RAID built, even though errors scrolled through LSI's management software. Backed the stuff up, and as far as I can tell, it's fine (movies, bluray rips, etc). The Enterprise drives, I deleted the RAID, created a new one and started to move the stuff back. At first it kept setting to Write Through since I don't have a battery connected to the RAID card (computer is hooked up to a UPS, plus it's for home use. data being written to the RAID is just moving from another HDD I have anyway, so not worried about loosing anything if there's a power outage). Got it to go to Always Write Back, started moving the stuff over. It was suppose to take 6 hours, and right at the very end, 4 drives get kicked off the RAID at the same time (I just found out that there were 4 drives that needed firmware updates, but it wasn't all the same drives). And the ones that were kicked off weren't all on one cable, it was two from one, and two from another (SAS to 4-SATA). That happened at 4:00 and been trying to build another RAID ever since. Even with selecting fast initialize it wants to take 8 hours to build the RAID, and it's still rolling through the error messages. I just finished flashing the 4 drives now, so I'm about to turn on the computer and see if I can build it again.
 
so, I started Windows, and the RAID I created is there. After 10 minutes it starts initializing again, saying it's going to take close to 9 hours. I abort it, then go through to initialize again, choosing Fast Initialize. It says it's done, clears, etc. Then 10 minutes after that it starts initializing again, this time more than 17 hours.

EDIT: I let it initialize over night. Kept scrolling the errors. It finished initializing and said the RAID was optimal. I tried moving the files back over, and again, after a bit, errors started scrolling through, and it kicked 2 drives out of the RAID. It could see the drives, but they were no longer in the RAID. I set them to unconfigured good, deleted the data option on the two cards, deleted the RAID that they were in, and rebuilt another. Chose fast initialize and it completed the fast one. 10 minutes later it started a background initialize. Googling that, it seems to be common when you change the hardware. It was a newly built RAID, so not sure why it would start.
Created/formatted the disk, tried to transfer the files again. This time it kicked off 3 drives. 2 in my new RAID (different than the first 2 that got kicked off before), and 1 in the RAID that has everything backed up, so now I'm scared what ever is going on I might loose stuff.

These are a couple of the errors I get that just keep scrolling through

Controller ID: 0 Unexpected sense: PD = Port 0 - 3:1:0-Invalid field in CDB, CDB = 0x1a 0x08 0x00 0x00 0xff 0x00, Sense = 0x70 0x00 0x05 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x0a 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x24 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00

Controller ID: 0 Unexpected sense: PD
= Port 0 - 3:1:0Invalid field in CDB, CDB = 0x1a 0x08 0x00 0x00 0xff 0x00 , Sense = 0x70 0x00 0x05 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x0a 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x24 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00
 
Last edited:
The instructions to upgrade the firmware are in this thread.

Since your desktop drives are also giving errors I wonder if you have a cabling issue? I had weird errors on my HP SAS expander that I tracked down to cheap cabling - switching over to reliable Monoprice cables fixed it for me.
 
rtangwai said:
The instructions to upgrade the firmware are in this thread.

Since your desktop drives are also giving errors I wonder if you have a cabling issue? I had weird errors on my HP SAS expander that I tracked down to cheap cabling - switching over to reliable Monoprice cables fixed it for me.
Click to expand...

my cousin was able to help me with it today. I don't know Linux and was getting stumped on this one part. He did too, but in the end was finally able to flash it. I did the transfers back today with 0 errors. It's still running a background initialization, but I'm assuming it kept wanting to do that because I kept moving the cables and ports around for the drives. Both RAIDs are health, and files look okay. The LSI RAID card is reporting the HP SAS expander is now v.2.10
 
rudyrednose said:
And I just signed up specifically to thank you raylangivens !
I used a Dell PERC H200 in it mode, and sg3 utils 1.42, command syntax was a bit different:
- sudo sg_write_buffer -m 14 -b 4096 -I PUF21000.bin /dev/sg0
- sudo sg_write_buffer -m 15 /dev/sg0
Click to expand...

Just went from firmware 2.06 to 2.10 using a Fujitsu D2607 :)
 
Last edited:
Hello I updated firmware to 2.10. What may be the reason part of my WD30EFRX drives negotiate 3gbps and part 1.5gpbs? I have two HP SAS drives that negotiate 6gpbs (expected).
 
