HP SAS Expander Owner's Thread

izx said:
Anybody successfully using the expander with one of these x1-to-x16 adapters? (you need 3 motherboard standoffs to mount the whole setup securely to your case)
Click to expand...

How do you connect the power to this adapter?
 
Neb said:
With a motherboard, of course! :p
Click to expand...

He was talking about using 3 motherboard standoffs so I doubt that he was thinking of using a motherboard to power this adapter! Plus if you followed the thread you probably noticed that there are a bunch of people that are trying to find a low cost solution to power these expanders WITHOUT a motherboard! :)
 
treadstone said:
He was talking about using 3 motherboard standoffs so I doubt that he was thinking of using a motherboard to power this adapter! Plus if you followed the thread you probably noticed that there are a bunch of people that are trying to find a low cost solution to power these expanders WITHOUT a motherboard! :)
Click to expand...

I know, I just couldn't resist the comment as the picture leads me to believe that's the only way of getting power to it :) I'm also one of the "bunch of people" looking for a low cost solution.
 
Neb said:
I know, I just couldn't resist the comment as the picture leads me to believe that's the only way of getting power to it :) I'm also one of the "bunch of people" looking for a low cost solution.
Click to expand...

LOL, I thought I sort of recognized your user ID and found it rather odd that you would mention a motherboard :)
 
Does anyone know if this expander works with the HP P600 or the P800 cards? According to HP customer service it does not. But in the manuals of the P600 it says it supports Expanders and there aint that many expanders out there.
 
treadstone said:
How do you connect the power to this adapter?
Click to expand...

LOL! With a motherboard! The height of the adapter is about 3 motherboard standoffs, so even if the expander is plugged into the adapter, you can still secure it to the case if you "raise" the screw hole using 3 motherboard standoffs. As you pointed out earlier, these can be subject to some pretty rough mechanical forces so decent mounting is a must.

I might get one soon and try it out. I believe a lot of us have motherboards with (closed-ended) x1 or x4 slots that are otherwise going to waste. I'm assuming that since it is a true (i.e., data+power) lane-reduction adapter, there should be no problems with the PWRGD signal (introduced by the adapter).

Cheaper x16 risers (x16 -> x16, ~$5-6) are available on eBay. You would simply cut out a notch in the riser so it would fit in a closed-ended x1/x4 slot. I haven't found anything as low-profile as the Startech adapter though.
 
@izx, you could also just cut a slot into the x8 edge connector of the expander card if you don't want to open the end of a x1 or x4 connector on the motherboard if that's all you have available. That portion of the edge connector isn't used for anything other than strength anyway.

I'm not sure if you would get anywhere near the mechanical strength out of putting this adapter in between the expander and the motherboard and then using standoffs to secure the expander to the chassis than what you will need to support all of those SFF-8087 cables. The surface area of the standoff along with the length and the x1 adapter will make this a very weak installation. I foresee that the standoffs along with the x1 riser/adapter would act like a hinge!

I would suggest you try mounting any kind of I/O adapter to the chassis with 3 standoffs, even if you don't have the adapter right now to see how much strength you will get out of that!
 
xnoodle said:
Finally got the cables in last night. I'm tempted to red the eBay seller I got them from. 3 weeks from clicking "buy it now" to receiving the cables. Sigh.
Click to expand...

Not unusual if they shipped from HK/China. If the seller claimed they were shipping from the US definitely give a negative!
 
Does anyone else here have an enclosure with hot-swap drive bays that have fault indicator LEDs next to each drive bay that are controllable via the SAS controller and uses the HP SAS expander?

