IBM M1015 Experiences

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oliversl

New Member
Apr 8, 2013
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Can you provide benchmark of raid1 or raid10 with spinners? Maybe with vsphere? I read that because the M1015 has not BBU, the write-back is disabled and that make a really bad write performance in vsphere 5.1

Thanks
Oliver
 

mrkrad

Well-Known Member
Oct 13, 2012
1,244
52
48
m1015 has no ram at all compared to m5014/m5015 so yeah it will perform very poor with traditional hard drives. with SSD, maybe not so much but you would be surprised sometimes extra ram brings stability.
 

mobilenvidia

Moderator
Sep 25, 2011
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New Zealand
IBM ServeRAID M1015 and M1115 SAS/SATA controller firmware v20.11.1-0137

ServeRAID M1000 Series SAS/SATA Controller Firmware Update

Adapters Supported: ServeRAID M1115 SAS/SATA Controller for IBM System X (81Y4448)
ServeRAID M1015 SAS/SATA Controller (46M0831)


Version 20.11.1-0137 - Suggested
-------------------
Enhancement(s):
- Update recovery mode page (WriteRetryCount and recoveryTimeLimit) during
discovery of a drive and during spinup recovery when sense 6/29 is
received.

Fixes:
- Fixed an issue where systems with SSD HDD will pop up an error message
after creating a virtual drive via HII on M1115.
- Fixed an issue where the drive state is not modified when a recon
virtual drive is created from the reboot path.
 

ZzBloopzZ

Member
Jan 7, 2013
91
13
8
Here are the steps I followed to update my M1015 to P16 firmware using mobilenvidia's SAS2008.zip file.

I had to update via UEFI due to having a SuperMicro X9SCM-IIF. Flashing via DOS did not work, kept getting this error: "ERROR: Failed to initialize PAL. Exiting program.”

1. Download mobilenvidia's SAS2008.zip file and extract to a random folder, let's call this folder A.
2. Go to LSI Support website and navigate to the "Documents & Downloads" area. Fill in the following for the search filters: Component Type = Storage, Product Family = Host Bus Adapters, Product = LSI SAS 9211-8i, Asset Type = Firmware
3. Download these two files: 9211_8i_Package_P16_IR_IT_Firmware_BIOS_for_MSDOS_Windows.zip & Installer_P16_for_UEFI.zip
4. Extract "sas2flash.efi" from Installer_P16_for_UEFI.zip into root Folder A, it is located in a random folder in the archive.
5. Extract "2118it.bin", "2118ir.bin", "mptsas2.rom", "mptbios.txt", "sas2flsh.exe" into root Folder A, these are located in random folders within the archive.
6. Download Rufus and insert a USB flash drive that you are willing to wipe clean.
7. Run Rufus, file system should be FAT32, Volume Label: SAS2008, enable quick format, select create bootable disk using: MS-DOS, deselect "Crate extended label and icon files" and then click on Start.
8. Connect USB flash drive to the server. To be safe, I disconnected all other USB flash drives, and made sure I only had one M1015 card inserted at a time. I also disconnected the SAS cables from it just to be safe.
9. Press F11 and boot from the flash drive.
10. Type "megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin" hit enter, and then type "megarec -cleanflash 0"
11. REBOOT system
12. Press F11 and boot from "UEFI Shell"
13. Type "map" to list your devices, in my case fs0 was my USB flash drive.
14: Type "mount fs0:"
15: Type "fs0:"
16: Type "sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118it.bin" (I used this since I want IT mode, and do not need OptionROM since OS will be controlling the SAS Card + faster booting)
17: Type "sas2flash.efi -o -sasadd 500605Bxxxxxxxxx" (x= numbers for SAS address)"
18: Type "sas2flash.efi -listall" to see if you card was flashed properly to this new version.
19: Type "exit"
20: Enjoy!

This is more a reference for myself when another update comes out, as I spent numerous hours trying to get this to work. Thanks to mobilenvidia, and Bryan Vyhmeister for all your valuable knowledge!!!
 
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ecosse

Active Member
Jul 2, 2013
463
111
43
Sorry if this has been asked before but if I could manage to flash my M5014/M4015 cards to the LSI firmware can I use the cachecade software option rather than the hideously expensive hardware dongle IBM sell?

** Bum - didn't see that this was about the M1015 - will put this question someplace else! ***
 
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Subpacket

New Member
Aug 9, 2013
8
1
3
London, ON, CA
I have 2 1015 cards that i flashed to IR successfully... (Thanks!) But, I have one in a generic Server, and one in an IBM m3 3036 server.

When I flash with card with the option rom, and install it in the IBM, the system hangs after it searches for devices while posting.

If I flash without the option rom, it boots fine.

As the server has 14 HDD's in it now, and I need to boot up off the controller.

So, Im wondering whats causing this machine to hang on post,

(failing, I can always flash to IT and just install OS to USB if I can't get this to work)
Thoughts?
 
