LSI 9211-8i drive speed negotiated at 3.0Gbps but capable of 6.0Gbps

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andybaran

New Member
Jul 7, 2020
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I purchased LSI 9211-8i on ebay a while back. I'm using this cable to attach three 3TB SAS drives and one of the cables that came with the card to attach three 3TB SATA drives I picked up from Amazon. SAS drives are showing as 6.0Gbps but SATA remain at 3.0Gbps. Any thoughts before I return them? I've verified speed in the OS and the Avago BIOS for the card.
 

j_h_o

Active Member
Apr 21, 2015
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California, US
Is there a backplane/interposer? Or do you have the the cable directly attached to the drives?

I'm not certain I would blame the drives; are you certain that cable can sync higher/faster? Have you tried the controller and cables with other drives or an SSD or something?

What speeds are you getting? I don't think you'd see much transfer speed difference with 6Gbps vs. 3Gbps with those spinners.
 

andybaran

New Member
Jul 7, 2020
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Thank you, your comment on speed makes a lot of sense. Might not even be worth chasing down. There is no backplane or interposer.

I've got all 6 drives setup in ZFS raidz1 and havent really done anything to test performance yet. I'll run some of the usual fio tests and also try hooking up an SSD this weekend and report back.
 

gregsachs

Active Member
Aug 14, 2018
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Can you use LSI Storage Admin or MSM to display the drive link speed, capable speed, and negotiated speed? I know with LSI SA I can go to the controller, more actions, configure link speed and set it for each device; plus click on the "..." next to each device and show the supported and negotiated information. In MSM right click on controller, manage link speed...
 

andybaran

New Member
Jul 7, 2020
13
0
1
Can you use LSI Storage Admin or MSM to display the drive link speed, capable speed, and negotiated speed? I know with LSI SA I can go to the controller, more actions, configure link speed and set it for each device; plus click on the "..." next to each device and show the supported and negotiated information. In MSM right click on controller, manage link speed...
I've done a little bit of digging but have not been able to figure out how to install these for Debian Buster.
 

andybaran

New Member
Jul 7, 2020
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Unfortunately that did not work, it appears the version in that package will not recognize my card. Appreciate the help, I've unfortunately got other projects creeping up on me and have had to shift attention to those. Per the first reply...until I've got a bunch of SSD's I'm not going to worry about it :)