[FS] IBM ServeRAID M1015 SAS/SATA Controller x3 (IT mode, P14) $200

[Philmatic]

Up for sale are three IBM M1015's flashed to IT Mode with P14 firmware. The cards work fine, but I *seem* to running into issues having the three of them run at the same time on my Supermicro X9SCM-F. I say "seem" because I cannot confirm if the issue is with my drives (WD Green Drives), the backplanes on my (Norco 4224) or having more than one card on my particular motherboard.

I have would like to simplify my setup with a single SAS HBA and an HP SAS Expander, so the cards are up for sale.

I would also be interested to trade the three M1015's plus some cash for an HP SAS Expander.

Shipping is $10 anywhere in the lower 48 states, I accept paypal.

Edit: SOLD

 

[gigatexal]

whoa this is nice...

 

[dba]

I have sometimes struggled to get multiple LSI cards working in a single server. If the problem is that the server freezes in BIOS or always/sometimes does not see one or more cards, then I may have a fix for you. Here you go:

1) Option one: Nuke the BIOS in each card. See instructions on this forum. You aren't using IR mode for hardware RAID and you aren't booting from any of the cards, so the BIOS is not necessary. Removing it fixes all BIOS quirks and speeds boot.
2) Option two: Tweak BIOS settings. Put one card in your server, boot, and enter the LSI BIOS. Turn off the option that allows the LSI-connected drives to be boot drives - I can't remember which option that is but it's pretty obvious when you see it. Shut down, remove the card, insert the second card and repeat. Change the BIOS settings on all three cards and then put them all back in your server. With no cards set to present disks as boot disks, you bypass several possible boot issues.

If your issue is not a boot issue, then ignore all of the above.

Up for sale are three IBM M1015's flashed to IT Mode with P14 firmware. The cards work fine, but I *seem* to running into issues having the three of them run at the same time on my Supermicro X9SCM-F. I say "seem" because I cannot confirm if the issue is with my drives (WD Green Drives), the backplanes on my (Norco 4224) or having more than one card on my particular motherboard.

I have would like to simplify my setup with a single SAS HBA and an HP SAS Expander, so the cards are up for sale.

I would also be interested to trade the three M1015's plus some cash for an HP SAS Expander.

Shipping is $10 anywhere in the lower 48 states, I accept paypal.

 

[Philmatic]

I have sometimes struggled to get multiple LSI cards working in a single server. If the problem is that the server freezes in BIOS or always/sometimes does not see one or more cards, then I may have a fix for you. Here you go:

1) Option one: Nuke the BIOS in each card. See instructions on this forum. You aren't using IR mode for hardware RAID and you aren't booting from any of the cards, so the BIOS is not necessary. Removing it fixes all BIOS quirks and speeds boot.
2) Option two: Tweak BIOS settings. Put one card in your server, boot, and enter the LSI BIOS. Turn off the option that allows the LSI-connected drives to be boot drives - I can't remember which option that is but it's pretty obvious when you see it. Shut down, remove the card, insert the second card and repeat. Change the BIOS settings on all three cards and then put them all back in your server. With no cards set to present disks as boot disks, you bypass several possible boot issues.

If your issue is not a boot issue, then ignore all of the above.

Yeah, my issue isn't boot related, in fact Windows sees all three cards perfectly fine. My issue happens to be not being able to add more than 8 drives to the server at any time. I've tried booting with more than 8 or booting with 8 working drives then adding more, do the former seems to only allow 8 drives to work, and the latter results in the 8 *good* drives dropping off and the new drive never being seen. I'm running P14 in IT mode with no BIOS, I was previously on P11 with the BIOS enabled and still had the same issue. I upgraded my mobo from 1.1a to 2.0a and still had the same problem.

Again, it's a weird issue, and as a Software Engineer myself, I can't figure it out. I'm not willing to fork out $60-$80 dollars on SAS to SATA cables and associated SATA power splitters to bypass the backplanes.

I assure anyone who is interested that the cards work, every single port works. I just have compatibility issues with either the motherboard or the backplanes.

 

[cactus]

Could it be a power problem and not a SAS/SATA problem?

 

[Philmatic]

I have a SeaSonic X750 Gold 750W power supply with 62A on the 12V rail, I would be flabbergasted if that was the case. Unfortunately, I don't have another power supply to test.

The reason I don't think it is the PSU is that when I have the 8 drives working on the SAS cards, I can plug in an additional 5 to the motherboards SATA ports and all is fine. It's only when they go through the backplanes and to the SAS cards do I have issues.

 

[cactus]

Agree, power does not sound like your problem.

 

[mobilenvidia]

Possibly a conflict somewhere with the controllers
The Mobo has 4x PCIe 8x slots, 2x are PCIe 8x electrically the other 2 are 4x, there there are other devices too that need PCIe lanes, like the LAN.

