No disks in napp-it

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norton

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Aug 12, 2016
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Hi guys.

New here and hopefully i've found some new playgrounds =)

Im running a Dell T20 with a Xeon E3-1226v3 and 20Gb ECC on Esxi 6. This has been mostly for experimenting with diffrent OS's and playing around. Now im trying to make this server take over some roles that im currently running on a 3y+ Synology DS212j.

So i figured i'd run OmniOS+Napp-it with 4x3TB WD Red on a RocketRaid 2720SGL that i found on a good deal on Ebay. I managed to flash RR with non-raid bios since that is what ZFS is supposed to like.
Problem is Omni cant find any disks. Guess some drivers or what not is missing?!

Just to make sure the card was working i also made a FreeNAS VM and connected the card to that with pass-through. That worked just fine, disks where availible and ready to work.

Would be amazing if anyone could shed some light on what i haveto do to make this work. I just dont have the time or energy to find a LSI card or M1015 to replace my RR.

Best Regards,
Hampus
 

gea

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Dec 31, 2010
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You are correct, its a driver issue, your RocketRaid is propably not supported on Solarish nor will ever be.

btw
Nearly every professional ZFS storage is build on either Intel Sata/AHCI or LSI HBA (or OEM with LSI chipset). Your best options is, replace the Rocketraid Raid-5/6 controller with an LSI HBA (or OEM like Dell H200, IBM 1015 etc)

- Use Zol or BSD (where you may find a driver, but despite that, the Rocketraid is there not suggested for ZFS either)
- Try to boot ESXi from the Rocketraid (may fail as well) and pass-through Sata/AHCI
 
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norton

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Aug 12, 2016
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Thanks for your answer.
Thats was disapointing news. F*ck, cr*ap, a**.

Guess i'll just have to go back to ebay,amazon, tradera(swedish) and try to find a new card. Pretty annoying since i've been waiting for weeks to get these parts and the time to set it up.
Would a Dell Perc H310 do me any good you think? Or a H330?
 
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gea

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Dec 31, 2010
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I have not tried them. Per stock, they come with the wrong type of formware and you must check if you can reflash them with an LSI firmware, Dell itself mostly does not offer. According to others these Dell controller may work.

What you really want:
- a controller with an LSI 2008 or 3008 chipset.
They are available with three types of firmware

- raid-5 firmware: the wrong one (your Dell come with this one, quite useless for ZFS)
- raid-1 firmware (IR firmware), this one will work but is not perfect
- raidless (pure HBA, IT firmware), this is what you really want with software raid and ZFS

Some controller like LSI 9207 come with IT firmware from stock. For all genuine LSI HBA like LSI 9211 you can download the IT firmware from LSI/Avago and reflash.

For OEM controller like Dell, it depends if you can use LSI or find a working firmware and howto.
For ages, a cheap OEM controller with the best documentation for a reflash was the IBM 1015 (LSI 9211). Dell H200 seems also a good candidate. If you buy from Ebay you may check for a preflashed controller with IT firmware.

For other OEM controller, first check if others were successful with reflashing them and check if you can get a working firmware.
 

ttabbal

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Mar 10, 2016
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I don't know about the H330, but the H310 is pretty easy to flash with LSI IT mode firmware. The H200 is pretty much the same as the IBM 1015. The H310 is as well, but I like the port locations better on the H310. Just preference based on the case type. The H310 tends to run about $50 on eBay.

Another option for the hardware you have is to run FreeNAS or Linux as the storage VM. That has other trade-offs, so it might not be the right choice for you. Solaris is great for this stuff, but you have to be careful with hardware choices to run it.
 

norton

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Aug 12, 2016
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Thanks guys .
So maybe i would be wise to go for a LSI 9211-8i insted of a Dell? Better and easier to flash with the right stuff?
Found it for $145 30min drive from where i live.

Sorry if I seem daft but i really want to get the right card this time..

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wildchild

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Feb 4, 2014
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M1015 can be found plenty in europe cheap.. i know cause i have a few ;)
I wouldnt do the dells; you need to reflash but also have to cover some pci pins.
9211 or m1015 i have found to be th easiest
 

ttabbal

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Mar 10, 2016
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Nothing wrong with the LSI 9211 cards. I use the others for cost reasons. I can get 3xH310 for the same money. A little more work to flash them, but I don't mind. The numbers may not work out as favorably in Europe.

