Lenovo ThinkServer SA120 - Rackmount DAS

[cbiggers]

I made a little progress, but not enough to matter. From what I can tell the Array Manager just runs a storcli64.exe to look for controllers / enclosures. It creates a text file in the installation directory called PDList.txt when run. Before I was getting an error 0x0 or something in it. I replaced the storcli64.exe with the dell provided percli64.exe. Now its filling it ful of my drives info and it shows enclosure info. Still nothing in the GUI though.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Here is the info its dumping to the text file.

Adapter #0

Enclosure Device ID: 0
Slot Number: 0
Drive's postion: DiskGroup: 0, Span: 0, Arm: 0
Enclosure position: 0
Device Id: 3
WWN: 50014ee0596edd88
Sequence Number: 2
Media Error Count: 0
Other Error Count: 0
Predictive Failure Count: 0
Last Predictive Failure Event Seq Number: 0
PD Type: SATA

 

[Dssguy1]

Just fired mine up and it works great with LSI-9207-8E. The thinkserver software is a godsend for those fans! Wow, why the heck does Auto still crank them to level 7 with no drives even loaded to have any heat. Lenovo really needs to default those to 1 unless there is some heat to actually eliminate.

I updated the card to firmware 1008 as well. Just for fun.

 

[Dssguy1]

I know it should also be obvious but when looking at the back, plug your sas cable into the left port.

 

[heathen]

Still very new to this so I am open to suggestions. I have a LSI 9207-8e right now, flashed to Firmware v19 IT mode and would like to use it if at all possible instead of buying another new card. I was thinking of going with FreeNas 9.10, so I think that supports ZFS. Is that the best route for a R720 connected to this SA120? I am just hosting my own home for backups and video streaming to plex. I already know this is insane overkill but I got everything very cheap.


So I didn't see my LSI 9207E in that list, in your opinion does that mean caching won't work or is it possible via software instead of the being controller based? Also, those SSDs are all Lenovo part numbers, I want to use a consumer SSD like the 850 (maybe pro). cbiggers is commenting that it will work with them.

If you are going with ZFS then you probably want to have as dumb controller as possible (without any RAID functions - IT mode, so without any controller level cache). ZFS with slog\l2arc will do all the things.

But I would not go with any consumer level SSDs if you expect even moderate load:
1. They usually have terrible sync writes speed (here is an article about SSDs sync writes speed for ceph journal device with tests data table but it could be used as a source for zfs slog device too)
2. They don't have power loss protection
3. They durabillity leaves much to be desired

May be it's better to take two small Intel S3700 or Samsung SM863 100\200GB.

 

[AndrewX192]

I have an SA120--- only my Lenovo branded (low end sas2108) or IBM M5210 cards are able to operate the user interface to lower that ungodly loud set of fans.

FWIW, I also tried a number of resister options, none worked well. Likewise, I could not find any command line info to manage the fans, either.

Use a cheap IBM controller... Or if anyone has an SBR file + instructions that I could use on a 9286cv-8e (Intel rms25sb008), I'd probably send you a case of beer...

Seriously, the reason this is powered off in the rack is because the fans are too much of a pita to turn down.

If you find another way, please let me know.

I have a LSI 9200e and was able to set the fan speed on linux without the gui using a utility I wrote: GitHub - AndrewX192/lenovo-sa120-fanspeed-utility

 

[Gnodu]

AndrewX192- just saw your post... You would know I am on the road, and in an all day meeting tomorrow... Looking forward to trying when I get home!

Seriously- even in a datacenter- who in their right minds would think those fans would need to start at max speed? (I understand fail safe, but fan level 7 there is just a little overkill!)

 

[cbiggers]

I have a LSI 9200e and was able to set the fan speed on linux without the gui using a utility I wrote: GitHub - AndrewX192/lenovo-sa120-fanspeed-utility

Awesome utility. Would you have any idea how to get this to work in Windows or would you be able to make one that works in windows? I'd be willing to pay some. The fans are driving me crazy.

 

[Dssguy1]

S2012R2, Dell R710, LSI 9200-8e card. Running as admin, the software still doesn't pick up this JBOD.

Maybe this will help you out. I updated my LSI 9207-8E firmware and Bios to Rev 20 last night and lost the ability to see anything in the ThinkServer software! Luckily I knew everything was working on REV 19 so I downgraded and everything worked like it should.

I have heard bad things about Rev 20 so if anybody is having problems seeing the enclosure in the ThinkServer software, try downgrading your raid card.

 

[Dssguy1]

Has anybody put an 8TB drive in their SA120? I put in the SATA HGST 8TB drive that was in the WD MyBooks from December and it shows up fine, just has a Fault light lit. In the ThinkServer software, it doesn't even indicate a fault so I'm not sure what to do to identify the problem and get rid of that ORANGE LIGHT!!!

Any suggestions on how to narrow down the reason for the Orange Fault Light?

 

[cbiggers]

Maybe this will help you out. I updated my LSI 9207-8E firmware and Bios to Rev 20 last night and lost the ability to see anything in the ThinkServer software! Luckily I knew everything was working on REV 19 so I downgraded and everything worked like it should.

