LSI SAS 9265-8i 6Gb/s 1GB cache RAID 170$ !?!

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canta

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Nov 26, 2014
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Crap..that sucks (i think?) . from what i understand (however i dont have any experience with OEM vs original parts except for HDDs and its been bad on those).

and OEM card like in this example, is NOT a good thing, right?

I loose direct support from LSI, and no ability to run/update with LSI firmware?

any thing else im missing or am incorrect on? Im kinda stressing now that i have the card coming in friday (about 48 hours from now).

EDIT: Klree is right, this is a dell OEM card.... see this link with the same qr code and listed as dell/LSI
link

tks
that should be ok compared with the OEM Price versus Retail Price.

as I know, Dell is pretty strict on firmware. that should be an alternate way to flash with LSI firmware.

I just have experience with OEM IBM-LSI cards, can be flashed not hardly
OEM Dell-LSI, can be a bit hard, but I am not taking risk, such as: flash my Dell H200 to 6G IT version (dell firmware).

check on Dell site to know the features no the card, Sometime a bit different than retail LSI card.

Overall, I bought OEM cards and do not have issue at all as long as I know OEM features and what is missing.
 
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bug2th

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Long time lurker but I thought I would add to this as it caught my eye - I went to the Dell site and checked their firmware updates for this controller vs the LSI site - the last Dell firmware was on 8/12 - compared that to the same LSI update and they are the exact same ROM (basically they just repackage the ROM for various OSs but the ROM itself is the same) so it looks like Dell doesnt add or change anything to the firmware. LSI has later updates for the controller - last was 11/14. Someone else may want to verify..

-------------------------------------

that should be ok compared with the OEM Price versus Retail Price.

as I know, Dell is pretty strict on firmware. that should be an alternate way to flash with LSI firmware.

I just have experience with OEM IBM-LSI cards, can be flashed not hardly
OEM Dell-LSI, can be a bit hard, but I am not taking risk, such as: flash my Dell H200 to 6G IT version (dell firmware).

check on Dell site to know the features no the card, Sometime a bit different than retail LSI card.

Overall, I bought OEM cards and do not have issue at all as long as I know OEM features and what is missing.
 
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MatrixMJK

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I wanted to confirm that the four 9265-8i's I have were pulled from Dell integrated servers and the firmware has no mention of Dell in the POST screens or config utility. They were purchased from Dell in those servers, but are not customized or branded in any way I can find. The LSI 9265 firmware has flashed just fine on them. Some of the Dell servers we have with custom slot RAID controllers are LSI chipsets but do have Dell branding in the firmware/software, but that is to be expected on nonstandard/non-PCIe hardware. Mine all look like Dell bought them from LSI, popped them in the servers and shipped them.

...Just a caveat, these were purchased two years ago, and as we all know things can be different in the wilds of eBay.
 
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james23

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Nov 18, 2014
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Please let us know how those batteries are / run, 65$ (85 with shipping from chiiina) is pretty decent deal for a 9265 battery (althought it is an off brand).

hate to say it but it looks like the real LSI battery can be had NEW, for 85$ (93 shipped):

ebay link


this guy has IBM M5016 (9265s) WITH NO CACHE IT LOOKS LIKE, for 125$ shipped, FROM TAIWAN (IBM OEM, clearly, im always skeptical of hardware from china/asia though, just me):

ebay link

--
for anyone looking for a direct link to the drivers and docs and firmware for the 9265-8i direct on LSI's site, here is the link:

LSI link
(if you search for it and dont use the above link, you have to select "legacy raid controllers")
 
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james23

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Well it looks like the adapter i got in is DOA or somehow defective.

PersonalJ, did you card work out of the box? or how has it beein going with the one you got?

When i power up it beeps 4 times and keeps doing this every 5 seconds or so. Then at the BIOS screen i get this message (see pict below). anyone know what this means?

IMG_4727.JPG

tks
 

li442il

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Dec 28, 2014
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Please let us know how those batteries are / run, 65$ (85 with shipping from chiiina) is pretty decent deal for a 9265 battery (althought it is an off brand).

it's the super capacitor model not a standard battery (you can see "6.4f" it stands for farads unit to measure capacitor capacity).





Some advantages compared to a BBU:

  • A traditional BBU loses cached data after 72 hours without restored power. CacheVault technology stores the contents of DRAM on NAND flash for up to three years.
  • No BBU/battery replacement necessary
  • 3 years of guaranty instead of 1 year for BBUs
More info : LSI CacheVault Flash Cache - Thomas-Krenn-Wiki
 
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PersonalJ

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May 17, 2013
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Well it looks like the adapter i got in is DOA or somehow defective.

