LSI 3444E flash procedure - cont.
First post
I joined after a search for info on the illusive LSI 3444E HBA (or IBM SAS HBA 25R8060) and found all the info I need to flash the controller via previous posts from enlightened members - THANKS!!! I thought I'd post a brief synopsis of the procedure just to clarify for anyone else who may find themselves needing to update the BIOS and firmware.
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This worked for me using the 3444E installed on an ASUS P5E3 WS Pro and all is working very well.
Many thanks again to the previous poster's foresight and info, and I hope this helps someone.
Greetings everyone,
Feels good to see this thread maintaining a good steady flame, and just when it seems it's gonna cool down, someone new comes around and blows the "embers" to keep it alive ;-)
Nice work
willko ! Few questions for you, if I may :
- Any particular reason why you chose to flash the .fw and .ROM files separately ? LSI is very specific about this, recommending to flash both with a single run of sasflash, though I don't think it really matters if yo use the correct files – matched pairs of .fw and .ROM.
- Why using both, BIOS and uEFI ? They were not exactly meant to complement each other, more like a choice, to use one or the other.
- Can you please tell me if there's any BIOS setting to run the SAS3444E in non-RAID mode ?
When I had first discovered this SAS HBA, I was really excited about it's perfect layout of internal ports (I only need three, and 7-pin SATA cables are readily available), and the bargain price seen every now and then. Given the model designation – SAS3444E (without ''-R'' suffix), I was assuming it's a non-RAID card, relying on LSI's coding system for discerning non-RAID and IR RAID HBAs. Bottom line - I completely overlooked the »Integrated RAID 0,1,1E« text in IBM's Quick Specs.
Furthermore; according to IBM's documentation, RAID 0,1,1E in IR-mode on 25R8060 HBA is only available in conjunction with System x3105 and x3455 Servers, so the questions is – how does this HBA see the disks when used with other, non supported xServers or any other, non-IBM machine ?
I've been digging through piles of IBM documentation, and browsed through all the relevant forums (IBM's included), but for the life of me I couldn't find anything about pass-through IT-mode, or any other option for non-RAID mode, to enable 25R8060/SAS3444E to see the disks as JBOD. If setting the SAS/SATA disks as RAID 0 with single disk is the only option, then I'm definitely abandoning the SAS3444E route for my Linux MDADM RAID-to-be.
My own search for original LSI fw/BIOS files for SAS3444E ended up in several dead-end streets, like LSI and SGI Tech Support, but I did find a source of what could be pretty old original LSI fw/BIOS files (2006), well hidden on third party web site, with archived files for Intel S5000PAL firmware updates.
If anynone is brave enough to try those instead of IBM files from 2010, just let me know. I would much prefer to receive the latest files from LSI, but ... they claim they never released them, and only provided the »silicon« SAS3444E to IBM, Intel, SGI and others. Go figure. If that was the truth, then how could they test their ''silicon'' SAS3444E, before offering the card to OEM vendors ???
Kind regards,
Sebastian