Try just 2x M1015's and see if you can get more than 8x drives to show.

 

[gigatexal]

3 cards for 200? or 200 a piece? how much for 2?

 

[Philmatic]

Possibly a conflict somewhere with the controllers
The Mobo has 4x PCIe 8x slots, 2x are PCIe 8x electrically the other 2 are 4x, there there are other devices too that need PCIe lanes, like the LAN.

Try just 2x M1015's and see if you can get more than 8x drives to show.

I have honestly tried everything I could without incurring a lot of expense . I've been troubleshooting this for the better part of a year on and off and could never get it working right. I am just fed up and would like to get an expander, even at a financial hit, if it fixes my issue.

3 cards for 200? or 200 a piece? how much for 2?

3 cards for $200. I could do 2 for $140 + $10 shipping, that works out better for me I think, that way I won't have to procure a different HBA (Not much in this price range I think).

I also have 6 Norco SAS cables I would like to do away with, I purchased them with the original system order but found them to not be long enough to route around the 120mm fan-wall in the Norco 4224. I'll get rid of all 6 for $55 plus $5 shipping.

 

[mobilenvidia]

I have honestly tried everything I could without incurring a lot of expense . I've been troubleshooting this for the better part of a year on and off and could never get it working right. I am just fed up and would like to get an expander, even at a financial hit, if it fixes my issue.

Lets hope then it's a controller issue and not an OS issue, or you may end up with same problems

 

[Philmatic]

Lets hope then it's a controller issue and not an OS issue, or you may end up with same problems

I'm running WHS 2011, and have formatted and reinstalled from scratch two or three times. If the issue is something related to multiple M1015's in Windows then I need to find a different solution, since no other OS offers everything I need.

I'll check with Odditory and see if he (Or someone else) is willing to let me borrow a HP SAS expander. That would allow me to test it before I spend the cash and find out I haven't done anything.

 

[xnoodle]

Yeah, my issue isn't boot related, in fact Windows sees all three cards perfectly fine. My issue happens to be not being able to add more than 8 drives to the server at any time. I've tried booting with more than 8 or booting with 8 working drives then adding more, do the former seems to only allow 8 drives to work, and the latter results in the 8 *good* drives dropping off and the new drive never being seen. I'm running P14 in IT mode with no BIOS, I was previously on P11 with the BIOS enabled and still had the same issue. I upgraded my mobo from 1.1a to 2.0a and still had the same problem.

Again, it's a weird issue, and as a Software Engineer myself, I can't figure it out. I'm not willing to fork out $60-$80 dollars on SAS to SATA cables and associated SATA power splitters to bypass the backplanes.

I assure anyone who is interested that the cards work, every single port works. I just have compatibility issues with either the motherboard or the backplanes.

Curious, can you see 8+ drives with 2 cards? Or does it only fail with 3 cards?

I have a fairly similar setup - X9SCM-F with two Areca ARC-1680LP and two M1015's in it, and was using all 4 controllers concurrently without a problem. I have a spare M1015, can stick in the 3rd M1015 and test it out (have 12 drives connected to the two M1015's at the moment). Also have a spare HP SAS expander if you want me to try a particular config.

 

[Philmatic]

Curious, can you see 8+ drives with 2 cards? Or does it only fail with 3 cards?

It doesn't matter if it's two cards or three, and it also doesn't matter how the drives are spread out across the array. I've tried 8-0-0, 4-4-0, 2-2-4 and similar configurations with two cards.

I have a fairly similar setup - X9SCM-F with two Areca ARC-1680LP and two M1015's in it, and was using all 4 controllers concurrently without a problem. I have a spare M1015, can stick in the 3rd M1015 and test it out (have 12 drives connected to the two M1015's at the moment). Also have a spare HP SAS expander if you want me to try a particular config.

What BIOS version are you running on the X9SCM? My problems could be related to the Norco backplanes.

 

[xnoodle]

It doesn't matter if it's two cards or three, and it also doesn't matter how the drives are spread out across the array. I've tried 8-0-0, 4-4-0, 2-2-4 and similar configurations with two cards.



What BIOS version are you running on the X9SCM? My problems could be related to the Norco backplanes.

I had them working in the older (1.1a?) BIOS and they're still working with the newer one (2.0?) on Patrick's Live CD. I'm using a Norco 4220. Out of curiosity, did you write SAS addresses to the individual cards after you flashed them?

Can you snag outputs/screenshots of the sas2flash(.efi?) commands?

sas2flash -o -listall
sas2flash -o -c 0 -listsasadd
sas2flash -o -c 1 -listsasadd
sas2flash -o -c 2 -listsasadd

 

[mobilenvidia]

Good point, if the SAS address of the cards were the same it would cause the very issue experienced.

