LSI3008 SAS3 controller

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unexpectedly

New Member
Mar 11, 2014
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Hi, FNG here.

This forum has been a ton of help the past 4 or 5 days, so I thought I'd write to share my experience. BTW, I have a similar post on the lime-tech unRAID forums.

I probably should have gotten the IBM card you guys all love, but since I found a SAS3 12gbs controller for so cheap, I couldn't resist. I bought a supermicro AOC-S3008L-L8i card (thankfully for only $200). That was before I read up enough on ZFS and noticed this controller didn't give access to each disk.

I did get it reflashed to IT mode and the 6 drives I have show up individually in debian. I got the firmware here from Supermicro's ftp site. Note that the first visit to the ftp site requires you to acknowledge / agree it's not their fault. Then you need to go back and hit the link again. It also may or may not popout.

Then I put the UEFI IT files on the same LMDE usb boot stick I used for installing the OS and booted to the UEFI: shell via bios boot menu. Didn't know that you need to use dos-like command to switch to the usb drive. btw, shift pg-up works for scrollback. The uefi script failed to flash, so I went back later and executed the same commands from the script one at a time and it flashed ok.

Also, since this is similar to the LSI 9300-8i, I went there and downloaded all the files. sas3ircu from there worked out of box in debian; I made that one file executable & copied to /usr/sbin Of note, the 9311-8i OEM version has better user documentation.

Could anyone point me to a way to configure the write caching?
I'm still trying to figure that out.

I just confirmed this is offered by Intel, too as the RS3UC080 and their product page specifically mentions RAID and JBOD in the same breath. This is intel's ark page for the rs3uc080. This is the software download page and I'm thinking I may try flashing to intel's firmware.

Hardware is a new Lenovo ThinkServer RD430 that I basically stole off Amazon for $699.Pic of controller:
 

unexpectedly

New Member
Mar 11, 2014
3
0
0
Code:
Here's the post again... what gives with the formatting? :-(

Hi, FNG here. 

This forum has been a ton of help the past 4 or 5 days, so I thought I'd write to share my experience. BTW, I have a similar post on the lime-tech unRAID forums.

I probably should have gotten the IBM card you guys all love, but since I found a SAS3 12gbs controller for so cheap, I couldn't resist. I bought a supermicro AOC-S3008L-L8i card ([url=https://www.wiredzone.com/Supermicro-AOC-S3008L-L8i-8-Int.-Ports-SATA-SAS-RAID-Adapter-Card-~10023072~0.htm]thankfully for only $200[/url]). That was before I read up enough on ZFS and noticed this controller didn't give access to each disk. 

I did get it reflashed to IT mode and the 6 drives I have show up individually in debian. I got the firmware [url=http://ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/driver/SAS/LSI/3008/Firmware/]here from Supermicro's ftp site[/url]. [i]Note that the first visit to the ftp site requires you to acknowledge / agree it's not their fault. Then you need to go back and hit the link again. It also may or may not popout.[/i]

Then I put the UEFI IT files on the same LMDE usb boot stick I used for installing the OS and booted to the UEFI: shell via bios boot menu. Didn't know that you need to use dos-like command to switch to the usb drive. btw, shift pg-up works for scrollback. The uefi script failed to flash, so I went back later and executed the same commands from the script one at a time and it flashed ok.

Also, since this is similar to the [url=http://www.lsi.com/products/host-bus-adapters/pages/lsi-sas-9300-8i.aspx]LSI 9300-8i, I went there[/url] and downloaded all the files. sas3ircu from there worked out of box in debian; I made that one file executable & copied to /usr/sbin Of note, the [url=http://www.lsi.com/products/host-bus-adapters/pages/lsi-sas-9311-8i.aspx]9311-8i OEM version[/url] has better user documentation.

[b]Could anyone point me to a way to configure the write caching?[/b] 

I'm still trying to figure that out.I just confirmed this is offered by Intel, too as the RS3UC080 and their [url=http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/servers/raid/raid-controller-rs3uc080.html]product page[/url] specifically mentions RAID and JBOD in the same breath. This is intel's [url=http://ark.intel.com/products/76066/Intel-RAID-Controller-RS3UC080]ark page for the rs3uc080[/url]. This is the [url=https://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&ProductFamily=Server+Products&ProductLine=Intel%C2%AE+RAID+Controllers&ProductProduct=Intel%C2%AE+RAID+Controller+RS3UC080]software download page[/url] and I'm thinking I may try flashing to intel's firmware.

Hardware is a new Lenovo ThinkServer RD430 that I basically stole off Amazon for $699.
 

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
12,511
5,792
113
Hi, I fixed formatting a bit. This weekend is the forum upgrade so I will probably not spend a ton of time on the fix.

What are you thinking in terms of write caching? The SAS3008 is a HBA chip without onboard write cache (one of the reasons it is so inexpensive.) I may have misunderstood that part.
 

mrkrad

Well-Known Member
Oct 13, 2012
1,244
52
48
The HBA chips only have enough ram for the rom to run, they are actually slower than the full RAID controllers which tend to write to cache and system ram at the same time (Fastpath).

You can enable RAID and JBOD on megaraid controllers with the use of MEGASCU.exe - it is a feature that is disabled by default!
 

PnoT

Active Member
Mar 1, 2015
650
162
43
Texas
I was thinking about picking up one of these as they're running $125-150 now. What are the downsides to these as I would just be using it for an upgrade to my H200 and for JBOD configurations.