PersonalJ, did you card work out of the box? or how has it beein going with the one you got?

When i power up it beeps 4 times and keeps doing this every 5 seconds or so. Then at the BIOS screen i get this message (see pict below). anyone know what this means?

View attachment 164

tks
My card worked fine for the brief period of time I used it in a Supermicro X9SRW-F motherboard. I need to finish setting up that server up either today or tomorrow.
 
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james23

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My card worked fine for the brief period of time I used it in a Supermicro X9SRW-F motherboard. I need to finish setting up that server up either today or tomorrow.
Ok tks for the update. Please post back as soon as u try upgrading it to a real Lsi firmware.

I ask because I need to decide if I want to return this for replacement or a full refund and then instead buy a real LSI card (not a Dell OEM).

Note: LSI support did provide me with private instructions for trying to do a mode0 firmware flash, as they have seen some cards based on the LSI 2208 CPU exhibit this issue, however running the mode zero firmware flash did seem to write the firmware and successfully verified it, however the card still does not work, as soon as it gets power it does the four beeps and won't show up to the Lsi bios (tried 4 motherboards now) I also tried booting into Linux and seeing if mega CLI would see the card but it does not, even when I put in a working LSI card , mega sees the working one but does not see this new Dell OEM 9265-8i

Tks a lot!
 

PersonalJ

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May 17, 2013
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Ok tks for the update. Please post back as soon as u try upgrading it to a real Lsi firmware.

I ask because I need to decide if I want to return this for replacement or a full refund and then instead buy a real LSI card (not a Dell OEM).

Note: LSI support did provide me with private instructions for trying to do a mode0 firmware flash, as they have seen some cards based on the LSI 2208 CPU exhibit this issue, however running the mode zero firmware flash did seem to write the firmware and successfully verified it, however the card still does not work, as soon as it gets power it does the four beeps and won't show up to the Lsi bios (tried 4 motherboards now) I also tried booting into Linux and seeing if mega CLI would see the card but it does not, even when I put in a working LSI card , mega sees the working one but does not see this new Dell OEM 9265-8i

Tks a lot!
The firmware loaded on the card appeared to be real LSI firmware.
 

myrison

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Jan 26, 2011
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Thanks OP for posting the deal originally. I ended up ordering one today as well. I was last (sort of) :) active on STH the last time I built my current home media server 3-4 years ago, and I've been lurking here more often as I was considering an upgrade to a a SATA III capable RAID controller.

This was just the deal I was looking for (assuming my card is functional). I went ahead and ordered the card and the battery (from the US shipper), and will post back once I have a chance to experiment with it next weekend. Thanks for postings. Fingers crossed that all works out fine. Hope you get your situation sorted as well with your current card.
 
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myrison

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@james23 - You've probably googled the heck out of this at this point, but in hunting around a bit I ran across this firmware upgrade from Dell where they mention one of the things it fixes is the error message you are seeing on the screen:

LSI 9265-8i & LSI 9285-8e SAS RAID card FW Driver Details | Dell US

"Error Message "incompatible secondary iButton present!" or "BIOS handshaking With The FW,Wait" shown"

Can you update the firmware when it's erroring out at the BIOS boot screen or are you stuck there because the system doesn't recognize the device at all once booted?
 
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james23

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Thanks a lot for helping,

To answer your question, I can't update the firmware as my system doesn't even see the device. I did try putting in a working LSI card along with this bad one and the system will then see the working but not the bad one.

However with the private mode zero flash that LSI support provided to me, I am able to flash the card via that method (it involves using a DOS boot USB stick- however after successfully flashing via mode0 I still get the same result which support says means I then need to RMA/ return the card).

I am going to try downloading that firmware you linked from dell, and editing the bat file for the mode zero flash and seeing if I can get it to load that Dell firmware onto the card, at this point I have nothing to lose as I'm hoping to ship the card back tomorrow for replacement or refund.

I'll update this thread after I try that. Thanks again!
 

james23

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HOLY *#$&%& that worked (doing a mode 0 flash and subbing the stock LSI FW with this specific dell FW )!!

