Flash/Crossflash DELL H330 RAID Card to HBA330/12Gbps HBA IT Firmware

[aggelos.tselepis]

Hi to everyone. I own an r730xd
Server with perc 330 mini card.
At the moment i use freenas with perc bios in hba mode with no problem.
Is it possible to flash the card ro it mode?
There is someone on ebay selling already flashed 330 mini cards to it mode.
He is by the name theartofserver.
Can anyone provide with some info?

 

[Rainbow]

Unfortunately, I had no second chance to flash the card as the server needed to be installed by the weekend. I had to use Linux mdraid which does not play well with UEFI (the UEFI boot partition can't be on mdraid) - that's why I needed HW RAID (I/O performance is not critical for this server so H330 is fine).

 

[Sleyk]

Hi to everyone. I own an r730xd
Server with perc 330 mini card.
At the moment i use freenas with perc bios in hba mode with no problem.
Is it possible to flash the card ro it mode?
There is someone on ebay selling already flashed 330 mini cards to it mode.
He is by the name theartofserver.
Can anyone provide with some info?

Hey brother! Welcome!
The artofserver is our very own Master of the Adapter himself, BLinux :.)

I dab alittle here and there meself, but BL is a pro, he's been in the game longer than me

Question for ya, you probably mean he sells the H310 mini mono cards, not the 3rd gen (dell 13th gen) H330 mini mono right? Only because i haz not finished flashing the H330 mini mono yet, rather, i haz no clue if it is even flashable

But in all seriousness, Im working on flashing the mini mono and will report back, so sit tight for now. I will try to get this sorted out over the next week or two. Hopefully with good news.

As for the dell proprietary rom in hba mode, it works ok, but i never liked the clunkiness of the dell rom, so i think converting the card to a hba330 is better.

My hope is that the mini card can be flashed too, but there might need to be some work done. We'll see how it goes. Stay tuned!

 

[Sleyk]

Unfortunately, I had no second chance to flash the card as the server needed to be installed by the weekend. I had to use Linux mdraid which does not play well with UEFI (the UEFI boot partition can't be on mdraid) - that's why I needed HW RAID (I/O performance is not critical for this server so H330 is fine).

Ah ok gotcha. No worries, maybe next time. If all goes well, at least we will have the method in case someone needs to go back to dell proprietary rom. In any case, i am working on the reversal process more closely now. I hope to be able to go back and forth between the h330 and the hba330 with ease. If successful, i will post results on the working method.

 

[Sleyk]

Also of note, there is also the mini blades i will take a peek at as well

 

[aggelos.tselepis]

Dear Sleyk,
you are right he sells the 310 mini in it mode, not the h330.
Hope we can get it flasged it in IT mode.

 

[meyhem]

I flashed h330 mini mono with hba330 fw but it shows no device(hdd) is connected. I know you don't suggest reverting to H330 firmware but I can't get sbr data from another h330 card. readsbr command is not working for me. I stuck at this situations

Update: Finally, I figured out. I erased fw with sas3flsh -o -e 6 and I used hba330 mini mono fw. It shows all drives connected to the controller now. Could you update your post about mini mono products?

 

[Sleyk]

I flashed h330 mini mono with hba330 fw but it shows no device(hdd) is connected. I know you don't suggest reverting to H330 firmware but I can't get sbr data from another h330 card. readsbr command is not working for me. I stuck at this situations

Update: Finally, I figured out. I erased fw with sas3flsh -o -e 6 and I used hba330 mini mono fw. It shows all drives connected to the controller now. Could you update your post about mini mono products?

So you did it bro?!?

I had a R430 on shipment coming to me by this Thursday and was going to test this out, but looks like it worked? Awesome! That's what Im talking about!

Tell me what you did my friend. Did you follow my same method?
Yup, the right thing to do was to use the HBA330 mini mono firmware.

So I'm pretty scientific in my testing and I recorded a shit-ton of data. Unfortunately for you, you opened a can of worms.

I haz questions....

Did you use perccli?
Was the flashing process easier with megacli?
Did you do a full manufacturer erase using -o -e 7? If so, did it erase the sas address?
What error code did you receive on the mini mono adapter when you wrote the SBR?
Did it return with a specific interrupt code?
Did you attempt a flash with the firmware by itself? No Bios?
Did you flash the 12Gbps HBA firmware? What did the manufacturer page settings in nvram report?
Did it allow you to update to the latest HBA330 Mini mono firmware?
If you used PERCCLI, did you have to downgrade the firmware with the download=file noverchk command?
What did the cleanflash command give you upon writing the SBR?
Did you test in Windows environment? What OS are you using?