 

[Philmatic]

I had them working in the older (1.1a?) BIOS and they're still working with the newer one (2.0?) on Patrick's Live CD. I'm using a Norco 4220. Out of curiosity, did you write SAS addresses to the individual cards after you flashed them?

Can you snag outputs/screenshots of the sas2flash(.efi?) commands?

sas2flash -o -listall
sas2flash -o -c 0 -listsasadd
sas2flash -o -c 1 -listsasadd
sas2flash -o -c 2 -listsasadd

In an effort to resolve the issue I attempted to downgrade my bios from 2.0a to 1.1a and bricked my motherboard. That's being repaired right now so I can't troubleshoot any further.

But to answer your first question, I absolutely wrote individual SAS addresses to each card. I double and triple checked that.

EDIT: I may have another machine I use to get the addresses for each card, but it only has one PCI-Express slot. I'll have to do them one by one.

 

[gigatexal]

i might end up buying these, so i can for sure run 16 drives on the two controllers?

 

[Jeggs101]

Did you try SUPER.ROM? Never thought about going from v2 to v1

 

[Philmatic]

Can you snag outputs/screenshots of the sas2flash(.efi?) commands?

sas2flash -o -listall
sas2flash -o -c 0 -listsasadd
sas2flash -o -c 1 -listsasadd
sas2flash -o -c 2 -listsasadd

I had to do each card separately, but here you go:

Card 1:

C:\SAS2008\>sas2flash -o -c 0 -listsasadd

LSI Corporation SAS2 Flash Utility
Version 14.00.00.00 (2012.07.04) 
Copyright (c) 2008-2012 LSI Corporation. All rights reserved 

	Advanced Mode Set

	Adapter Selected is a LSI SAS: SAS2008(B2)   

	The SAS Address for the controller is: 500605b-0-03cc-71d0

	Finished Processing Commands Successfully.
	Exiting SAS2Flash.

C:\SAS2008\>sas2flash -o -listall

LSI Corporation SAS2 Flash Utility
Version 14.00.00.00 (2012.07.04) 
Copyright (c) 2008-2012 LSI Corporation. All rights reserved 

	Advanced Mode Set

	Adapter Selected is a LSI SAS: SAS2008(B2)   

Num   Ctlr            FW Ver        NVDATA        x86-BIOS         PCI Addr
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

0  SAS2008(B2)     14.00.00.00    0e.03.00.04      No Image      00:01:00:00

	Finished Processing Commands Successfully.
	Exiting SAS2Flash.

Card 2:

C:\SAS2008\>sas2flash -o -c 0 -listsasadd

LSI Corporation SAS2 Flash Utility
Version 14.00.00.00 (2012.07.04) 
Copyright (c) 2008-2012 LSI Corporation. All rights reserved 

	Advanced Mode Set

	Adapter Selected is a LSI SAS: SAS2008(B2)   

	The SAS Address for the controller is: 500605b-0-02d6-3030

	Finished Processing Commands Successfully.
	Exiting SAS2Flash.

C:\SAS2008\>sas2flash -o -listall

LSI Corporation SAS2 Flash Utility
Version 14.00.00.00 (2012.07.04) 
Copyright (c) 2008-2012 LSI Corporation. All rights reserved 

	Advanced Mode Set

	Adapter Selected is a LSI SAS: SAS2008(B2)   

Num   Ctlr            FW Ver        NVDATA        x86-BIOS         PCI Addr
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

0  SAS2008(B2)     14.00.00.00    0e.03.00.04      No Image      00:01:00:00

	Finished Processing Commands Successfully.
	Exiting SAS2Flash.

Card 3:

C:\SAS2008\>sas2flash -o -c 0 -listsasadd

LSI Corporation SAS2 Flash Utility
Version 14.00.00.00 (2012.07.04) 
Copyright (c) 2008-2012 LSI Corporation. All rights reserved 

	Advanced Mode Set

	Adapter Selected is a LSI SAS: SAS2008(B2)   

	The SAS Address for the controller is: 500605b-0-03ce-a8d0

	Finished Processing Commands Successfully.
	Exiting SAS2Flash.

C:\SAS2008\>sas2flash -o -listall

LSI Corporation SAS2 Flash Utility
Version 14.00.00.00 (2012.07.04) 
Copyright (c) 2008-2012 LSI Corporation. All rights reserved 

	Advanced Mode Set

	Adapter Selected is a LSI SAS: SAS2008(B2)   

Num   Ctlr            FW Ver        NVDATA        x86-BIOS         PCI Addr
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

0  SAS2008(B2)     14.00.00.00    0e.03.00.04      No Image      00:01:00:00

	Finished Processing Commands Successfully.
	Exiting SAS2Flash.

i might end up buying these, so i can for sure run 16 drives on the two controllers?

Yes

Did you try SUPER.ROM? Never thought about going from v2 to v1

Yep, and the shift + home bootup recovery, and the Supermicro tech even had me try from a burnt CD, no dice.