Help with a SAS HDD

Nicholas LaRosa · January 10, 2019

Hey I want add the long story of why I ended up with a 6 TB SAS HDD instead of a SATA one, but I am having a hard time getting it working. When I turn my PC on I see the BIOS Splash screen, and then it goes to the controller loading screen. It loads the controller then restarts the computer same as first time, but this time it give the option to click ctrl+c to go into the controller option. In the option the drive shows up just fine. I have tried the controller in both OS only mode, and OS, and BIOS mode with the same results. The moment I save, and quit the menu, or skip going in all together it restarts again, and send me to boot loop BIOS Screen which I can just click the M.2 slot on boot override and go right into windows. In windows device manager the controller shows up but not the SAS HDD. This is true even if I mess with the BIOS PCIe setting so the the controller doesn't show up during boot, but still shows up in windows.

I am running Windows 10 Pro, a Ryzen 7 2700 on a Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro Wifi with G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 3000, Samsung 860 EVO 1TB M.2, and two 3 TB HDDs

The SAS drive is a Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD| ST6000NM0034 | 6TB 7.2K RPM SAS 12Gb/s

LSI Logic SAS9211-4I 4PORT Int 6GB Sata+sas Pcie 2.0 for my SAS controller with CABLEDECONN Mini SAS 36 SFF-8087 to (4) SFF-8482 Connectors with SATA Power 1m for the cables

Thank you for any help you guys can provide.

Phas3L0ck · February 6, 2019

Hint on the LSI 9211 and the Seagate ST6000NM0034: I know those two model numbers almost by hear since I started learning the dynamics of RAID and enterprise storage, and you should know that the LSI 9211 is a 6GB/s SAS HBA, and the Seagate ST6000NM0034 is a 12GB/s hard drive, so that might be the problem, as newer adapters work with older drives, but newer drives DO NOT work with older adapters. I don't have an old adapter to test this theory, so I don't know for sure, but this is something to consider.

There are several other factors to look at... run through this checklist in order;

1. Update your LSI HBA to the newest firmware through MSM (MegaRAID Storage Manager) NOT LSA (LSI Storage Authority)

- Finding firmware for the 9211 was a pain since LSI/Broadcom doesn't have a product page for the 9211 for some reason, so I'll try to attach the firmware files here.

2. If your Seagate drive does in fact appear in the HBA's BIOS, check to see if the disk is displayed in the Windows device manager.

3. If you see the disk in device manager, chances are you'll find it in the disk manager next. If not, you have a problem.

- One of the most common mistakes is that people forget to initialize their drives for the first time when they buy brand new. People are called users for a reason; everything is done for them in advance so they don't usually have to know to do this.

4. In disk manager, if you see the Seagate drive, right click on it and click "Online" and then right click again to hit the "Initialize Disk" button. Normally Windows will prompt you to do this if it detects a brand new drive.

- If the above process works, follow the on screen instructions to setup and format the drive. You should choose either 512 or 4096 byte sectors for this drive. I studied your exact drive model, and it's the worst of all-- 512 byte emulated on a 4kn disk; no matter what format you give it it's gonna have half the performance you're probably expecting as a result of the generational gap between 512 native and 512 emulation on 4k native sector structures. (read about 4kn and 512e on Seagate's site)

NOTE: the 9211 is super old and LSI/Broadcom's firmware inventory is slightly disorganized for this model, so there are two possible firmware update versions you could try. I don't care enough to identify the right one by hand, so I just rolled up what I found for you to use. Have fun. Also, if you don't have the MSM software or can't find it, let me know and I'll send you the newest version.

9211_4i_Firmware_upgrade_package.zip