Im still not sure if im going to keep the card or not , bc it would seem now that:

1) this card is not new (it was sold as new , unopened, and LSI, no mention of DELL) but it must have been opened and someone tried to flash this card to an LSI firmware which apparently will *nearly* brick the card (i say nearly bc when doing the mode 0 flash as directed by LSI support, im essentially flashing the card to a LSI firmware for this card and that clearly didnt work) EDIT: looking though the LSI webBios (now that the card is functioning) its def not new, there are lots of entries in the event log from the prior owner/user

2) It would appear that i cant use LSI firmware and have to use dell FW which i dont want (and wouldn't have bought this card had the seller disclosed that it was a Dell OEM) - im going to test this by flashing a LSI FW and will report back, but i wanted to get this message up asap for the reason below:

3) it seems really hard to find info on this card on dell's website. (info being FW updates or any kind of info at all, i cant find it when searching dells support pages nor the dell enterprise storage support pages)

4) NO RAID 6 ?! maybe im missing something when it comes to LSI controllers, (this is my first real production use of LSI hardware, ive tested with it many times), but im not seeing the option for Raid 6 on this card - as a test ive attached 4x SATA drives, they come up, when using the config. wizard via the webBIOS i get the options for raid 0, raid1 and raid 5 but no raid6 option. One thing i noticed that was different, is that in webBIOS under "Advanced Software Options" is an entry for Raid 5 "unlimited license". Is this maybe a restiction because the card is a Dell OEM (in that they only allow or license raid 5 but not raid 6?). I hope someone more familair with LSI can chime in on this, maybe im missing something obvious about making a Raid6 array via WebBIOS.
Here is what im refering to:
1)IMG_4765.JPG
2)IMG_4766.JPG


++hey PERSONAL J , beware, flashing this card to an LSI FW may *nearly* brick the card (i say nearly bc apparently doing a mode 0 flash and subbing in this specific Dell FW will get the card alive again), but you have to contact LSI support to get the files to do the mode 0 flash (or if you PM me i'll send you the link / file, i hope lsi is ok with this :/ ).

im also going to stress test the heck out of this card before i decided if im going to use it or going to return it and get a real LSI 9265-8i card (not a dell OEM 9265-8i)

EDIT: wow, from the webBios (lsi) it appears as if the card is not showing the 1gb of cache, can someone please confirm if/where in the webBIOS interface it shows the controllers Cache amount (this card was sold as having 1GB of cache, and it does have the add on board, as i have seen the IBM OEM version of this 9265-8i sold without the 1gb cache board connected).

Ebay link for this exact cards listing. (dell OEM 9265-8i)
Ebay link for a IBM OEM of the 9265-8i without the cache pcb connected/sold
 
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myrison

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Jan 26, 2011
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HOLY *#$&%& that worked (doing a mode 0 flash and subbing the stock LSI FW with this specific dell FW )!!
WHOA. That was all unexpected, but we're further along than we were yesterday at least. One more suggestion. There is a newer firmware on Dell's site for this 9265-8i from November 2013. (It's marked as "latest" for what that's worth from Dell).

I'm curious whether the lack of reported cache and lack of RAID 6 options are coming from that version of the firmware. Maybe the 'latest' one will correct those issues? I also saw in a couple of reviews in the past (on NewEgg) that some options were limited if you didn't have a Battery Backup, but that also was on LSI's firmware, not Dell, so that may be a red herring.

Obviously the LSI firmware would be the strong preference here, so if you get that working please let us know. I'm guessing others here have experimented with flashing LSI over Dell FW in the past and am hoping someone more knowledgeable will chime in here
 

myrison

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Jan 26, 2011
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More clues here on cross-flashing from Dell to LSI if you're feeling adventurous. (not complete instructions, but it appears to point in the right direction) Hoping you are able to make some progress. Good luck.
 
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canta

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This is dellizer firmware.
Visit dell website to check the spec on
Raid6 requirement.
I know HP forced me too have license to use raid 6. And bbu or supercap must be installed.

The safeway is sticking with dell firmware. Or trying hard crossflashing and hope nothing wrong in the future.
Such as. IBM m1015 flashed to 9211 it that has been proved working without issue by many users..
 

myrison

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Jan 26, 2011
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Thanks Canta. I've dug all over the Dell website to try to find anything other than firmware for this device, and Dell makes it impossible to find. I do suspect RAID 6 might be limited to BBU, so I'll be able to rule that out once mine comes in later this week. I'm new to the concept of cross-flashing, so I'm not sure the risks involved there or how hard it'll be to pull off, so I'm hoping james has some ideas there too. :)