The PCI pins on Dells don't always need to be covered. It depends on the individual machine and BIOS/UFI. I didn't have to mess with them.
 

norton

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Aug 12, 2016
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Nothing wrong with the LSI 9211 cards. I use the others for cost reasons. I can get 3xH310 for the same money. A little more work to flash them, but I don't mind. The numbers may not work out as favorably in Europe.

The PCI pins on Dells don't always need to be covered. It depends on the individual machine and BIOS/UFI. I didn't have to mess with them.
Ok I see. If I had the time to wait I could probably pick up a H310 for about half the price on Ebay incl. shipping to Sweden. Not sure I want to wait another 1-2weeks before getting this up and running =)
 

norton

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Aug 12, 2016
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Managed to buy a LSI 9211 with LOW profile. Can't seem to catch a freckin' brake. Well well. I'll figure something out and come back when i've broken the card in half.

End of rant..
 

ttabbal

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Mar 10, 2016
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I hate it when that happens. :)

Just take the bracket off for now, at least you can get things running while you look for the regular size bracket.
 

norton

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Aug 12, 2016
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I hate it when that happens. :)

Just take the bracket off for now, at least you can get things running while you look for the regular size bracket.
Yeah I reckon thats what ill do tomorrow if i can find the time.

Thanks for the support in these dark days [emoji6]

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norton

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Aug 12, 2016
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Is it possible to flash the LSI 9211-8i into IT-mode via the regular command prompt in say Win 7 or Win Server 2012?
 

ttabbal

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I believe that the zip file that has the drivers includes a windows flash utility. I know at least one member here has reported that it worked for them.
 

norton

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Aug 12, 2016
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I believe that the zip file that has the drivers includes a windows flash utility. I know at least one member here has reported that it worked for them.
Sounds promising. Guess i could just make a freedos bootable usb drive and install with that other wise?
Win 7 didnt find any card thou =/

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ttabbal

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Sounds promising. Guess i could just make a freedos bootable usb drive and install with that other wise?
Win 7 didnt find any card thou =/

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Sure, FreeDOS is how I did it. When booting, make sure to tell it not to load any extended memory drivers etc.. That makes SASFLSH.EXE crash. Try using the CLI tools to talk to the card anyway, it's possible Windows is just being, well, Windows, and refusing to do anything with the card without a particular driver installed.
 

norton

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Aug 12, 2016
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Not really as straight forward as i had hoped. Tried doing it in Win Server2012 R2. After installing the drivers manually it found the card in the command prompt. In cmd i could update the bios but not change fw from IR to IT. Couldn't erase the flash in win either.
Made a usb with freedos and placed the file sas2flsh.exe, 2118it.bin and mptsas2.rom on the stick. When trying to run sas2flsh -listall I get something about a problem with writing to the usb with the option to "Abort, Ignore, Retry, Fail".
Anyone now what im missing?
This is on a Dell T20 with Esxi 6 and Win Server 2012 R2 VM.
 

norton

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Aug 12, 2016
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This is the most annoying thing since D.Trumps political career.
Made a new bootable USB with the sas2flsh and the other two files on it. Boot into it, runs sas2flsh -list...It list the device and then the whole freckin VM freezes. Tried with two different USB sticks.
How can this be so complicated? Found the info and flashed the RocketRaid in less then 60minutes...

Might be because i dont know how to disable extended memory or what?
 

ttabbal

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Mar 10, 2016
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VM? If you are in a DOS VM, I would expect it to fail. Boot FreeDos on bare metal. When I boot the image I found, it prompts you at the beginning to select which type of boot you want. I found the flash utility crashed with any himem/emm drivers running. It was option 4 on my setup that worked.

Switching from IR to IT is annoying. They have a check in there that prevents it with newer versions. Try using the oldest firmware in the zip. I think it was P7 for me. It asks you if you really want to do that. Then you can upgrade it.
 

norton

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Aug 12, 2016
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VM? If you are in a DOS VM, I would expect it to fail. Boot FreeDos on bare metal. When I boot the image I found, it prompts you at the beginning to select which type of boot you want. I found the flash utility crashed with any himem/emm drivers running. It was option 4 on my setup that worked.

Switching from IR to IT is annoying. They have a check in there that prevents it with newer versions. Try using the oldest firmware in the zip. I think it was P7 for me. It asks you if you really want to do that. Then you can upgrade it.
[emoji44]
Didnt even think of that. Makes sence that the pass-through isnt working correct if the vm isnt fully loaded.
So ill try to boot from the same usb stick but remove the stick with esxi on first. That will haveto wait until tomorrow tho.

Thanks for the advice on P7 too.

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