Building a SAS Drive Testing/Wiping Machine

[spartanbard]

Hi there. I've been trying to piece together a machine to test and wipe SAS drives at work for a while (electronics recycling/reuse company). I can't seem to find the right equipment to do everything I need, which seems ridiculous considering how simple I would think this should be.

 

All I need is a computer (server or desktop, doesn't matter to me), that will let me hook up at least 4 (preferably more) SAS drives, and let me look at their SMART data.

 

Once I have that, I'm pretty much done. I can wipe the drives with what I have, but I just can't check the actual health of them.

 

The problem I'm running into is that 99% of the server equipment we get in is Dell or HP, and the Dell PERC cards don't support JBOD mode, and neither do any of the HP ones I've tried. So in order to get the drives to show up individually, I have to do the whole "make every drive an individual RAID 0" thing, which is a painful waste of time, and doesn't pass through the SMART information. I can wipe them, but I can't really resell them confidently without knowing their health and usage history.

 

I have read other forum posts from years ago about being able to get certain LSI cards and flashing them with a firmware that supports JBOD. If I have to do that, then I guess I'll get on eBay and see what my options for those cards are, but it seems like such a weird thing for me not to be able to find something around our warehouse that let's me do JBOD. It seems like the simplest thing, and I don't understand why it's not just supported in everything. It's trivial to get 8-port SATA cards that just plug in to a PC and work, but I can't seem to find the same type of thing in the SAS world.

 

Oh yeah, and in addition to seeing the SMART information, I need the drive serial numbers to be recognize by the machined, so that it is reported in our wipe logs, and so if a drive fails, I can verify which one it was.

 

I'm hoping I am just missing something in my understanding. I am by no means an expert in server hardware. If anyone has any advice to help point me in the right direction, it would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks.

[unijab]

9211-8i HBA should be cheap... and it can be flashed to IT mode.

[dalekphalm]

You need an HBA, or a RAID Card capable of IT mode. As noted above, 9211-8i is one such example. IBM m1015 is another very popular card that can be found for very cheap (May or may not need to be flashed afterwards).

[Guest]

9207-8i may be a cheaper option that the 9211.

[spartanbard]

Thanks for the advice.

 

I checked our shop's eBay store, and found a couple M5014 cards in our inventory, so I nabbed them up to see if they will work. From what I'm seeing, I should be able to flash them with the 9211-8i 2118it firmware, but I'm having a hell of a time getting MegaRec to cooperate with me.

 

I've read through about 6 tutorials for flashing MegaRaid M5015, and M5014 cards. They all say basically the same thing, with minor variations, but I'm stuck on getting any commands to work using MegaRec. It just sits there with the cursor blinking at me for eternity anytime I tell it to do anything. I have no idea why.

 

I used Rufus to make FreeDOS USB stick, with all the programs, firmware files, et cetera that I should need. According to what I've read, it should be working fine. It's just not, It's like I've hit a brick wall, because I con't find anyone who has talked about this problem.

 

Any ideas? Thanks again.

 

For reference, here are some of the websites/forum tabs I've been bouncing between trying to figure this out:

https://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-m1015-part-4/

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?271922-LSI-2108-based-card-cross-flashing-(Dell-H700-LSI-9260-IBM-M5015-Intel-RS2BL080)

https://fogelholk.io/reflash-lsi-megaraid-9240-8i-to-9211-8i/

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/where-is-the-megarec-utility-to-crossflash-m1015-to-it-mode.25130/

[Falconevo]

When in IT mode, you need to use alternate software.  I think its either Sas2ircu, Megasasctl or Megascu I can't remember off the top of my head.  I have a copy of the stuff I used to use somewhere on a Zalman ill dig it out when I'm home on the weekend.

 

FYI the 'IT' mode puts the devices in ATA mode which should give you smart information etc and allow you to verify the disk is functioning as desired.

[Mikensan]

This was probably the best guide I used:

http://digitalcardboard.com/blog/2014/07/09/flashing-it-firmware-to-the-lsi-sas-9211-8i-hba-2014-efi-recipe/

[spartanbard]

Well, I finally got megarec to work by just installing the card in a different server. Not sure why it wasn't working on the other one.

 

But then I realized that I'm an idiot. I hadn't noticed that half of the forum threads and tutorials I have been looking at are for the M1015, not the M5015/M5014, which is why everything is all mixed up. Can't flash 2118it to the M5014, but I should be able to do a different LSI firmware. Starting over. Luckily I have 2 of these cards, in case I brick one.

 

Edit: Okay, looks like this is not going to happen with the M5014. I'm just going to have to buy a M1015, it looks like. Hopefully this will be trivial once I get one of those in the shop.