If so, please list your configuration (including firmware used with each):

- Controller
- Backplane
- SES2 control enabled or SMP mode used
- Fault LEDs are controllable or not

In my setup, I can either see all the drives and have no fault LEDs or I can use all the fault LEDs and only see 2 drives (first drive on each SAS expander). What I find interesting is that if I have SES2 control disabled, the expanders show PHY#0 to PHY#31 with PHY#0 to PHY#23 listing the 24 drives connected to each expander and PHY#24 to PHY#31 as N.A. (meaning there is nothing connected to those last 8 ports). Now if I enable SES2 support, the expanders show SLOT#1 to SLOT#24 (actual available drive bays on the backplanes) but unfortunately only SLOT#1 of each expander shows a drive and SLOT#2 to SLOT#24 show N.A. :(
 
Code: 
Controller's mapping mode does not support external enclosures. 
System has halted due to unsupported configuration. Please disconnect any extern
al
enclosures that are connected to this controller and reboot the system. 
Please contact technical support for further assistance.

^ PERC 5/i connected to the HP SAS expander.
Breaks in white space preserved for giggles.

Good news is that it sees the expander. Bad news is it's not supported ^_^

My system halts here, and I can't continue on to see if the management software sees the drives.
 
You could reflash your PERC with the LSI firmware if you want to :)
Its the same card it just says Dell on it, and Dell puts a custom BIOS/Firmware on it.
 
Here is the way I have my controller connected via the expanders to the backplanes/drives:

Code: 
ARC-1680I Port SCN1 <---> Port 9C EXP1 Port 1C - Not Used (External)
          Port SCN2 <-+                Port 2C <---> BP01 > Drive 01-04
                      |                Port 3C <---> BP02 > Drive 05-08
                      |                Port 4C <---> BP03 > Drive 09-12
                      |                Port 5C <---> BP04 > Drive 13-16
                      |                Port 6C <---> BP05 > Drive 17-20
                      |                Port 7C <---> BP06 > Drive 21-24
                      |                Port 8C - Not Used
                      +-> Port 9C EXP2 Port 1C - Not Used (External)
                                       Port 2C <---> BP07 > Drive 25-28
                                       Port 3C <---> BP08 > Drive 29-32
                                       Port 4C <---> BP09 > Drive 31-36
                                       Port 5C <---> BP10 > Drive 37-40
                                       Port 6C <---> BP11 > Drive 41-44
                                       Port 7C <---> BP12 > Drive 45-48
                                       Port 8C - Not Used

<---> = MOLEX 79576-2103 600mm SFF-8087 Mini-SAS Cable with Sidebands
EXPx  = HP SAS Expander 468406-B21
BPxx  = Chenbro 4-Port Mini-SAS Backplane 80H103215-013 ver. B0

With this setup I can either have all the drives with no fault LEDs or I can have all the fault LEDs but only two drives :(

Does anyone have an Areca ARC-1680 and Chenbro expanders and an enclosure with controllable fault LEDs? I'd like to figure out if this is a controller or expander issue. Any help would be much appreciated.
 
I have some servers with Chenbro RM31616ML chasis which have a SAS (non-expander) backplane with 4 SFF-8087 connectors. The Areca 1680ix-16 controllers are connected only by 4 SFF-8087 cables (with sidebands) to the backplane. So no SAS expanders except the one built into the Areca. All the fault and activity LEDs work perfectly without me doing anything special, just default configuration. Once I tried connecting with 3ware SFF-8087 cables, but then the fault LEDs did not work, since the 3ware cables do not have the sideband wires connected.
 
Will do.

before ...

Product Name: PERC 5/i
Package: 5.2.1-0067
FW Version: 1.03.40-0316
Bios Version: MT28-8
CtrlR Version: 1.04-019A
Boot Block Ver: R.2.3.12

after ...
Package: 7.0.1-0066
FW Version: 1.12.230-0598
BIOS Version: MT33
CtrlR Version: 1.04-019A
Boot Block Ver: R.2.3.15

Code: 
Attached Enclosure doesn't support in controller's Direct mapping mode
Please contact your system support.
System has halted due to unsupported configuration.

Even more cryptic. Go go engrish.
 
update on the SAS expander with HP P212.
The P212 I have is the /ZM version, w/o any cache memory. I can't use the expander with P212/ZM as HPACU crapped out with "expander ... require memory module".

I can't use P212/ZM to flash the firmware of expander either. Please update the first post...

