Dell PERC H700 adapter

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ftln

New Member
Aug 14, 2017
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Hello,

I would like to flash my Dell PERC H700 Adapter so it becomes a 9260-8i
My H700 is the Adapter version with 2 x mini sas and I also got the BBU and 512mb Cache :



As I understand I need to :

1) Flash the SBR to 9260-8i version (making sure to back up first) and then flash the new SBR
Megarec -readsbr 0 backuph700.sbr
megarec -writesbr 0 sbr9260.BIN

2) Clear the old bios
megarec -cleanflash 0

3)
Reboot ctrl alt del

4) Flash the new bios
megarec -m0flash 0 9260.rom

5) Reboot and configure the Raid 0 ctrl-c

Does anybody know where I can get the correct SBR for turning the H700 into a 9260-8i and if the latest rom from broadcom download page should work ?

If somebody has this can they upload it ?

Do I need to flash anything else ?

Also what would be best raid settings for 4 x Samsung 840 pro SSD's ?

Thanks in advance guys :)
 

Terry Kennedy

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Jun 25, 2015
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www.glaver.org
I would like to flash my Dell PERC H700 Adapter so it becomes a 9260-8i
[...]
Also what would be best raid settings for 4 x Samsung 840 pro SSD's ?
Why do you want to flash it? You're not looking for IT mode, since you also asked about RAID. I have a number of systems with H700s running Dell firmware (12.10.7-0001). The only issue is that the Dell firmware will warn you about non-Dell drives.

The further you get from the generic LSI "reference design", the more problems you may have. For example, the Dell PERC H200E has a pair of external LEDs (one per connector) that the generic firmware doesn't know about, so they're always on and orange. The Dell firmware knows about them and operates them appropriately. The PERC H700 is a much more complicated card and I don't know if the generic firmware will enable the cache memory and BBU.
 

ftln

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Aug 14, 2017
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Hi Terry,

In fact when I bought the card, in the description it said "Can be flashed to 9260-8i" so I am just presuming that this is a better firmware and may enable me to get better performance from a raid 0 . Also, I just thought it would be fun to compare the performance of both :)
 

frogtech

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Jan 4, 2016
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Honestly I can't imagine that Dell would be selling, supporting, and maintaining its equipment in the field that performs worse than the design its based on. I know what you're thinking and I would think the same thing; that the 'unadulterated' LSI firmware that comes from the company that designed it in the first place would be unarguably superior, but this is sort of an appeal to 'nature' which itself is rooted in fallacious reasoning.

Run the stock firmware with some drives and see what kind of drive performance you get. If it's on par with what the drive manufacturer advertises I wouldn't even bother flashing.
 

RollieInDC

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Sep 13, 2018
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... in the description it said "Can be flashed to 9260-8i" ...
Aye, there appears to be "the rub".

The card you are showing is not the H700i (internal card for later systems), but an H700 (like I have on my PowerEdge T310). The 9260-8i is likely for the H700i, and I am not sure (but would love it if it did)... it can be used on the H700. The two cards (and firmware) are different. (Boo!)
 

Terry Kennedy

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Jun 25, 2015
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The card you are showing is not the H700i (internal card for later systems), but an H700 (like I have on my PowerEdge T310). The 9260-8i is likely for the H700i, and I am not sure (but would love it if it did)... it can be used on the H700. The two cards (and firmware) are different. (Boo!)
There are 3 versions of H700 - H700 Integrated (no bracket, goes in a dedicated internal PCIe slot in Dell servers), H700 (PCIe card with bracket) and H700 Modular (for blade servers). I'll leave the Modular version out of this since it isn't physically compatible with the other 2 versions, but the Integrated and regular versions of the H700 can be interchanged. Dell systems will complain about regular versions in the Integrated slot and vice versa, but it is possible to cross-flash the other Dell firmware. I don't remember if Dell checks the NVDATA or if there is a different PCIe subvendor/subdevice on the 2 cards.