LSI WarpDrive Sun Oracle F80 800GB PCI-E SSD $95 FS

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techtoys

Active Member
Feb 25, 2016
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no, not too hot. mine are usually around 50~60C and work just fine.
Thanks, sounds like it should be fine in my 2U/3U SM cases.

I have the older F40 and should check the temps on that one.
With some airflow around the SSD enclosure heatsink it should be OK.
 
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Janiashvili

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Dec 16, 2016
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Hi,
I've never used these. Are these a standard SSDs?
I.e. will they show up in the file explorer as a drive? Will be able to install an OS (Windows) on it?

Because this seems pretty interesting thing...
 

svtkobra7

Active Member
Jan 2, 2017
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Hi,
I've never used these. Are these a standard SSDs
  • Definitely not standard SSDs.
  • They were an interesting product offer on the way to NVMe and today offer a great value (IMO).
  • Each F80 has 4 200 GB SSDs (MLC NAND), but the similarities between this device and a "standard SSD" ends there.
  • Each is controlled by a SAS/SATA2 controller, with a LSI SAS2008 PCIe to SAS Bridge.
I.e. will they show up in the file explorer as a drive? Will be able to install an OS (Windows) on it?
  • In Windows, you can use each 200 GB SSD individually, or striped (using disk management tool); however, I passed mine through to FreeNAS from ESXi.
  • You can definitely install Windows on it and I'm nearly certain you can boot into Windows as well via OPROM and adjusting the LSI controller to make it bootable.



Credit: Pieter Malan: SUN ORACLE Flash Acelerator F40 400GB Solid State on PC
Because this seems pretty interesting thing...
  • They are interesting, until you start toying with NVMe (and then they seem a bit slow).
  • A few items to look out for, no real deal breakers: (a) You need Sun specific firmware (link can be provided if it hasn't already), and (b) they do run hot, but if you have a properly cooled server no additional thought needs to be given it. I want to say mine stayed (two side by side) at or below 50C in a Supermicro 836 chassis, only cooled by the backplane fans expelling warm air from the HDDs out of the chassis (and I suppose to some extent the exhaust fans, but those are positioned on the other side of the chassis).
 

raimond

New Member
Oct 5, 2017
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Sorry to necropost, but I just received a private message from our local computer parts trading forum. Its seems he has figured out how to flash Seagate Nytro Firmware into his Sun Flash F80. Instructions are available here.

Converting a Sun/Oracle F40/F80 Flash Accelerator to a LSI/Seagate Warpdrive | Kenneth Kasilag

I want to confirm his findings but I am not that familiar with Linux. I'm stuck at STEP 1. I would like to find out if it would work, I tried reaching out to that person but I have not heard from him yet. Maybe the experts here would be able to assist me.

I have Ubuntu LTS 18.04 installed and running with the build essential, I don't understand how you install the other two software mentioned.
 
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raimond

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Oct 5, 2017
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Confirmed this conversion procedure today. I have successfully cross-flashed from Sun Oracle Firmware to Seagate Firmware.

My Sun Flash F40 is now running on 13.00.08.00 firmware from Seagate.

A few things I noticed.

Legacy Bios OPROM will say SAS Address not set.
 

raimond

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Oct 5, 2017
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***Warning***

Do not set a SAS WWN, this will set a "Component Failure" on OPROM POST which will render all the controller no seeing any SSD.

I'm still figuring out how to do a recovery.

Fix
You have to reactivate the raid volume using lsiutil since it was detected as a foreign volume. After activation everything will be back as it should be and oprom will no longer POST SAS Address not set
 
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mobilenvidia

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Sep 25, 2011
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Just bought one for US$70 here
Was selling for $80, offered $65 he countered with $70
Offers reasonable shipping costs to NZ to make it worth while
Will be interesting to have a play with one.
 
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frogtech

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Jan 4, 2016
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Just bought one for US$70 here
Was selling for $80, offered $65 he countered with $70
Offers reasonable shipping costs to NZ to make it worth while
Will be interesting to have a play with one.
Make sure you get some airflow over it, theyre rated as needing 200 lfm and get HOT. I'd recommend mounting a fan over it if possible.
 

Fritz

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Apr 6, 2015
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Make sure you get some airflow over it, theyre rated as needing 200 lfm and get HOT. I'd recommend mounting a fan over it if possible.
So can I assume that power consumption is a bit on the high side?
 

mobilenvidia

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Sep 25, 2011
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Yeah, going into a R720, a proverbial wind farm once those fans crank up
Will be interesting to see how the R720 handles the SAS2008, as from same era, wonder if the System BIOS checks on PCIe temps like it would with Dell original HW and crank up fan speed
Am used to LSI controllers none of them run cool, adding 4x old school SSD's won't help either

Am more looking forward to converting to IR mode than anything
 

mobilenvidia

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Sep 25, 2011
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Got mine a couple of days ago, took some sorting of new CentOS partition and setting up for process to change it to IR mode
Got that done last night.
Performance goes up to 1500/800MB/s, from about 450/275MB/s for each SSD in IT and no better with them RAID'd via OS
Only issue with my R720, with HP H200 (with BIOS as booting from) and a H710p, the system won't boot past checking for devices
In IT F80 mode system booted fine
Had to in the system BIOS disable port that F80 is in from BIOS loading, then worked fine
I'll play about some more to see if I can narrow down where the issue is
Not had a chance to check if I can boot from it, as plan is to install Server 2k19 on it

Anyway very nice to fiddle about with it, $70 well spent as I learnt a whole heap about Linux
 

xin

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Feb 20, 2023
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has anyone got osx apfs to boot on it? I am getting fs_ and tx_ and disk unmounted errors
thx