IBM M1015 Experiences
- Thread starter mobilenvidia
- Start date
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Performance Results
Hi all! Thank you very much for all the work that has been done to bring this information together. I've just completed a server build with this controller and I wanted to post the ATTO results and get reactions on it's performance to make sure everything looks in order. The write performance on small writes seems a little low, but perhaps it's just the drives.
Essentially this server is my virtualization server with local storage now served by a 1015. The intent is to use it for most of the VMs, but tie into my SAN server (which will be using a 5014) via iSCSI where needed.
System Specs:
Asus P8B-E/4, 32GB RAM
IBM 1015 flashed to LSI 9240 (thanks MblNV!)
1TB volume comprised of 4x WD "Blue" AAKS 500GB drives in RAID 10. (3.0, 7200 RPM, 16MB)
I realize the 500GB drives are nothing special, but I've got a ton that work great. The higher-speed 64mb 2TB 7200 RPM disks will go in the SAN.
I don't have a ton of experience with partition alignment, but from what I can tell it's setup ok.
Here are my ATTO results:
If the IMG is gone:
Does this look to be in the ballpark? Thoughts?
Hi all! Thank you very much for all the work that has been done to bring this information together. I've just completed a server build with this controller and I wanted to post the ATTO results and get reactions on it's performance to make sure everything looks in order. The write performance on small writes seems a little low, but perhaps it's just the drives.
Essentially this server is my virtualization server with local storage now served by a 1015. The intent is to use it for most of the VMs, but tie into my SAN server (which will be using a 5014) via iSCSI where needed.
System Specs:
Asus P8B-E/4, 32GB RAM
IBM 1015 flashed to LSI 9240 (thanks MblNV!)
1TB volume comprised of 4x WD "Blue" AAKS 500GB drives in RAID 10. (3.0, 7200 RPM, 16MB)
I realize the 500GB drives are nothing special, but I've got a ton that work great. The higher-speed 64mb 2TB 7200 RPM disks will go in the SAN.
I don't have a ton of experience with partition alignment, but from what I can tell it's setup ok. Here are my ATTO results:
If the IMG is gone:
| KB | Write | Read |
| .5 | 3857 | 3505 |
| 1.0 | 7150 | 7366 |
| 2.0 | 14592 | 15170 |
| 4.0 | 25283 | 31744 |
| 8.0 | 41959 | 55673 |
| 16.0 | 68963 | 82666 |
| 32.0 | 69723 | 76775 |
| 64.0 | 75559 | 72132 |
| 128.0 | 81698 | 90182 |
| 256.0 | 89173 | 99545 |
| 512.0 | 94022 | 102456 |
| 1024.0 | 88738 | 160739 |
| 2048.0 | 97790 | 180561 |
| 4096.0 | 87438 | 169895 |
| 8192.0 | 96559 | 178956 |
Does this look to be in the ballpark? Thoughts?
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Did you reboot after setting up, also play with the Drive cache setting.
Seems strange the very big jump in Reads
Seems strange the very big jump in Reads
Thanks both of you for responding; Yeah, I've rebooted several times; it's acting as a HyperV host right now. OS is Win2k8R2 Core. I toggled the write cache off and then on and oddly got 10% lower performance on sizes less than 16k and 10% higher performance above there. Those crazy read speeds persist. Unless you guys think it unwise to do so for any reason I think I'll call it a day and move on to my SAN server. Thanks to your other post mblNV I'll be installing a 9260 with CacheCade.
hi there,
thanks to this site i was able to flash my m1015 to IT mode. I performed on it on a dell optiplex 745 of all things. so now i transfered the card to my server and thought maybe i would just be able to setup the bios to look for the card and unplug my OS drive (ssd w/server 2012) and everything would be fine - nope! this card seems to take over pre-post and it seems to ignore my keystrokes (delete key) to get into my bios. i have yet to go through all the settings in the lsi utility so im hoping its in there.
thanks to this site i was able to flash my m1015 to IT mode. I performed on it on a dell optiplex 745 of all things. so now i transfered the card to my server and thought maybe i would just be able to setup the bios to look for the card and unplug my OS drive (ssd w/server 2012) and everything would be fine - nope! this card seems to take over pre-post and it seems to ignore my keystrokes (delete key) to get into my bios. i have yet to go through all the settings in the lsi utility so im hoping its in there.
Are you trying to set/unset the Boot drive ?
I'm pretty sure in IT mode you cannot boot from the M1015 as it's has no BIOS to make anything bootable.
You would be better of with IR mode and the LSI BIOS then you can enter the LSI settings and make any drive bootable
The motherboard BIOS will read the controller and you just select this as your boot drive in boot order screen.
BTW driver above for M1015 in it's native LSI9220/40 mode.
I'm pretty sure in IT mode you cannot boot from the M1015 as it's has no BIOS to make anything bootable.
