Info on LSI SAS3408? Got myself a 530-8i on eBay...

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james23

james23

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Nov 18, 2014
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nezach said:
@james23 as I mentioned before there is no such thing as IR firmware for these cards. There are only IT and iMR firmwares

Lenovo 530-8i comes flashed with Lenovo iMR firmware. Lenovo iMR firmware should really be the same as Avago firmware, just older version, Intel actually has firmware newer than Avago, but at the end of the day they all come from the same source.

Your problem is that NVMe is disabled on these cards and you want that to be enabled. We do not know how disabling NVMe is achieved, it could be something in the firmware, but it could also be some kind of flag in the EEPROM. If it is a flag in the EEPROM then re-flashing Avago firmware might not solve your issue.

I received my new card and will look into it as time allows.
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Crap, this is the first time ive seen clearly stated that NVMe is almost certainly disabled on this card. in prior posts (i and others) only had the Lenovo manual to guess off of, and from that manual hoped that the difference between the 530-8i (not trimode) and the 530-8i "Dense" (has trimode) was just a marketing thing (or was done in FW that could be changed to stock LSI FW). Where are you getting your data/info "that NVMe is disabled on these cards" (which BTW is correct, now that i have my 80$ lsi cable in, and have tried it)

also when i say IR FW, i mean iMR FW (ie raid FW , not IT FW), its just short hand. is there a difference between IR fw and iMR FW? (later being iMegaRaid i assume).

tks
 
james23

james23

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well i got the 80$ LSI cable in today, and with that cable + 530-8i (running lenovo's latest FW), NVMe drives do NOT show up in anyway. (so they really are NOT Tri-Mode, and the lenovo 530-8i manual is accurate). so raid1 with nvme is a nogo on these cards, unless *maybe* someone finds a way to flash these 530-8i cards with LSI's 9440-8i FW.

So for now it looks like there are only 2x uses for this low price 530-8i card:
1- as a "ok performance wise" 2 port sas/sata sas3 Raid card (all raids BUT raid6) - it has no cache though keep that in mind.
2- as a sas3 IT / HBA (via flashing it over to LSI's IT FW)

this sucks for me, as im only interested in finally getting a real HW raid1 solution for esxi (and others). one that does not use a SAN/NAS.

I may just buy a real 9440-8i , now that i have this over priced cable :(
 
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nezach

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Oct 14, 2012
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james23 said:
Where are you getting your data/info "that NVMe is disabled on these cards" (which BTW is correct, now that i have my 80$ lsi cable in, and have tried it)
Click to expand...
The card does not report it as supported in the "show all" output and I am sure Lenovo would mention it in their documentation if it was supported.

james23 said:
also when i say IR FW, i mean iMR FW (ie raid FW , not IT FW), its just short hand. is there a difference between IR fw and iMR FW? (later being iMegaRaid i assume).
Click to expand...
IR and MR are two very different things. IR is more like IT + lightweight RAID support, and MR is completely different beast.
 
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nezach

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I was "working" with my 530-8i card with original Lenovo MR firmware v50.3.0-1032 in an older BIOS based machine and everything was running fine. During boot MFI-BIOS would show the message "All of the disks from previous configuration are gone.." and would require me to press a key to continue, but I did not bother clearing the config.

I then decided to move it to a newer UEFI based machine to try some commands in EFI shell. I installed the card in PCIe 2.0 x4 slot and EFI StorCLI was not seeing the card, it was also not showing up in the UEFI GUI (my UEFI shows all installed devices in GUI). Bottom line, these cards do not work in PCIe x4 slots, unless you short J4 pins. With J4 shorted then they happily work in x4 slot.

Then, I moved the card to PCIe 3.0 x16 slot, but in EFI "storcli show" command would just hang and "storcli /c0 show" would show "Controller 0 is in non-operational state.". Also UEFI was not showing HII menu for the card. After pondering a bit I decided to address that boot error "All of the disks from previous configuration are gone.." and see if it helps.
I moved card back to BIOS machine, deleted config using "storcli /c0 delete config", rebooted, made sure boot message does not appear again, moved card back to UEFI machine and it now it started working fine. I also now see HII menu for it in UEFI.

@james23 this really matches what you have described about the boot message and HII menu not appearing. Can you try "storcli /c0 delete config" and check if HII menu starts appearing for you.
 
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Axam

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From Intel release notes:
The default installation of this MR7.5p2 version of firmware only has formal support for SAS/SATA mode. Support for NVMe mode requires manually changing the controller's profile from 10 to 11.
To switch from SAS/SATA mode to NVMe mode on controller 0 at EFI prompt: “storcli.efi /c0 set profile profileid=11” followed by “reset –c”
To switch from NVMe mode back to SAS/SATA mode on controller 0 at EFI prompt: “storcli.efi /c0 set profile profileid=10” followed by “reset –c”

(as shown by “storcli.efi /cX show profile” the default profile is SAS/SATA, so if you set factory defaults, you will no longer be in NVMe mode on the following DC cycle)
Click to expand...
Can't change profile from Linux with error "Description = Operation is not possible". Can someone try with EFI version of StorCLI?
 
