Broadcom HBA 9500-16i doesn't seem to support NVMe drives.

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fjstore

Member
Jan 17, 2019
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Hi everyone,
I recently purchased a 9500-16i, but I've run into a few issues. I'm unable to update the official firmware, and it doesn't seem to support NVMe drives.
Also, there's no BIOS screen during boot, and the device isn't detected in my motherboard's BIOS settings. However, once the OS loads, I can successfully read the hardware info using storcli.
Does anyone know how I can get it to support NVMe drives? I've already tried running erase all and then flashing the FW and BIOS, but it didn't work.
Any advice would be appreciated!"
 
I

i386

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Mar 18, 2016
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fjstore said:
I'm unable to update the official firmware
Click to expand...
What happens/doesn't happen?
What os?
What files did you use?
What versions?
What version is currently flashed?

I have two 9500-8i hbas here and when I update the firmware there are 2 files I can choose from, one for sata/sas only (HBA_9500-8i_SAS_SATA_Profile.bin) and one for mixed (sata/sas/nvme, HBA_9500-8i_Mixed_Profile.bin)
 
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fjstore

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Jan 17, 2019
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I tried both the P36 versions of both Mixed Profile and SAS+SATA (files HBA_9500-16i_Mixed_Profile.bin and HBA_9500-16i_SAS_SATA_Profile.bin)

Command: storcli /c0 download file=HBA_9500-16i_Mixed_Profile.bin


Downloading image.Please wait...

CLI Version = 007.2807.0000.0000 Dec 22, 2023
Operating system = Linux 6.6.44-production+truenas
Controller = 0
Status = Failure
Description = Flash image contains invalid secure hash key.
 
H

huacz_2004

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May 5, 2020
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I encountered the same situation. This card seems to be from an OEM, but I don't know which one, so I don't know where to download the firmware
 
A

ano

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Nov 7, 2022
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you do not want any nvme, through that controller.

it works, but its sooooooooooo horrible.
turn your nvme into a sata
 
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i386

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ano

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i386 said:
I've seen poost like this this for multiple generations of broadcom hbas. Is it a rumor or a fact? Do people confuse it with the weirtd things microsoft does with their storage stack in windows? (see Announcing Native NVMe in Windows Server 2025: Ushering in a New Era of Storage Performance | Microsoft Community Hub)
Click to expand...
its my own (and our company) experience with the HBA's


windows nvme performance, with new versions in 2025, is amazingly fast, unrelated to the HBA's and reqire direct pcie
 
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fjstore

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Jan 17, 2019
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Hi everyone, does anyone have the UART pinout/wiring diagram for the 9500-16i? Also, what tools do I need to read the debug logs when flashing the firmware?
 
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twin_savage

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Jan 26, 2018
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i386 said:
I've seen poost like this this for multiple generations of broadcom hbas. Is it a rumor or a fact?
Click to expand...
There is some truth to this, the Broadcom HBA's abstract NVMe disks and present them as a SCSI disks to the OS, be it Windows or Linux and some performance is lost under most circumstances. The performance is still okay though, much faster than any SATA drive would be.

Some of the better hardware raid controllers actually have a native NVMe presentation firmware that will present the NVMe disks/volumes to the OS as NVMe and the performance overhead mostly goes away.
 
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fjstore

Member
Jan 17, 2019
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twin_savage said:
There is some truth to this, the Broadcom HBA's abstract NVMe disks and present them as a SCSI disks to the OS, be it Windows or Linux and some performance is lost under most circumstances. The performance is still okay though, much faster than any SATA drive would be.

Some of the better hardware raid controllers actually have a native NVMe presentation firmware that will present the NVMe disks/volumes to the OS as NVMe and the performance overhead mostly goes away.
Click to expand...
Yes, actually, when NVMe goes through a chip conversion, it still runs on the SAS protocol instead of the PCIe protocol, so the speed is significantly reduced
 
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