You would be better of with IR mode and the LSI BIOS then you can enter the LSI settings and make any drive bootable
The motherboard BIOS will read the controller and you just select this as your boot drive in boot order screen.
BTW driver above for M1015 in it's native LSI9220/40 mode.
mobilenvidia,
ahhh, i see what youre saying. I guess i misunderstood the modes. IT just allows the OS to see the drives and not boot. okay now that makes sense.
i do have an Intel SSD that was on my mobo controller and now it makes sense that the m1015 didnt know what the heck to do when i attached it to the breakout cable.
do you recommend IR mode over IT for read/write performance, w/no raid on a storage setup? i do have a WD black drive where i am running hypver-v with several VMs on it. im just not looking to over complicate things and i think going no raid is easier on my wallet
ahhh, i see what youre saying. I guess i misunderstood the modes. IT just allows the OS to see the drives and not boot. okay now that makes sense.
i do have an Intel SSD that was on my mobo controller and now it makes sense that the m1015 didnt know what the heck to do when i attached it to the breakout cable.
do you recommend IR mode over IT for read/write performance, w/no raid on a storage setup? i do have a WD black drive where i am running hypver-v with several VMs on it. im just not looking to over complicate things and i think going no raid is easier on my wallet
im not sure i understand.....???
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IT is best for systems running ZFS where the M1015 is just a dumb HBA passing everything through
The OS does all the work the M1015 just provides all the SATA3 ports
IR add a LSI BIOS (OptionROM) where you can make RAID arrays setup boot etc
This is ideal for Booting from SSD's in RAID, and still have single drives passed through etc.
Not quite as fast as IT as it does add a layer between drives and OS
Leave the M1015 in IT mode, attach HDD to it.
Put the SSD on the Motherboard boot from here.
The OS does all the work the M1015 just provides all the SATA3 ports
IR add a LSI BIOS (OptionROM) where you can make RAID arrays setup boot etc
This is ideal for Booting from SSD's in RAID, and still have single drives passed through etc.
Not quite as fast as IT as it does add a layer between drives and OS
Leave the M1015 in IT mode, attach HDD to it.
Put the SSD on the Motherboard boot from here.
IT mode with BIOS, really = IR mode.
I would clear Firmware reflash IT mode
Put what ever you installed Server 2k12 back in, boot to it
Do a repair, as the location of drive has changed.
This should fix your issues, I had hours of endless fun with server 2k12 and gave up, running Win8 much more user friendly
I would clear Firmware reflash IT mode
Put what ever you installed Server 2k12 back in, boot to it
Do a repair, as the location of drive has changed.
This should fix your issues, I had hours of endless fun with server 2k12 and gave up, running Win8 much more user friendly
why you guys are not saving the NVDATA as well? You know with the hardware key, it is a eeprom bootstrap.
The controller sees the pins bridged and will use the vendor ID to the encryption key to boot instead of the SBR.
It may be possible to insert a hardware key, read with megarec all sbr/nvdata/rom back to a file and binary compare the difference if you don't believe me.
The controller sees the pins bridged and will use the vendor ID to the encryption key to boot instead of the SBR.
It may be possible to insert a hardware key, read with megarec all sbr/nvdata/rom back to a file and binary compare the difference if you don't believe me.
Alright done, back to IT mode w/o bios. Just to note, I am doing the flashing on old dell optiplex 745 w/ubuntu loaded. And yes, this thing now just totally boots right into the OS! Now I'll have to bring into my windoze server to and do some cleanup.
server 2012 is VERY counterintuitive - its taken me a good while to "ignore" the interface. but its going to pay the bills sooner or later at the work place...sigh.
server 2012 is VERY counterintuitive - its taken me a good while to "ignore" the interface. but its going to pay the bills sooner or later at the work place...sigh.
Looks like I'm up and running. sever 2012 and a couple of storage pools and so far so good. Bit man oh man this m1015 runs pretty hot. I think it's actually setting off my CPU temp sensor so my CPU fan goes bezerk. I don't remember my CPU fan blowing in overdrive before the card. Then again I added two more 3TB 7200 drives into the case. Case is a fractal design array2. Still running this stock amd cooler. Uh oh.
Briefly played with a drive mirror and was able to see 260MBs+ on windows copy > details. Sometimes pegged at 300+. This card is pretty damn fast.
sever 2012 and a couple of storage pools and so far so good. Bit man oh man this m1015 runs pretty hot. I think it's actually setting off my CPU temp sensor so my CPU fan goes bezerk. I don't remember my CPU fan blowing in overdrive before the card. Then again I added two more 3TB 7200 drives into the case. Case is a fractal design array2. Still running this stock amd cooler. Uh oh. Briefly played with a drive mirror and was able to see 260MBs+ on windows copy > details. Sometimes pegged at 300+. This card is pretty damn fast.