Sorry! Those are just a few questions I have. I would have been able to answer them myself, but you went and did the hard work, so now I need to know! Lol!

(Just so you know, you dont have to answer or any questions if you dont want to, Im just curious, and will find out most of my answers when I get my Dell system in this week)

Nice work bro! I suspected it would work the same, but I wanted to verify myself before posting to the thread just in case I ran into any snags. The 12th gen adapters according to BL, had some issues getting flashed over, but this confirms my suspicions that we are able to bypass this on the 13th Gen adapters.

Looking good bro. Oh, by the way, welcome to STH. Nice work.

 

[Rainbow]

Ah ok gotcha. No worries, maybe next time. If all goes well, at least we will have the method in case someone needs to go back to dell proprietary rom. In any case, i am working on the reversal process more closely now. I hope to be able to go back and forth between the h330 and the hba330 with ease. If successful, i will post results on the working method.

Just got a real H330 in my hands. There's an obvious difference comparing to HBA330: there's a CY14V101LA nvSRAM at U1032/U1033 position near the SAS connectors. HBA330 does not have this chip (U1032/U1033 unpopulated). That's why a real HBA330 card cannot be flashed to H330.

 

[Sleyk]

That's right! Good observation my friend. The factory manufactured HBA330's lack that chip that is present on the factory H330's. I always noticed this of course, but always assumed it was either the actual nvram chip or the designated "raid" chip.

If this is true, it might prove impossible to flash a factory HBA330 to a H330.

All the same, barring extreme cases, you won't really need to do this.

If you were shopping for a H330, and somehow the seller mistakenly sent you a factory HBA330, might as well sell it for about $120, as they go for upwards of $150 most times. Then take that money and buy 2 x H330's.

Now, with that being said, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that it could be done. It would just be a matter of figuring out if the rom actually resides in that designated chip on the H330. I can try to find out, but good luck with me talking to an "expert" dell tech. It's like hitting the silicon lottery boi.

However, if it does prove impossible, its ok, cuz we do have the H330. Once I can complete the method to flash back and forth, it would render the need to go from a factory HBA330 to H330 moot, as you can just use a factory H330 and flash back and forth, but again, if that chip is the key and/or barrier to achieving this.

We shall see. I will keep working at it when I get a little more time.

 

[meyhem]

So you did it bro?!?

I had a R430 on shipment coming to me by this Thursday and was going to test this out, but looks like it worked? Awesome! That's what Im talking about!

I'm also using 0GDJ3J H330 mini mono with R430.

Tell me what you did my friend. Did you follow my same method?
Yup, the right thing to do was to use the HBA330 mini mono firmware.

Yes, I followed your all instructions and only different thing is just I used latest mini mono firmware.

Did you use perccli?

I didn't use percli but I used megacli for writing smc3108 firmware which is in your instructions..

Did you do a full manufacturer erase using -o -e 7? If so, did it erase the sas address?

I erased firmware with -o -e 7 and I used hba firmwares in your zip file but it didn't work again. I think this command will not be needed when using correct firmware. I didn't check sas address :/

Did you attempt a flash with the firmware by itself? No Bios?

No, I didn't.

Did you flash the 12Gbps HBA firmware? What did the manufacturer page settings in nvram report?

I flashed 12Gbps HBA firmware and I just check connected devices but it didn't show any connected drive. Then I flased hba330 firmware again. I put that server in production environment. When I will get new h330 cards, I will check nvram report on the other servers.

Did it allow you to update to the latest HBA330 Mini mono firmware?

Yep, I'm using newest HBA330 mini mono firmware

Did you test in Windows environment? What OS are you using?

I'm using with ESXI. Adapter latencies dropped to 0-1ms.


Thank you for welcome and lots of thanks for your all effort

 

[Sleyk]

I'm also using 0GDJ3J H330 mini mono with R430.

Yes, I followed your all instructions and only different thing is just I used latest mini mono firmware.

I didn't use percli but I used megacli for writing smc3108 firmware which is in your instructions..

I erased firmware with -o -e 7 and I used hba firmwares in your zip file but it didn't work again. I think this command will not be needed when using correct firmware. I didn't check sas address :/

No, I didn't.

