MegaRAID SAS 9440-8i - 'Change Personality' RAID/NONE - [SOLVED]

[AGTDenton]

Logged into LSI Storage Authority and on one of my controllers it displays the following:

You have chosen to change personality of the controller

Current Personality : RAID

Requested Personality : NONE

Current Behavior Mode : NONE

At the moment the RAID is functioning, but I am worried about what is going to happen upon the next reboot...
There is nothing in the LSI Storage Authority manual regarding the NONE option, only JBODS/RAID, nor does it tell you how to cancel this request.
The manual shows that there should be far more configuration options than I see on this page.

Does anyone know exactly what is going to happen when I reboot?

LSI Storage Authority: v007.018.004.000
9440-8i Firmware: 5.160.01-3415

Thanks

 

[nabsltd]

Does anyone know exactly what is going to happen when I reboot?

You could always shut down, disconnect the drive data cables, then power on. If the card goes into a non-RAID mode (whatever that might be), you should then be able to put it back, power off, reconnect the cables, and power back on to RAID.

 

[mobilenvidia]

Try Latest LSA v008.002.016.000
No reboot needed so Personality should remain

Also latest FW is Firmware 5.220.00-3691 can be found in above link too but will need a reboot

Personality can be either RAID or HBA no none

Behaviour mode is a subset of Personality and has these options

Changing Behavior Modes Perform the following steps to change the behavior mode and parameters:
1. In the Change Personality page, select the Change Auto-configure behavior radio button.
2. From the Change Primary Auto-configure behavior drop-down list, select an appropriate behavior mode. The available behavior modes are based on the current firmware support.
• Unconfigured Good – If a user selects this option, then all the configured drives are converted to Unconfigured Good Drive.
• JBOD – If all the physical drives are in unconfigured good state, once you select the JBOD mode, all the physical drives are automatically converted to JBOD physical drives.
• Single Drive RAID 0 – If a user selects this option, then all the physical drives are automatically converted to Single Drive RAID 0.
• Single Drive RAID 0 WB – If a user selects this option, then all the physical drives are automatically converted to Single Drive RAID 0 With Write Back.
• Secure JBOD – If all the physical drives are in unconfigured good state, once you select the JBOD mode, all the physical drives are automatically converted to secure JBOD physical drives.
• Secure Single Drive RAID 0 – This option converts all the UGOOD physical drives to Secure Single Drive Raid0 on secure physical drives and Single Drive Raid0 on normal physical drives.
• Secure Single Drive RAID 0 WB – This option auto-secures the SED drive to Single Drive RAID 0 Write Back

 

[AGTDenton]

You could always shut down, disconnect the drive data cables, then power on. If the card goes into a non-RAID mode (whatever that might be), you should then be able to put it back, power off, reconnect the cables, and power back on to RAID.

Thanks, I think this will be the only option.
I will need to dedicate some time, confirm everything is duplicated to the other controller and additional sources.

Try Latest LSA v008.002.016.000
No reboot needed so Personality should remain

Also latest FW is Firmware 5.220.00-3691 can be found in above link too but will need a reboot

Personality can be either RAID or HBA no none

Behaviour mode is a subset of Personality and has these options

Changing Behavior Modes Perform the following steps to change the behavior mode and parameters:
1. In the Change Personality page, select the Change Auto-configure behavior radio button.
2. From the Change Primary Auto-configure behavior drop-down list, select an appropriate behavior mode. The available behavior modes are based on the current firmware support.
• Unconfigured Good – If a user selects this option, then all the configured drives are converted to Unconfigured Good Drive.
• JBOD – If all the physical drives are in unconfigured good state, once you select the JBOD mode, all the physical drives are automatically converted to JBOD physical drives.
• Single Drive RAID 0 – If a user selects this option, then all the physical drives are automatically converted to Single Drive RAID 0.
• Single Drive RAID 0 WB – If a user selects this option, then all the physical drives are automatically converted to Single Drive RAID 0 With Write Back.
• Secure JBOD – If all the physical drives are in unconfigured good state, once you select the JBOD mode, all the physical drives are automatically converted to secure JBOD physical drives.
• Secure Single Drive RAID 0 – This option converts all the UGOOD physical drives to Secure Single Drive Raid0 on secure physical drives and Single Drive Raid0 on normal physical drives.
• Secure Single Drive RAID 0 WB – This option auto-secures the SED drive to Single Drive RAID 0 Write Back

While a reboot is not needed. It will inevitably happen at some point in the future. Especially as I'm about to add some roles & features to this server.
Annoyingly I do not have these options on the 'Personality Management' actions page, all I see is the message I originally posted.
I don't know how it ever got set or when. Server has been up for 188 days without issue.

It's the disruption it's going to potentially cause especially if the RAID is going to go into an Unconfigured State rather than needing to be on latest FW etc...
Ordinarily it's not a feature I would ever need to change, I was hoping there was a method of cancelling the request.



I have received another controller, and I will experiment with that first. To see what the effects are as clearly it is not quite known if the RAID will remain intact.

 

[mobilenvidia]

I was referring to install latest LSA version and see if the 'None' persists

If 9440 goes into HBA mode the Array is still there as the array info is on the drives
Just go back to RAID mode and array should import right back
But I doubt it will go to HBA mode as it would have said so, none probably means nothing will change

But you never know and you of course you keep a back up of the data you can't afford to loose

 

[AGTDenton]

I was referring to install latest LSA version and see if the 'None' persists

If 9440 goes into HBA mode the Array is still there as the array info is on the drives
Just go back to RAID mode and array should import right back
But I doubt it will go to HBA mode as it would have said so, none probably means nothing will change

But you never know and you of course you keep a back up of the data you can't afford to loose

Thanks, I see your point now. Does upgrading the LSA cause a reboot? I haven't needed to do it for such a long time.

My plan is:

• Confirm all data backed up & accessible via alternate means
• Install the new controller to another PC & test this scenario
• Reboot server & see what the outcome is

I've attached a screenshot of what I see so we're on the same wavelength

 

[mobilenvidia]

As I said above no reboot needed to update, I tested that as upgraded to that version my self before saying it

I can't test personality as seem to be for 9x40 controllers that can be HBA or RAID, I'm full RAID
Normally requires flashing manually, I wonder if LSA does that or newer ARM based controllers can do it at boot

 

[AGTDenton]

As I said above no reboot needed to update, I tested that as upgraded to that version my self before saying it

Sorry losing my mind, I thought you were speaking generically with regards to rebooting rather than in relation to LSA .

I can't test personality as seem to be for 9x40 controllers that can be HBA or RAID, I'm full RAID
Normally requires flashing manually, I wonder if LSA does that or newer ARM based controllers can do it at boot

Just upgraded to latest LSA (v008.002.016.000), and I concur, no reboot. But sadly no change in available options.

I'll proceed with my plan & report back. With all other jobs at hand, it may take a week or two.

 

[AGTDenton]

I finally received and installed the additional controller into a different system.

The other system displays exactly the same message, but this time I know no setting has been changed at all.
I rebooted and the message remains and no changes were made, the temporary RAID I'd configured remained.

So I've now rebooted the original system and the message is still displayed along with the RAID configuration intact.
So I have no idea why LSA displays this message at all, and simply causes confusion.

If anyone else has this problem, I cannot categorically say that something won't happen upon a reboot.
I'd still take precautions if you have important data.