One thing I found is that the flash program with .scexe suffix is actually linux shell code. You don't need to boot to HP maintenance CD to execute that file. I copied it to CentOS and it runs fine there.
 
@ john4200:

If I connect the ARC-1680I to the first two backplanes directly (no expander involved), the fault LEDs work perfectly and it doesn't matter if I have SES2 enabled or disabled. I'm thinking I may have to go with two ARC-1680ix-24 controller cards instead of the ARC-1680i and two HP SAS expander cards if I can't get this sorted out/fixed :(
 
treadstone said:
@ john4200:

If I connect the ARC-1680I to the first two backplanes directly (no expander involved), the fault LEDs work perfectly and it doesn't matter if I have SES2 enabled or disabled. I'm thinking I may have to go with two ARC-1680ix-24 controller cards instead of the ARC-1680i and two HP SAS expander cards if I can't get this sorted out/fixed :(
Click to expand...

I have had really bad experiences in the past with SAS expanders not working the way I would expect. I had high hopes for the HP SAS Expander after reading much of this thread, but now think that my original attitude ("fear the SAS Expander") is back. At this point, I think the only SAS Expander I would consider would be a Supermicro backplane, and that combined with a Supermicro HBA and Supermicro motherboard. But I hate to use Supermicro/LSI HBAs in linux, since it seems most of the linux LSI drivers have bugs that keep the HBAs from working reliably, especially with smartctl.
 
treadstone said:
@ john4200:

If I connect the ARC-1680I to the first two backplanes directly (no expander involved), the fault LEDs work perfectly and it doesn't matter if I have SES2 enabled or disabled. I'm thinking I may have to go with two ARC-1680ix-24 controller cards instead of the ARC-1680i and two HP SAS expander cards if I can't get this sorted out/fixed :(
Click to expand...

that's going to be a hefty premium just for gaining fault LED's -- especially if its something Areca ends up fixing. I've already made them aware of the issue. They stated they hadn't done any testing with an HP expander and thus weren't sure about a resolution until they got one. You might try emailing them so they hear about it from multiple people. support <<AT>> areca.com.tw

For now i'm perfectly happy without the fault LED's since when there's a drive issue i'm hearing about it from the high pitch beeper and email notifications first anyway.
 
Well on my norco when i have a drive failure the LED is marked appropriately.

Makes me think its something on that case.
 
Well, I have been in contact with Areca support for the past few days on this issue, I have to say I am VERY impressed with their customer support so far. They haven't been able to resolve this problem yet, but the speed and the fact that they are actually responding is awesome! They still need to get a HP SAS expander card for testing.

Maybe Dustin has a 'spare' one available? :)
 
nitrobass24 said:
Well on my norco when i have a drive failure the LED is marked appropriately.

Makes me think its something on that case.
Click to expand...

There are different ways of implementing enclosure control, e.g. I2C or SGPIO...

The weird thing I found is that once the SES2 control is enabled, the HP SAS expander reports the correct amount of slots/drives to the controller card, but only reports shows the first drive as actually installed/available. So hopefully that is just an interpretation/communication issue between the expander and the controller card. Come to think of it, I wonder if this has something to do with the fact that the HP SAS expander reorders the slots. In a 24 slot system it looks like this:

Normally the slot assignment should be (left to right):
01 02 03 04
05 06 07 08
09 10 11 12
13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24

Through the HP SAS expander it looks like this:

04 03 02 01
08 07 06 05
12 11 10 09
16 15 14 13
20 19 18 17
24 23 22 21

So maybe the slot/drive assignment gets messed up and hence it only shows or recognizes one drive?!?
 
nitrobass24 said:
Well on my norco when i have a drive failure the LED is marked appropriately.

Makes me think its something on that case.
Click to expand...

I forgot to ask, do you use an Areca 1680 type RAID controller with an HP SAS expander?

If so, I assume you had to disable SES2 control?!?
 
nitrobass24 said:
I have the 1680x and I do have SES2 Disabled.
Click to expand...