I have heard bad things about Rev 20 so if anybody is having problems seeing the enclosure in the ThinkServer software, try downgrading your raid card.

I upgraded the drivers and firmware of my LSI 9286CV and it seems my SA120 now. My Dell PERC 830 won't see them though. I don't think the PERC is passing SES traffic. I guess i'm going to use my 9286 instead of my 830 for now.

 

[cbiggers]

Has anybody put an 8TB drive in their SA120? I put in the SATA HGST 8TB drive that was in the WD MyBooks from December and it shows up fine, just has a Fault light lit. In the ThinkServer software, it doesn't even indicate a fault so I'm not sure what to do to identify the problem and get rid of that ORANGE LIGHT!!!

Any suggestions on how to narrow down the reason for the Orange Fault Light?

I'm going to guess it shows a fault because its SATA and not SAS. Its not able to talk to the redundant controller. I could be wrong though.

 

[Gnodu]

I'm going to guess it shows a fault because its SATA and not SAS. Its not able to talk to the redundant controller. I could be wrong though.

I'm pretty sure anything SATA on the front side of the backplane will fault.

Oddly enough, the back side-- where the 2.5 cages go-- the cages are really just an interposer and a positioning mechanism. SATA drives in the rear slots (I have only used SSDs) definitely do not fault... But tgen again, they are designed for SATA.

So... When I realized this, I grabbed a couple interposer a (I think they were Emulex, designed for SATA3) and tried them-- still faulted.

Stuck my trusty 15K SAS 3gb/s drives back in, and the faults mysteriously disappeared.

Thanks for the firmware tip:
I'm going to try swapping firmwares around tonight- it would be really nice if they worked! I have to crack open both servers, as my cool eBay find for the year (10Gbase-T mezzanine (Intel format) modules I got new/sealed for $100 each) arrived today.

 

[Shadowrun78]

I may be jumping on the SA120 bandwagon pretty soon too. Just going through the motion of dotting my t's and crossing my i's atm. I've come into a nice x3250 m5 that I can use with it.

With that said, if I've read most of what everyone's placed in this thread correctly, using the SA120 with 3.5 SATA drives is possible if you make sure you use the primary controller instead of the secondary one? And just your run of the mill Seagate/WD Red 4TB Nas SATA drives?

 

[Churchill]

Ayone know if this one will work?

Dell SAS 6 GB Host Bus Adapter External Controller Card 12DNW Standard Profile

 

[MountainDew]

I may be jumping on the SA120 bandwagon pretty soon too. Just going through the motion of dotting my t's and crossing my i's atm. I've come into a nice x3250 m5 that I can use with it.

With that said, if I've read most of what everyone's placed in this thread correctly, using the SA120 with 3.5 SATA drives is possible if you make sure you use the primary controller instead of the secondary one? And just your run of the mill Seagate/WD Red 4TB Nas SATA drives?

Can you share with the thread where you found that to be an issue? It would be good to know for potential buyers. I haven't come across that but again, please share with the class
I haven't heard any issue with SATA drives not working with this DAS. I have read there are size limits for the 2.5 drive bays when using as caching drives. This is from the Lenovo site. I recommend bookmarking it for those interested in buying the DAS

 

[Shadowrun78]

Can you share with the thread where you found that to be an issue? It would be good to know for potential buyers. I haven't come across that but again, please share with the class
I haven't heard any issue with SATA drives not working with this DAS. I have read there are size limits for the 2.5 drive bays when using as caching drives. This is from the Lenovo site. I recommend bookmarking it for those interested in buying the DAS

Sure, may take a moment to dig up the links from my history, but I know on page 2 of this thread, cbiggers had trouble seeing SATA drives until he realized that he had to use the primary controller instead of secondary one. Something about SAS drives operating with 2 channels and SATA drives only operating with 1 meaning that the secondary controller will never see SATA drives.

 

[MountainDew]

Sure, may take a moment to dig up the links from my history, but I know on page 2 of this thread, cbiggers had trouble seeing SATA drives until he realized that he had to use the primary controller instead of secondary one. Something about SAS drives operating with 2 channels and SATA drives only operating with 1 meaning that the secondary controller will never see SATA drives.

Ah ok. I'm wondering if that would be the case whether the drives are SAS or SATA then? If there's a check to look at the first controller and if nothing is plugged in, it doesn't bother looking at the 2nd controller. I only have one of these but I do have a 2nd controller with mine. I don't think it would cause any damage to my data if I tried this theory out.

 

[Shadowrun78]

Ah ok. I'm wondering if that would be the case whether the drives are SAS or SATA then? If there's a check to look at the first controller and if nothing is plugged in, it doesn't bother looking at the 2nd controller. I only have one of these but I do have a 2nd controller with mine. I don't think it would cause any damage to my data if I tried this theory out.

Well...hopefully not, but hopefully you got good backups just in case . Speaking of drives are you running OEM's or Lenovo branded ones?

 

[MountainDew]

Well...hopefully not, but hopefully you got good backups just in case . Speaking of drives are you running OEM's or Lenovo branded ones?

Lenovo branded

 

[heathen]

Ppl, is it possible to connect sa120 to two different servers (one server to one IO Module) and partition by 6 (8 with back trays) drives per server?