[SOLVED] SC846 Backplane not detected by LSI-9210-8i

[aletaziar]

MB: Gigabyte X570 Aorus Pro Wifi
HBA: LSI-9210-8i
Backplane: BPN-SAS2-846EL1 (I THINK)

The LSI card's BIOS shows the following on boot:


1. I can hear the drives in the backplane spinning up, but they're never detected.
2. I've tried using the 8087 to 8087 cable that was shipped with the chassis and also a new cable from CableMatters I bought from Amazon.
3. I've tried both ports on the HBA and tried all three ports on the backplane, although from the manual I think the right-most port is the one that should work.
4. I connected a 6TB WD Blue directly to the HBA using an 8087 to SATA cable and the drive was detected fine.
5. I've swapped the 6TB drive to several different bays on the chassis/backplane and it was never detected.

What other steps can I take to troubleshoot this? I've read that Gigabyte boards aren't great for HBA cards, but the HBA card itself is detected fine and can host drives. Shouldn't it at that point interface with the backplane independent of the motherboard? If not, would getting a different motherboard make a difference?

 

[i386]

BPN-SAS2-846EL1 (I THINK)

You think? Check the labels/stickers on the backplane.

1. I can hear the drives in the backplane spinning up, but they're never detected.

Are the leds lighting up?

 

[aletaziar]

You think? Check the labels/stickers on the backplane.

These are the only stickers/labels I could find on the backplane, and they don't seem to specify the backplane version. I wrote "I think" because I bought the chassis from theserverstore, and the product page at the time listed BPN-SAS2-846EL1, but looking at the backplane in front of me I'm not sure if there's a way to confirm that.

Are the leds lighting up?

The LEDs for the drive bays aren't lighting up, although I hear the drives spinning.

 

[ske4za]

These are the only stickers/labels I could find on the backplane, and they don't seem to specify the backplane version. I wrote "I think" because I bought the chassis from theserverstore, and the product page at the time listed BPN-SAS2-846EL1, but looking at the backplane in front of me I'm not sure if there's a way to confirm that.

Should be along the bottom if the 826 backplanes are anything to go by (bottom one says BPN-SAS2-826EL1)

 

[BlueFox]

It's definitely a SAS2-846EL1 backplane. You can tell by the capacitors.

 

[aletaziar]

Between comparing photos and what the theserverstore's product listing said, I'm pretty sure it's a SAS2-846EL1. I only mentioned that I wasn't 100% sure because that there's no label on it that I can see. I even took out all the drive caddies and tried to check the other side and couldn't see anything there either.

 

[aletaziar]

So update on this. I tried a 1TB drive and that wasn't detected either. Also tried putting the HBA in a Windows PC to see if the expander would host the drives properly. No joy there either.

While it was in the PC I ran ExpanderXtools_Lite to see if the expander was even detected, but the program said no expander was detected.

Just to confirm, beyond the 6 molex plugs and the 8087 cable, there's nothing else needed for the expander to work, right?

At this point is there anything else I can test? Seems like maybe the expander is toast?

 

[aletaziar]

Final update on this. Got a replacement SAS2 backplane from my seller and everything started working perfectly. Original backplane was bad for some reason.