So let me see if I understand this correctly, you have your 1680x connected via a SFF-8087 internal cable to the HP SAS expander and then the expander connected via a SFF-8087 cable to the norco backplane. No other connections between the controller and the expander or backplane and the backplane turns the fault LED on or off when there is a drive fault?

Can you control the fault LED of each slot via the Areca web interface or through the controllers BIOS?
 
I have 1680x-->SFF8088-->external port on HP-->SFF8087 Breakout-->4020 Backplane

In the web interface i can "Identify Drive" and my LED is solid RED.
 
Ok, you said you use a breakout cable to connect the HP expander to the 4020 backplane. Does your breakout cable have a separate sideband connector and is that connected to any headers on the backplane?

What drives do you use?
 
nitrobass24 said:
No sideband

Hitachi 2TB
Click to expand...

So what controls the fault LEDs if you don't use the sideband signaling?

I assume that you are talking about a SFF-8087 to 4 x SATA breakout cable for the Norco 4020?

Each backplane has 4 SATA connectors and two power connectors and nothing else connected, correct?
 
Activity LEDs can and usually are controlled directly by the drive through the P11 pin on the SATA power connector:

Pin: P11
Function: Reserved - Support staggered spin-up and LED activity

However there is no support on the SATA connector for fault LEDs, so if there is no sideband or I2C connection to the backplane, what controls the fault LEDs ??!??
 
The Norco cases don't have dedicated fault LED's, only power and activity LED's. From Nitrobass' posts, it sounds like the Areca can use the activity LED as a fault LED. I think the LSI 1068E controller on my mobo can so this as well.
 
Oh, ok, that would explain a LOT :D

My Chenbro enclosure has a blue power LED and a green/red activity/fault led. I'm after controlling the red fault LED, which I can if I enable the SES2 control function but only see the first drive on the expander.
 
epimetheus said:
The Norco cases don't have dedicated fault LED's, only power and activity LED's. From Nitrobass' posts, it sounds like the Areca can use the activity LED as a fault LED. I think the LSI 1068E controller on my mobo can so this as well.
Click to expand...

O..
 
treadstone said:
Oh, ok, that would explain a LOT :D

My Chenbro enclosure has a blue power LED and a green/red activity/fault led. I'm after controlling the red fault LED, which I can if I enable the SES2 control function but only see the first drive on the expander.
Click to expand...

If I were you I'd leave things as is with SES2 disabled and move on while Areca works this out and fixes this sync/communication issue so that SES2 can go back to being enabled - several of us have emailed them already, I'm confident they'll get it resolved. I certainly wouldn't go sinking thousands into 1680ix-24 cards, unless not having the fault LED for now is going to keep you up at night. :)
 
Last edited:
Treadstone, if you mark a drive for removal with SES2 disabled does it make your activity light solid like it does for me?
 
@odditory:

Man I have BIG black circles around my eyes already since I can't get any sleep over this damn fault LED issue :D Just kidding.

The reason I was trying to figure out what is causing this problem is because I am thinking of building a 4U drawer style enclosure but designing my own backplane for it.

@nitrobass24:

No they do not turn on, I assume that is because of the dedicated fault LEDs, but I could be wrong.

I assume your activity LEDs are red?

On my enclosure the upper LED is the power (blue) indicator and the lower LED is the activity/fault (green/red) indicator.
 
treadstone said:
@odditory:

Man I have BIG black circles around my eyes already since I can't get any sleep over this damn fault LED issue :D Just kidding.

The reason I was trying to figure out what is causing this problem is because I am thinking of building a 4U drawer style enclosure but designing my own backplane for it.

@nitrobass24:

No they do not turn on, I assume that is because of the dedicated fault LEDs, but I could be wrong.

I assume your activity LEDs are red?

On my enclosure the upper LED is the power (blue) indicator and the lower LED is the activity/fault (green/red) indicator.
Click to expand...

Yea i have red LEDs.

Also if you are designing your own Backplane it would be cheaper to develop some that dont have onboard logic, like those in the Norco's. This would also make your activity/fail LED the same, but it would be a simpler(read: Cheaper) design and the end result is nearly the same, and would provide adequate information to a user
 
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