I flashed 12Gbps HBA firmware and I just check connected devices but it didn't show any connected drive. Then I flased hba330 firmware again. I put that server in production environment. When I will get new h330 cards, I will check nvram report on the other servers.

Yep, I'm using newest HBA330 mini mono firmware

I'm using with ESXI. Adapter latencies dropped to 0-1ms.


Thank you for welcome and lots of thanks for your all effort

Good Good! Thanks for those deetz!

Yeah the only firmware versions I included in the download was the HBA330 and 12Gbps HBA adapter firmwares. So yeah they wont work with the mini mono. I will modify my download folder to include the latest HBA330 mini mono firmware as well.

But ok, great! Glad to know the method works solidly. My R430 server should be delivered anytime today.
I will set it up and do final testing as well.

Now I'm curious why Dell made it so hard to flash over the 12th Gen mini monos. Must be a firmware limitation? I wonder if this method can be utilized with the mini mono's on the 12th gen mini mono's. (Dell H310 mini mono). We would probably need a SAS2008 recovery rom. I will check in with BL when he gets a moment.

I'm gonna read up on a few of the mini mono models, and update my write up once i finish testing to include the mini mono cards as well.

Great job Meyhem!

 

[NightWalker86]

Sleyk,

You just saved us $400 and a week of waiting around on some HBA330 Mini Mono cards with your guide! Thanks a ton. I can 100% confirm this works on PowerEdge R630 servers with existing H330 Mini Mono RAID cards. I just successfully flashed mine over to an HBA330 Mini and it is working as intended. This was needed for a Storage Spaces Direct deployment since you cannot use a RAID card (even in HBA passthrough mode) for that config. A couple quick notes on some things I needed to change:

1. When I went through the initial flashing with the perccli program, I had to omit the "-" in the noverchk or it would throw an error.
2. I absolutely had to switch the BIOS from UEFI to legacy BIOS mode to get FreeDOS to load!!! I lost a few hours messing around with this before figuring it out.
3. Regarding the firmware to flash, you need to download the HBA330 Mini firmware from Dell. Download the Windows 64 installer, run the installer, and then choose the option to "Extract" the contents to a new folder. Once that completes, there is a "payload" folder and within there is the .fw and .rom files you need to flash in megacli.
4. In my case, after successfully flashing over to the HBA330 firmware and rom, I then needed to switch back from BIOs to UEFI on the server, boot into the Server 2019 install media, select Troubleshoot, and tell it to boot into safe mode. Once in safe mode, I scheduled a chkdsk from the command prompt using the following command "chkdsk /scan /f". I rebooted the server by holding the shift key down and selecting restart to bring up the troubleshooting window and selected safe mode again. On reboot, the check disk scanned and fixed the existing Windows install.

This last step was needed because after flashing the card over my existing Server 2019 install refused to boot into anything but safe mode (would give an inaccessible boot device blue screen). Booting to safe mode and scheduling the disk check/fix for next safe mode boot resolved that issue and all is well.

I can now confirm that Server 2019 confirms that my drives/HBA is acceptable for Storage Spaces Direct configuration. Thanks a TON!

 

[Sleyk]

Sleyk,

You just saved us $400 and a week of waiting around on some HBA330 Mini Mono cards with your guide! Thanks a ton. I can 100% confirm this works on PowerEdge R630 servers with existing H330 Mini Mono RAID cards. I just successfully flashed mine over to an HBA330 Mini and it is working as intended. This was needed for a Storage Spaces Direct deployment since you cannot use a RAID card (even in HBA passthrough mode) for that config. A couple quick notes on some things I needed to change:

1. When I went through the initial flashing with the perccli program, I had to omit the "-" in the noverchk or it would throw an error.
2. I absolutely had to switch the BIOS from UEFI to legacy BIOS mode to get FreeDOS to load!!! I lost a few hours messing around with this before figuring it out.
3. Regarding the firmware to flash, you need to download the HBA330 Mini firmware from Dell. Download the Windows 64 installer, run the installer, and then choose the option to "Extract" the contents to a new folder. Once that completes, there is a "payload" folder and within there is the .fw and .rom files you need to flash in megacli.
4. In my case, after successfully flashing over to the HBA330 firmware and rom, I then needed to switch back from BIOs to UEFI on the server, boot into the Server 2019 install media, select Troubleshoot, and tell it to boot into safe mode. Once in safe mode, I scheduled a chkdsk from the command prompt using the following command "chkdsk /scan /f". I rebooted the server by holding the shift key down and selecting restart to bring up the troubleshooting window and selected safe mode again. On reboot, the check disk scanned and fixed the existing Windows install.

