Fastpath now a standard feature on LSI cards with new firmware, but IBM??

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

bradcollins

New Member
Jan 2, 2014
3
0
0
Auckland, New Zealand
Fastpath is now a standard feature for firmware 5.7 and later on a bunch of cards:

MegaRAID FastPath Software


With MegaRAID Release 5.7 firmware or later, LSI FastPath software is now included as a standard feature on the following 6Gb/s MegaRAID SAS controller cards based on the LSI SAS 2208 ROC: 9265/9266/9270/9271/9285/9286 Series Controllers. It is also included as a standard feature on all 12Gb/s MegaRAID controllers


Now I have an IBM M5110 with the 1gb flash and raid 5 upgrade. The IBM site still lists feature keys for the parts and their change list makes no mention at all of fastpath now being a standard feature.

http://delivery04.dhe.ibm.com/sar/CMA/XSA/ibm_fw_sraidmr_5100-23.16.0-0027_windows_32-64.chg


The LSI firmware update listings do not have the same numbers as IBM, so it is hard to tell if it is now standard or not:

Download Agreement


I figure there are two ways around this, either cross flash the m5110 or update to the newest IBM firmware and hope they now include it as well although this would seem unlikely as they don't mention it. I'm a bit wary of doing firmware updates and wouldn't really want to do it unless there is a definite chance of actually achieving something!
 

MiniKnight

Well-Known Member
Mar 30, 2012
3,072
973
113
NYC
Nice find! Makes me want to go ebay hunting for LSI cards now. Maybe sounds ignorant as a question, but don't you need to flash the firmware to get fastpath on older LSI cards?
 

mobilenvidia

Moderator
Sep 25, 2011
1,956
212
63
New Zealand
You could only get Fastpath with the Cachecade key, fastpath is probably a better option to have, so well done LSI

Gain fastpath, loose JBOD support with new Firmware
 

bradcollins

New Member
Jan 2, 2014
3
0
0
Auckland, New Zealand
I won't be needing to use fastpath personally, I just thought it was an interesting feature. Do you know about flashing an M5110 to an LSI firmware - I'm interested in this for boot times mainly.

I'm running the M5110 in a Gigabyte X79 board, with an Intel RES2CV360 expander connected to 8x 3tb and 8x 4tb drives. I used to run an M5015 and an M5110 before I got the SAS expander.
 

Torayld

New Member
Mar 10, 2014
2
0
0
Fastpath is now a standard feature for firmware 5.7 and later on a bunch of cards:

MegaRAID FastPath Software


With MegaRAID Release 5.7 firmware or later, LSI FastPath software is now included as a standard feature on the following 6Gb/s MegaRAID SAS controller cards based on the LSI SAS 2208 ROC: 9265/9266/9270/9271/9285/9286 Series Controllers. It is also included as a standard feature on all 12Gb/s MegaRAID controllers


Now I have an IBM M5110 with the 1gb flash and raid 5 upgrade. The IBM site still lists feature keys for the parts and their change list makes no mention at all of fastpath now being a standard feature.

http://delivery04.dhe.ibm.com/sar/CMA/XSA/ibm_fw_sraidmr_5100-23.16.0-0027_windows_32-64.chg


The LSI firmware update listings do not have the same numbers as IBM, so it is hard to tell if it is now standard or not:

Download Agreement


I figure there are two ways around this, either cross flash the m5110 or update to the newest IBM firmware and hope they now include it as well although this would seem unlikely as they don't mention it. I'm a bit wary of doing firmware updates and wouldn't really want to do it unless there is a definite chance of actually achieving something!

i have m5110 fw 5.7 no fathpath enable by default, but ok with cachecade key
 
Last edited:

Rhinox

Member
May 27, 2013
144
26
18
OT: what actually is this "fastpath"?

LSI-web says "LSI MegaRAID FastPath software is a high-performance IO accelerator for Solid State Drive (SSD) arrays connected to a MegaRAID controller card". So it is some kind of software. But how does it work? I downloaded that pdf LSI has on web but still I do not understand a bit of it. As usually: a lot of promo bull*, some wonderful results, but nothing more. How can some software increase IOPS by factor 2?
 

Martin Thygesen

New Member
Jun 15, 2014
4
1
1
49
Is it possible to get cheap/free keys for the M5110 cards?
I have one flashed to LSI's latest firmware, however, there seems to be very little benefit without the soft keys.
I'm reluctant to buy keys particularly for something that i can't verify the benefit first.