Apologies for continuing to post in this old thread, but it has a lot of great content and knowledgeable people. I have a question about two of the ports on my HP SAS expander card. Above port 1C there are two ports, one unpopulated 14 pin port and one populated 3 pin port. The 3 pin header looks like it's labelled J5 on my card. Maybe it's some sort of jumper? Does anyone know anything about either port? I've read through all of the documentation and forum posts I can find but I'm not coming up with anything.

-468405-002-hp-24-bay-sas-expander-card-6g-sas-sata-3g-pcie-x8.jpg
 
First post - late to the party, playing catchup, and in need of assistance. I read the servethehome article when I was looking for an affordable way to scale up the storage on my home network. Put together a little shopping list (Norco 4220, HP SAS Expander, 800w PSU, a cheapish mobo, and a Dell 12gbps SAS HBA, plus cables various and sundry) and slapped them all together. It all arrives, gets assembled (Dell HBA in the existing server, everything else in the Norco, and an 8644-8088 cable connecting the two). The Dell HBA shows up fine (I think), and I was able to update the firmware on it, so I've got to assume it's baseline functional. But no matter what I do, I can't see the expander or the disks attached to it.

I'm still reading through the history on this thread, which is going to take a while, but here's what I have so far. Of the six LEDs on the expander, the first three are lit solid green, and the sixth is also lit solid green. I see a few posts indicating that this may mean insufficient power, so I chucked it in another mobo from a VERY old PC, and now I get three solid green, two dark, and one blinking green. I pulled one 8087 cable through from the Norco and popped it in (port 3, it looks like) and I still can't see a thing from the existing server. On the off chance I'm still having a power problem I also have a PCI-E powered riser on the way, but it seems like I should see something at least at this point.

On the server, the Dell HBA never loads anything at boot time, so as far as I see there's no config to be done there. I've acquired additional 8644-8088 cables and tested those with no change. The Dell HBA also has external LEDs that are supposed to indicate connectivity, and those never light. I know the HP expander isn't straight-up dead because aside from the LEDs I had to throw it in the server to update the firmware to 2.10 and it showed up fine then to lsscsi. But I have to admit - if it isn't the crap mobo I picked up, and the old mobo I had lying around, causing all these problems I'm at an absolute loss.

What on earth am I missing?

Thanks!
 
is this the right flashing instruction for the HP SAS Expander, I have the old sas 6gbs sata 3gbs model, is the HP P212, P410, P411 still required to flash, or can any controller do?

http://serverfault.com/questions/63...as-expander-card-without-smart-array-controll

Is this the correct firmware?

https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/pu...=MTX_07e17cded9e8409ea4b9d7ea74&swEnvOid=4184

I have 2 HP SAS Expanders that I had bought 7 years ago if I am not mistaken when they were like 160 - 200 ish and never bothered checking the firmware version or attempted to flash, however, I have just aquired an HP P410 and want to proceed to flash to latest.
 
N Bates said:
is this the right flashing instruction for the HP SAS Expander, I have the old sas 6gbs sata 3gbs model, is the HP P212, P410, P411 still required to flash, or can any controller do?
http://serverfault.com/questions/63...as-expander-card-without-smart-array-controll
Is this the correct firmware?
https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/pu...=MTX_07e17cded9e8409ea4b9d7ea74&swEnvOid=4184
Click to expand...
If the expander is connected to your P410 then you can use the HP update tools... otherwise it's the linux procedure.
And yes, 2.10 is the last firmware.
 
Thanks for the info, is the HP update tools still available for download, it seems that I can only find it at softpedia, so, can I just connect the P410 and the expander to a windows 10 pc and update the software that way?
 
Hello All,

Wow, quite the thread. Haven't hit the tip of the iceberg yet as far as reading this, but a quick question.

I currently own an Areca ARC-1224 hba. Only needing more ports for UnRaid system. Can the HP Expander work with this hba, and if so, is there any advantage to connecting both SAS cables to the expander?

Also, how to go about flashing firmware if not up to date? Are any of the HP hba cards used to perform this procedure halfway reasonably priced, and if so, would one of them be preferable to using the Areca card in production system?

Cheers!
 