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mobilenvidia

Moderator
Sep 25, 2011
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Your Mobo is probably out of OptionROM room space
Try shifting the card in a different slot, closet to CPU is usually best, it may try to load the M1015 before another.

Also disable LAN boot if enabled and not being used, this also has an OptionROM
Anything else that's not used, disable it.
 

kidlotus

New Member
Aug 19, 2013
3
0
0
I recently flashed by IBM1015 to 9211-8i IT mode for use in my OpenMediaVault home nas and ran into a bit of an issue. I flashed it with the option ROM and now I can't proceed any further during post (a-la post# 188). I have my boot drive installed on the mobo port 1, nothing on the ibm1015 and a USB in one of the ports so I can attempt to re-flash the card without the option rom. I try to boot to the USB (by hitting F8) and the SAS2 BIOS takes over, goes through the post then goes into the onboard rom bios (MediaShield ROM BIOS on an ASUS P5N-D MoBo), says it's detecting the array and hangs. I took out the IBM 1015 and disabled as many things as I could in the MOBO before reinserting the card and trying again. Still nothing. Just wondering if someone can help me figure out how to get in. Should I try booting it into another computer?
 

mobilenvidia

Moderator
Sep 25, 2011
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New Zealand
Is F8 on your Mobo the key combo for Boot device select, F11 is normally it, on ASUS and ASRock anyways
F8 at boot is for selecting an OS once you've booted ?

You need to cleanflash the M1015 and then flash the IT FW
 

kidlotus

New Member
Aug 19, 2013
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I checked it this morning and it definitely is F8 to select the boot drive (see attached image) I don't even have the ability to hit the mobo BIOS. I can put the card into another desktop and try to flash it there, but I don't have much hope that it will work there.



Even after hitting [Del] or F8 I still end up getting the screenshot below.


As a side note, the IBM1015 is in the second PCI-e slot as my MoBo has no onboard video and the card I'm using (super overpowered gaming video card) is in the first PCI-e slot.
 
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aeble

New Member
Dec 23, 2012
2
0
1
I checked it this morning and it definitely is F8 to select the boot drive (see attached image) I don't even have the ability to hit the mobo BIOS. I can put the card into another desktop and try to flash it there, but I don't have much hope that it will work there.


Even after hitting [Del] or F8 I still end up getting the screenshot below.


As a side note, the IBM1015 is in the second PCI-e slot as my MoBo has no onboard video and the card I'm using (super overpowered gaming video card) is in the first PCI-e slot.
Hi there

Do you use any IDE devices? It seems this guy had the same problem, and fixed it by disabling the IDE controller:

Can't boot up...MediaShield ROM BIOS 6.78

If not, and if the IDE controller is already disabled, you should try and run your O/S drive off of the M1015 controller. That might require you to clone the drive, and put the image back to the same disk once it's attached as the first drive on the M1015. Acronis is an excellent tool for that.

For testing if it is the onboard S-ATA controller which has a problem, you could download any type of live linux or DOS bootable ISO, put it on a USB drive and run it while the current O/S drive is detached or the S-ATA/IDE controller is disabled. Then you would see if the board can boot properly without it.
 

lpallard

Member
Aug 17, 2013
276
11
18
Hello,

Just finished assembling my machine with the M1015 controller and following the instructions of http://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-m1015-part-4/ , I have problems to complete the flash procedure. Its been a while (10 years +) I hadn't played with DOS bootdisks...

I took a USB stick (8GB), emptied it completely (destroyed all partitions and filesystems), used Unetbootin on my Linux machine to create a FreeDOS bootdisk. The resulting partition has the boot files, but has only 1.3MB of free space. The SAS2008.zip file is almost 32MB, so copying everything on the USB partition is impossible. I assume I only need to copy the relevant files from the flash procedure I want to follow (IT mode). Is that correct??

Then, using unetbootin, I boot the machine from the USB stick, and I see "FreeDOS" at the top of the screen, nothing else happens.

I also tried tio create a DOS bootdisk with the instructions of Quick and Dirty (Free)DOS Bootable USB Drive Under Linux that consists in dd'ing a floppy image onto the USB stick. Plain simple. But when I boot with it, instead of getting the "FreeDOS" message as with unetbootin, I get "Boot error"

How are you guys doing this? Can someone renew my memory??
 

lpallard

Member
Aug 17, 2013
276
11
18
Drivers, Software and Firmware - HP Support Center
Grab the utility from here (windows)
Get the DOS system files, put them somewhere handy
Now run the utility
Point it to the correct USB stick
Point it to the DOS system files dir
Format USB stick
It will format the stick and you have a 8GB DOS bootable USB device
Now copy the flash and Firmware file across

Geez... I meant to reply to you before you replied to me but I forgot! I managed to flash the card successfully by doing one step at a time and copying only the necessary files to the USB key..

Long time no see DOS.... It was nice too!

Thanks mobilenvidia for replying anyways!!