SUPERMICRO X8DTI-F MAXIMUM NUMBER OF DRIVES?

[akroeze]

My system loads fine when I have a total of 12 drives however when I try to add my 13th+ drive it immediately starts saying that it can't find a boot drive. I take the 13th+ drive back out of the loop it boots fine again. When I load into the BIOS it does see all 13/14 drives. When I go to the boot order it still shows only the USB key as the boot device however it has the [ ] brackets around it indicating a problem and it isn't bootable. Once I go back to 12 they [ ] disappear.

I have looked through the manual and see no mention of a maximum number of drives. Is there one that I'm just not aware of? What else could I do? I'd prefer to not have to get a new motherboard/cpu/ram.

I have the following:

Supermicro x8dti-f
2 x SATA SSD
11 x WD Red drives
1 x USB key (boot drive)

All drives (except USB of course) are connected to LSI HBAs

 

[RTM]

Maybe disabling (or even the reverse if it is currently disabled) loading of option ROMs for your HBA's might make the BIOS unable to see your drives.
As you are using a separate boot drive, I see little value in having BIOS able to see the drives, so it might work.

 

[akroeze]

Maybe disabling (or even the reverse if it is currently disabled) loading of option ROMs for your HBA's might make the BIOS unable to see your drives.
As you are using a separate boot drive, I see little value in having BIOS able to see the drives, so it might work.

I can try that. Just for the sake of argument assume I've never done it before...any guide you know of that outlines how?

 

[RTM]

I can try that. Just for the sake of argument assume I've never done it before...any guide you know of that outlines how?

I just took a quick glance at the manual for your board, it should be something like this:

In BIOS it should be under the "Advanced" tab > PCI/PNP configuration > Slot 1 Option ROM~Slot 6 Option ROM

 

[akroeze]

I just took a quick glance at the manual for your board, it should be something like this:

In BIOS it should be under the "Advanced" tab > PCI/PNP configuration > Slot 1 Option ROM~Slot 6 Option ROM

You have won the internet for today, probably the entire week as far as I'm concerned. That solved my problem. Thank you so very much!

 

[RTM]

You have won the internet for today, probably the entire week as far as I'm concerned. That solved my problem. Thank you so very much!

Awesome, happy to help

Just to sate my own curiosity, did you have to enable or disable the setting?

 

[Sean Ho]

Glad you got the issue resolved. I suspect the root cause was the HBA trying to boot from an attached disk. Disabling oprom prevented the HBA from taking over the boot sequence. Another option could have been to enter the HBA's config (e.g., ctrl-A when Avago oprom appears) and disable booting.

 

[akroeze]

Awesome, happy to help

Just to sate my own curiosity, did you have to enable or disable the setting?

Disable