Can't see why it wouldn't work with the ARC-1224.
Connecting with 2 SAS cables can enhance (not double) the max performance.
The linux update procedure could work with your controller.
These HP expanders are very reliable, but not very fast (3Gbps limit).
You might also want to check the forum at servethehome com
 
Thanks for the info, ordered one as soon as I saw your post.

Speed isn't a concern. Spinning disks will be connected to the ports, and they can't saturate 6Gbps link anyway. Running UnRaid, so reliability is first priority.

I'll check out the forum at servethehome.

Thinking about connecting the card using a pci 32-bit slot via riser cable to pci-to-pcie adapter for the 5 volt power. Think that will work, or should I just connect directly to slot on MB?

Thanks again!
 
The Areca 1224 is the cut-down, less-expensive version of the 1800 controller, which only supports a maximum of 8 drives. Buying the expander for RAID purposes will be useless because it won't address the additional drives. If you look at the datasheet of their other controllers, it will state it supports up to 128/256 drives using an expander. The 1224 only lists supporting the internal 8. Unfortunately, with that controller you are locked at the number of physical devices it is hobbled to support.
 
mwroobel said:
The Areca 1224 is the cut-down, less-expensive version of the 1800 controller, which only supports a maximum of 8 drives. Buying the expander for RAID purposes will be useless because it won't address the additional drives. If you look at the datasheet of their other controllers, it will state it supports up to 128/256 drives using an expander. The 1224 only lists supporting the internal 8. Unfortunately, with that controller you are locked at the number of physical devices it is hobbled to support.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info!

I'll probably find something else then. Doesn't have to support all the fancy raid options, just JBOD for UnRaid. Any suggestions on what might work well with the HP expander card?
 
Go with an LSI 9211 or IBM M1015 flashed to IT mode, it will work fine for JBOD and the Expander. Just make sure that you flash the expander to the latest firmware or you may have your spinners negotiate 1.5 instead of 3.
 
mwroobel said:
Go with an LSI 9211 or IBM M1015 flashed to IT mode, it will work fine for JBOD and the Expander. Just make sure that you flash the expander to the latest firmware or you may have your spinners negotiate 1.5 instead of 3.
Click to expand...

LSI 9201 w/ 9211 IT mode fw ver P20.00.07.00 arriving this week. As I understand it, the 9201 is the same as 9211 except for nvram chip, which supposedly isn't used in IT mode. This is according to ebay seller theartofserver's youtube video on the subject.

How do I tell what firmware is on the expander card? If needed, what's the best procedure for updating it?

I really appreciate the information; I'm looking forward to learning about the LSI card and expander capabilities.
 
Yes, you're fine with the 9201. When you go into the megaraid util, it will show you the firmware of the attached SAS expanders and drives. To upgrade the firmware on the expander WITHOUT an HP SAS card, follow these instructions if you are using *nix, for Windows they are also buried somewhere in this thread.
 
mwroobel said:
Yes, you're fine with the 9201. When you go into the megaraid util, it will show you the firmware of the attached SAS expanders and drives. To upgrade the firmware on the expander WITHOUT an HP SAS card, follow these instructions if you are using *nix, for Windows they are also buried somewhere in this thread.
Click to expand...

Successfully installed Avago (LSI?) 2008 chipset based controller and HP expander last night. Pulled Areca 1220 out. UnRaid rebuilt perfectly, even though ports were changed all around, including some motherboard ports also. Amazing.

The expander card negotiates at sata 2 speed, 3Gbs, which is great for this use. UnRaid's parity check seems to throw quite a bit of i/o at the controller while it's doing its thing, so it seems if there were going to be i/o errors, at least on the 2 ports being used on the expander at this time, the system would have thrown out error messages. Seems like preliminary test of controller and expander is also a success.

If the expander card is negotiating at 3Gbs already, with no apparent i/o errors or issues, is there any point in checking the card's firmware version level? It would be nice to know, but if it's much of a chore to check and/or update, I can't see the point. Is this the proper way to think about this situation?

Edit: Just found the *nix command to get firmware level; it's currently at 2.06. Is this acceptable, or does it need to be upgraded?

Interesting choice of system names you have going there, big Tolkien fan here. I'm in the process of consolidating several systems into this UnRaid thingy using dockers & vm's. Found an asrock rack ep2c602-4ld16 with e5-2687w's and 128g of ram to accomplish this task.

Cheers!
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top