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nezach

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I am pretty sure that is Intel specific + Intel lists NVMe support in their documentation.

If you run "storcli /cx show profile" it should show you a list of available profiles for you card. Mine only shows this:
Code: 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mode ProfID MaxPhyDrv MaxLD MaxPCIeDev MaxAHCIDev Dflt Curr Optm Pend WBSup Cmp
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RAID 10            63    32          0          0 Yes  Yes  No   No   No    Yes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
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Axam

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Tried flash 530-8i with newer firmware from Lenovo. Because I used PCI passthrough to VM in ESXi flash process failed. During firmware flash CPU got panic and hang completely. It was bad idea.

At this moment I can see in BIOS that 530-8i ROM is loading, but when in OS can't load firmware.
In EFI with J4 short storcli can detect card. Without J4 in EFI can't detect card. In OS can't detect card with and without J4.

I tried flash Lenovo image via storcli EFI, but got error that image validation is failed. What image I can use for recovery?
 
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nezach

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@Axam are you still on MR firmware or did you flash IT. I assume MR since you tried installing Lenovo update.
I messed up my card once and recovered, but it was using IT firmware. Maybe it will work for you with MR fw:
Code: 
storcli /c0 download completeflash fileone=vtboot01.rom filetwo=9440-8i_nopad.rom
Post generated log here for research purposes please.
 

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Axam

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@nezach Thanks for help. Yes, I'm on Lenovo MR firmware and wanted update to MR.

Looks like vtboot.rom is IT loader. I'd like keep MR firmware, if possible.
In Lenovo firmware package I can see two more ROM files - app1026.rom and app1032.rom.
 
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nezach

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vtboot is just for bootstrapping the card, it will not actually be flashed. You want the 9440-8i_nopad.rom and not the other files.
 
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Axam

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Recovered successfully. Flashed latest Lenovo MR firmware 50.5.0-1678.

Probably in the same way I can flash Intel or Broadcom firmware and try enable NVMe.
 

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nezach

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@Axam, glad to hear it worked. You can try Broadcom firmware, but I doubt it will work because PCI ids will not match up. I will post some additional info later.
 
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Axam

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james23 said:
Correct me if im wrong, but we have yet to see or have anyone confirm that these 530-8i cards, with the lenovo fw, does show up in the HII menus. (the only HII screenshot is from earlier in thread, with an asus mb, but the guy has already flashed to HBA 9400, as you can see in his HII screen shot).
Click to expand...
HII is working fine with HPE Gen9 server and stock Lenovo firmware.
 
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Ollie2001

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Mar 31, 2019
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Hi guys, been pulling my hair out most of the day over this one. I have 2 x Lenovo 930-8i's that I'm trying to flash to LSI (Broadcom) MR firmware, as they're a good few versions ahead of Lenovo. I've currently got them in HP DL360e Gen8 servers so no native UEFI so I moved one to my UEFI enabled PC to try and flash them but still either get "invalid image" or "invalid checksum" if in EFI Shell with J4 bridged.

My next plan of attach was to try and change the vendor ID? From Lenovo to LSI? But anyone got a copy of storclio? Think that's the only tool that does it.

Anyone else have any more thoughts about how we can flash it?

Thanks!
 
BLinux

BLinux

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Ollie2001 said:
Hi guys, been pulling my hair out most of the day over this one. I have 2 x Lenovo 930-8i's that I'm trying to flash to LSI (Broadcom) MR firmware, as they're a good few versions ahead of Lenovo. I've currently got them in HP DL360e Gen8 servers so no native UEFI so I moved one to my UEFI enabled PC to try and flash them but still either get "invalid image" or "invalid checksum" if in EFI Shell with J4 bridged.

My next plan of attach was to try and change the vendor ID? From Lenovo to LSI? But anyone got a copy of storclio? Think that's the only tool that does it.

Anyone else have any more thoughts about how we can flash it?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
i don't have a 930-8i, so i know nothing about it. but what firmware are you trying to flash? more details of what you're actually trying to do might help others here who know more about this help you. "invalid image" messages, typically mean exactly that.. .you might be using a firmware that is not meant for that controller.
 
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nthu9280

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Even on 530-8i you would get invalid image when you try to flash Broadcom's 9440-8i_nopad.rom where as the Lenovo's version of the same name flashed fine. Just a guess but I'd think you need to update the PCI vendor, device, sub-vendor, sub-device IDs before attempting the LSI FW.

I've not experimented on this much further and just flashed mine to 9400-8i in IT mode and called it a day.
 
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