New Microchip Microsemi Adaptec SmartRAID 3162-8i RAID Adapters

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i386

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Mar 18, 2016
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I have these two of these controllers (the version without encryption) and the sofware for it is a pain in the ass compared to the series 8 or older models.
Online expansion works now like that: add the drives to the array. This seems to start a process that zeroes all sectors on the hdd. Then migrate/expand the array. After that you have to expand the logical volume which calculates the new parity/redundancy. Every process seems to zero the data on the new drive first before migrating or expanding the array/volume.
 
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i386

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And more adventures with the 3162-8i:
After adding a pcie ssd to the server the logical didn't show up in windows, disk management and maxview. Tried different functions inside of maxview (like scan for logical/physical devices) and the cli tools without success.
After 1 hour of troubleshooting I looked in the bios settings for the raid controller and the volume was listed there and in "optimal" state but still didn't show up in windows and maxview. Went to back to the bios and saved the configuration for the logical volume without changing anything. After booting into windows the volume was properly mounted and showed up correctly in maxview.
 

i386

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Mar 18, 2016
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And more adventures with the 3162-8i:
After adding a pcie ssd to the server the logical didn't show up in windows, disk management and maxview. Tried different functions inside of maxview (like scan for logical/physical devices) and the cli tools without success.
After 1 hour of troubleshooting I looked in the bios settings for the raid controller and the volume was listed there and in "optimal" state but still didn't show up in windows and maxview. Went to back to the bios and saved the configuration for the logical volume without changing anything. After booting into windows the volume was properly mounted and showed up correctly in maxview.
Firmware v3.21 + driver v106.190.4.1062 + maxview v3.06.23821 can't handle any storage configuration in windows or pcie changes (adding/removing or moving pcie devices to another slot); the logical drives will disappear and only show up after saving the configuration in the bios. I can reproduce this on two different machines running windows 10 and server 2019 ._.
Also the bios setting for the raid controller will display just for a split second on a supermicro x10sra, which makes it even harder to save/edit the configuration.
 

cyruspy

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Mar 26, 2016
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Any updates on your experience?, I'm looking for a RAID controller for ESXi 7 that can handle 8 SSD drives
 

i386

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Mar 18, 2016
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There was at least one firmware update (currently at 3.53) and some fixes in the release notes are similar to what I described in my previous post.
I've updated to that versionen but didn't change my setup in the last ~ 6months, so I can't tell if the problems were solved or not.