This last step was needed because after flashing the card over my existing Server 2019 install refused to boot into anything but safe mode (would give an inaccessible boot device blue screen). Booting to safe mode and scheduling the disk check/fix for next safe mode boot resolved that issue and all is well.

I can now confirm that Server 2019 confirms that my drives/HBA is acceptable for Storage Spaces Direct configuration. Thanks a TON!

Aw shucks!

You made my day brother. I am so happy this helped you! This is why I was willing to do the work. This is what I meant by the potential benefits to people. Im truly happy.

You are quite welcome brother. Quite welcome.

Now, lets address some of those things! For Freedos, it depends on how you made the freedos flash drive. If you made it with a flash drive formatted for GPT, you should have been able to UEFI boot, but if you made the flash drive with an MBR structure, then legacy bios would be needed to allow Freedos to boot. This is more of an option in your bios, as you pointed out. Some mobo bioses will let you boot either one though.

As for the noverchk command in perccli, you are correct! That was a typo on my part. The dash (-) is not needed in front of the noverchk command. Sorry! Will edit my post to reflect that.

As for the mini mono firmware, you could also obtain the firmware by going to Dell's website and download the red-hat linux file .bin and extract the contents with 7zip. Then the firmware is in the "payload" folder. No need to extract and fully install the .exe program to windows if you don't want to. Albeit, it doesn't matter what method you use, as long as you can get it. I will modify my folder to include the mini mono firmware.

Finally, switching over to Legacy booting from UEFI booting probably caused an error with the Windows BCD boot. This means that your Windows was installed over a drive in GPT format, which is of course what alot of people do. I personally format for MBR as it leaves me the compatibility to boot legacy. I know GPT is better, but I run into less problems since I test ALOT and OFTEN, so it helps me keep things stable. But this happens all the time. Pretty much what you did is a safe way to fix it. There is also a program that allows you to edit the BCD boot file I believe in Windows. It's pretty dangerous so i don't recommend people play with it unless needed and you know what you are doing, but it comes in useful when you wanna dual-boot and stuff like that. I think its called EasyBCDedit by Neosmart Technologies or something like that.

And thats it! Welcome to STH brother. I am super happy to know this helped you out.

Big shout out to Meyhem for that initial leap of faith on the mini mono card as well.

 

[Sleyk]

So, wanted to make a new post with the Mini Mono cards here.

As you know, the H330 Mini Mono is now confirmed flashable to an HBA330 Mini Mono. To my best knowledge, I have found a total of 4 model numbers. Two or three of which is what you need. The other model is the equivalent of the HBA330, but in Mini Mono form.

1. Dell H330 Mini Mono Model Number - GDJ3J
This is the most common model number Dell uses for the H330 Mini Mono. This is a mini adapter, used primarily in Dell systems. It is the equivalent to a H330, but not in PCI-Express format. It provides the same capabilities as the H330 adapter, but is only useful for people who have Dell proprietary built systems to install it into (Dell makes a crap ton of servers, so alot of people use them). It can be usually found on eBay for around $50-$55 bucks, but I have seen them for as low as $30 bucks, so this card is a great deal if you had a dell system that utilizes this type of mini mono adapter. If you needed an HBA330, but don't want to spend the money, then this card suits you very well as it is now easily flashed over to HBA firmware. Another model number is the P2R3R and the R75VT. I will talk alittle about the P2R3R, below, and the R75VT is the same as well.

Pic of the GDJ3J:




2. Dell H330 Mini Mono Model Number - P2R3R
This is also the identical mini mono card to the GDJ3J. It is also flashable to HBA firmware, making it a suitable card to buy if you can't find model number GDJ3J, although both models are pretty common on eBay now. You can usually find these for around the same price as the GDJ3J. Honestly, barring me examining both cards at the exact same time, I don't see any distinguishing characteristics to differentiate the 2. So I don't know exactly why Dell gave the same part a total of 3 different models numbers. Meh, Dell knows what they're doing. Must be an OEM thing.

