Need Help Finding A RAID Controller

[Nader]

Hi Everyone, I have an Asrock Rack EPYCD8-2T/32 server board and I I'm trying to find RAID cards for.

I am on my 4th card that I bought of off eBay and still no luck. I am looking for a RAID card that I can access during BIOS to create the virtual disks.

I would like to get a 12Gbps card but if I can find a 6Gbps card I won't complain.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[BLinux]

On Broadcom LSI RAID controllers, you have to use their ROM program to create a virtual disk. Then that VD is visible in your BIOS as a drive.

What cards have you tried that didn't work for you?

 

[Nader]

Hi thanks for helping.

IBM Serveraid M5210
Inspur LSI YZCA-00424-101
Dell Perc H310 Raid card
Dell Perc H330 12Gbps (that one I messed up because it was flashed for IT mode, even then it still does not show in BIOS)

When you say their rom program, is that something i need to install show it shows up during boot?

Thanks.

 

[BLinux]

During POST, you might see a "Avago Technologies" or "LSI" or "Broadcom" or "Dell" message (for the Dell cards) and a key sequence you can press to enter the ROM program. Press that key sequence, and when you get in, you should be able to select the controller, and then get a menu system that allows you to configure your VDs.

 

[Nader]

I know but I am not getting that though, which is weird right? I did play with the BIOS settings. Maybe I messed up something.

I will restore to factory default and see if that helps.

 

[BLinux]

I know but I am not getting that though, which is weird right? I did play with the BIOS settings. Maybe I messed up something.

I will restore to factory default and see if that helps.

Some motherboards have an option under the PCIe configuration section to disable/enable "Option ROM" or "OpROM" or other similar name. If you have that disabled, then those ROMs from the card will not load during POST. In that case, you should still be able to detect the cards as a PCIe device upon booting your OS. And if your OS has the drivers, you should be able to see the RAID controller device. If so, you can use the equivalent MegaCli64 or StorCli program for your OS of choice to configure your VDs. So, if for whatever reason you just can't get the LSI/Broadcom ROM to work, you can do that instead.

 

[Nader]

Thank you brother for the help. after resetting the BIOS to factory default, I was able to get the CTRL+C option to access the Avago config utility. But my card is in IT mode. I am not able to create any raid.


So if I get the same card in IR mode should be good right?

 

[BLinux]

Thank you brother for the help. after resetting the BIOS to factory default, I was able to get the CTRL+C option to access the Avago config utility. But my card is in IT mode. I am not able to create any raid.

View attachment 31376
So if I get the same card in IR mode should be good right?

If you need RAID, you might be better off getting a proper MegaRAID controller instead of the "IR firmware" which is a rather weak version of their RAID firmware, usually with hardware that has no cache. Consider a MegaRAID controller with SAS2208 or SAS3108 chipset at least. The newer the controller, the larger the cache options.

 

[Sean Ho]

Is there a reason you need hardware RAID as opposed to zfs, mdadm, btrfs, snapraid, Unraid, etc.?

 

[Nader]

If you need RAID, you might be better off getting a proper MegaRAID controller instead of the "IR firmware" which is a rather weak version of their RAID firmware, usually with hardware that has no cache. Consider a MegaRAID controller with SAS2208 or SAS3108 chipset at least. The newer the controller, the larger the cache options.

I don't need cache or battery feature with the raid card. It's only going to be used for the boot drive. That server board does not have RAID 1,0 or 10. So that is why I am looking into hardware raid so I can present the logical drive during the OS install.

 

[Nader]

Is there a reason you need hardware RAID as opposed to zfs, mdadm, btrfs, snapraid, Unraid, etc.?

I actually built another server with TrueNas Scale to use as a software raid (My very 1st exposure to TrueNas). The reason I am looking into hardware RAID is because my server board does not support it. And it seems like newer server board are phasing out the built-in RAID feature

 

[BLinux]

I don't need cache or battery feature with the raid card. It's only going to be used for the boot drive. That server board does not have RAID 1,0 or 10. So that is why I am looking into hardware raid so I can present the logical drive during the OS install.

In that case, you can flash the IT mode card to IR mode firmware. The firmware files and utilities are available from broadcom.com for any of the broadcom / LSI cards. you might have to search in their "legacy" section for the older models.

 

[Nader]

In that case, you can flash the IT mode card to IR mode firmware. The firmware files and utilities are available from broadcom.com for any of the broadcom / LSI cards. you might have to search in their "legacy" section for the older models.

Oh OK then, let me do some digging to try and flash it to IR mode. Thanks.