Still having issues with SATA drives attached to LSI 9200-8e

T

twyrick

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I started a different message thread in here recently about issues getting my HP MicroServer N40L to communicate properly with 4 SATA drives I put in an external enclosure.

Basically, what was happening is that my LSI Logic 9200-8e HBA card I put in the MicroServer would generate a slew of timeout errors in FreeBSD / FreeNAS, v11 and keep "resetting" during the initial boot process.

I finally discovered that if I pulled all the drives out of the enclosure except for 1 of them (and it didn't seem to matter which one), it would boot correctly and see that drive in FreeNAS.

Because I had a relatively unknown situation with the cable I was using to go between the LSI card and the enclosure (back of LSI card is your typical Mini-SAS connector, but the back of this drive enclosure has the older SFF-8470 port on it -- so used a cable from MonoPrice that went between the two connections) ... I decided to RMA the cable and try a different approach.

I ordered a "fan out" Miini-SAS to 4 internal SATA connector cable. And even though this drive enclosure is a Chinese "no name brand" thing? I identified the 4 drive cage and hot-swap tray setup inside it as the iStarUSA BPU-340SATA (which got some top reviews on web sites, some years back). So I connected the 4 fan-out SATA cables to the 4 ports on the back of this cage, bypassing the SFF-8470 port and SATA cables coming off of the circuit card it was attached to. Was *sure* this should work, but nope! Exact same issue!

I even went so far as setting up an old HP Proliant 350G6 server with the LSI Logic card inserted in it, to see if it, too, would do the same thing with a FreeNAS installation. It did - ruling out my initial question about possible compatibility issues using the card in the little MicroServer.

So ..... I guess at this point, people are just going to tell me I have a defective drive enclosure here? And that may be the case. But is anyone out here familiar with ths iStarUSA BPU-340SATA series of cages? Is there a reason I shouldn't be expecting one of these to connect up to a SAS controller in this manner?
 
Since you ordered "fan-out" cables did you try bypassing the enclosure entirely and plug in the cables directly to the drives with SATA power directly from a PSU? In other words did you try mounting the drives *OUTSIDE* the enclosure?

I'm wondering if you have a bad controller, not a bad enclosure since the problem moved with the controller to another box.
 
Yes! I finally took that step, bypassing the enclosure and connecting the drives up directly -- and you're right. Had the same issue!
So now I know the controller is my problem.

What I'm now starting to wonder though is, could my LSI 9200-8e card actually be working normally -- but this is just a limitation of this model of adapter?

(I was looking at one of the HP SAS expander PCIe cards they used to sell, and it had a number of internal Mini-SAS ports on it, but also one external Mini-SAS port, which it specified was "for tape drives only".)

That made me think perhaps this 9200 card is the same way; designed for a single device like a tape backup drive, and not really for trying to run 4 hard drives through each port on the back of it? That might explain why it seemed to work fine whenever I only put one SATA drive in my enclosure?


rtangwai said:
Since you ordered "fan-out" cables did you try bypassing the enclosure entirely and plug in the cables directly to the drives with SATA power directly from a PSU? In other words did you try mounting the drives *OUTSIDE* the enclosure?

I'm wondering if you have a bad controller, not a bad enclosure since the problem moved with the controller to another box.
Click to expand...
 
I'm leaning the same way as you on that - I use a M1015 reflashed to LSI 9211-8i and a HP SAS expander and have no issues. Mine has only internal ports so connecting the two boards was pretty easy.

Hmmm, what would happen if you connected a HP SAS expander to your 9200-8e? Maybe that would allow multiple drives as the SAS expander adds ports?
 
What drives are you using (and have you tried any other models)? Are you able to detect the drives in the pre-boot CLI? I've got a 9280-8E and (unlike my areca 1882) have had no issues with any drives I've thrown at it (12x146gb 15k SAS, 8x1tb barracudaES, and even 8x128gb samsung 840pros).
 
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