Pic of the P2R3R:




3. Dell HBA330 Mini Mono Model Number - THN56
This is the HBA330 mini mono version of the HBA330 adapter. Same features as the HBA330, only in Mini mono form. Same explanation for use case applies here. For those who want a factory HBA330 card, this is the part number to search. However, this card is now rendered moot, as you can flash a GDJ3J or a P2R3R to an HBA330. If you aren't comfortable with flashing a H330 mini mono card to get an HBA330 mini mono, then this is the card you want. Only included here for reference.

Pic of the THN56:



Here is also an updated folder with all files, including the HBA330 mini mono firmware, all updated to the latest versions available: Crossflash Dell H330 Raid to Stock HBA IT Firmware.zip

I also updated the google drive download folder link in the first posts, so you can grab it from there if you like as well.

 

[NightWalker86]

Can confirm the R630s I just flashed had the GDJ3J Mini Mono cards. Just finished flashing 3 more this morning and have completed this piece of the project. 4 H330s completely flashed to HBA330s. Thanks again.

 

[Inuragon]

Can you take a pic and upload to imgur and post the link? I haven't come across that specific part number. I would like to see what it looks like.

Sorry it took a while, here's pics of the card: Dell H330
Looking at it again not sure if it's 06H1G0 or 05H1G0.

I flashed the card and it recognizes as HBA330, still haven't tested connecting drives to it though.
Also i had some beginner issues with the flashing, sas3flash on dos would just error saying "Failed to initialize PAL" and on EFI shell it wouldn't find the firmware file before using FS to switch to the usb drive.

 

[Sleyk]

Sorry it took a while, here's pics of the card: Dell H330
Looking at it again not sure if it's 06H1G0 or 05H1G0.

I flashed the card and it recognizes as HBA330, still haven't tested connecting drives to it though.
Also i had some beginner issues with the flashing, sas3flash on dos would just error saying "Failed to initialize PAL" and on EFI shell it wouldn't find the firmware file before using FS to switch to the usb drive.

Yup, that's a H330. Looks like there are part numbers I havent come across yet. Dell has been busy...

As for the PAL error, it usually ocurrs on specific older boards, but can also occur on newer boards as well. I always use Supermicro boards to flash my cards, as they have great compatibility with most cards. The PAL error comes from a bios incompatibility with sasflash and the successive generations. The only way to overcome it is to use EFI flashing. The FS part in the EFI flash process is also normal. It is how the EFI shell recognizes your flash drive. Some systems require the FS switch to point the shell to your USB drive. FS also means FS0 (fszero) which loads the appropriate directory with the flash files so that the EFI shell can recognize it. So this is all normal.

Thanks for the pic! I appreciate it, and no worries, it wasn't late at all :.)

 

[rootpeer]

11. Flash the MPTSAS3 bios for the card. Type: sas3flsh -o -b mptx64.rom Then it will flash the MPT bios to the card. Alternatively, you can flash the whole thing together with this command:
sas3flsh -o -f hba330.fw -b mptx64.rom OR sas3flsh -o -f 12gbpsas.fw -b mptxsas3.rom
This will just go through the whole flashing process and flash both firmware and bios to the card.

I guess flashing the BIOS is optional as was with older generations, correct?

Have you tried flashing just the firmware in order to reduce the boot time?

 

[Sleyk]

I guess flashing the BIOS is optional as was with older generations, correct?

Have you tried flashing just the firmware in order to reduce the boot time?

Hey RP, Yup, you can just flash the HBA330 firmware by itself, or if you know for sure that you will just use the card without the MPT bios, you can even flash the 12Gbpsas firmware. The bios, as with all LSI sas cards is optional. It does come in handy if you wanted to control staggered spin up and stuff like that though. If you just flash the firmware, you really only shave about 30 seconds or so off your boot time though. But I suppose this adds up when you are booting a full on server.

The 12Gbpsas firmware was more made for the external version of the HBA330, but it works exactly the same as the HBA firmware for the internal or external ports. The only difference is that the card will report itself as a 12Gbps HBA instead of a HBA330. Some people might prefer to see the card as a generic 12Gbps HBA. I personally use the HBA330 firmware, but you can use either one with no issues. Of note, the HBA330 firmware is newer I believe, and they recently released a new version in September. The latest 12Gbpsas firmware I think was released back in July or so. Can't remember the exact dates, but I believe its definitely older than the current HBA330 firmware.