HP DL180 G6 Freenas setup

[Lupeflores09]

Ok guys so I need more nas storage. I have this server sitting here and I want to use freenas on it. Here's some specs on system.....

 

Processor - 2x Quad-core Intel Xeon L5520 @ 2.27 GHz
RAM - 32GB (2x 16GB)
RAID - P410 card with 512MB cache
HDD - 2TB 12x 3.5" HDD
PSU - 2x 750W

 

Has anyone got this to work with freenas? I heard that the P410 card isn't very friendly and to swap with a LSI 9211-8i in IT Mode will be easiest bet. I purchased a LOS 9211-8i card that has been flashed to IT mode and has latest bios and Firmware updates. Here's the specs listed on ebay..

 

LSI Avago IT mode firmware version P20 (20.00.07.00)

MPTSAS2 BIOS ROM flashed version 07.39.02.00

MPTSAS2 UEFI ROM flashed version 07.27.01.01

Original SAS address preserved

Ventilated PCI bracket

 

That's how it's listed on there. So I already have the system bios to boot from usb set. I have my freenas usb setup and installed already. So when I boot up I see the avargo technologies setup thing. I even hit control + c to get into the card bios. When I enter bios I hit enter to select the sas2 card that is only thing shown on list then I get next screen saying loading non-volatile settings and stays like that. I have to reboot to try something else. I tried entering the system bios by hitting F10 at Post screen and it never goes to it. Just shows the lsi Navarro card initializing and asks to press control + c for sas settings. If I don't press nothing in 5 sec. Then next thing that it reads is no HBA (0). And back to the initializing again. But now it's stuck in a loop. Never asks anything after initializing,  just starts again and again. I even tried the tape mod on pins B5 and B6. Still same issue. Can someone help me out here and lead me down a path of a nas setup working. Lol thanks for all your help. 

[techmattr]

First thing I'd do is remove the SAS2008 BIOS if you're not booting from any device on the card. 

 

You can

 sas2flash –o –e 5

to erase the BIOS.

[Lupeflores09]

Where do I type that at? I just want to run freenas and was told this card in IT Mode will allow me to run all drives individually as a nas.

[techmattr]

You can download these bootable files. If you're running legacy BIOS you can type 

sas2flsh -o -e 5

at the DOS prompt; and if you're running UEFI you can type 

sas2flash.efi -o -e 5

at the efi prompt.

[Lupeflores09]

Ok so I now have the Lsi 9211-8i p20 version without bios. So at startup the card bios  (initializing) never comes up. It's progress now. I'm able to boot my freenas 9.3 stable from usb. I don't see any hard drives now. I'm using the single cable from lsi 9211-8i card to backplane. I don't remember name of cable. I have 12 2TB drives. When I first turn in system the lights come up orange in each drive then turn blue and then orange again and then off. I did use the command in shell of freenas....

 

pciconf -lv 

 

And I did see the LSI 9211-8i sas2008 card on list. So it does see my card but can't see my drives. I guess I have a few questions? Do my drives need to be certain format? I'm on freenas 9.3 should I try freenas 11.1? Or is it something else?

 

I also tried this command to see drives...

 

ls -l/dev/sg*

 

And I get a No Match return. Any help would be great. Thanks. 

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Lupeflores09 said:

Ok so I now have the Lsi 9211-8i p20 version without bios. So at startup the card bios  (initializing) never comes up. It's progress now. I'm able to boot my freenas 9.3 stable from usb. I don't see any hard drives now. I'm using the single cable from lsi 9211-8i card to backplane. I don't remember name of cable. I have 12 2TB drives. When I first turn in system the lights come up orange in each drive then turn blue and then orange again and then off. I did use the command in shell of freenas....

 

pciconf -lv 

 

And I did see the LSI 9211-8i sas2008 card on list. So it does see my card but can't see my drives. I guess I have a few questions? Do my drives need to be certain format? I'm on freenas 9.3 should I try freenas 11.1? Or is it something else?

 

I also tried this command to see drives...

 

ls -l/dev/sg*

 

And I get a No Match return. Any help would be great. Thanks. 

 

I would reflash the LSI 9211-8i to IT mode:

https://nguvu.org/freenas/Convert-LSI-HBA-card-to-IT-mode/

 

Basically, in IT mode, you never have to go into the RAID Card's "BIOS" (Ctrl + C), as that is only used for configuring RAID arrays (I mean, you can technically look in there for information such as SN's, etc, but realistically it's pointless to go in there).

 

Also is there a reason you're configuring this from the Console Terminal, instead of from the Web?

[Lupeflores09]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

I would reflash the LSI 9211-8i to IT mode:

https://nguvu.org/freenas/Convert-LSI-HBA-card-to-IT-mode/

 

Basically, in IT mode, you never have to go into the RAID Card's "BIOS" (Ctrl + C), as that is only used for configuring RAID arrays (I mean, you can technically look in there for information such as SN's, etc, but realistically it's pointless to go in there).

 

Also is there a reason you're configuring this from the Console Terminal, instead of from the Web?

Well how can I confirm that it is in IT Mode? I thought I flashed it to IT mode already. I had to to flash because the bios was looping so I flashed without bios this time around. I can go into the web gui but there's no volumes there. It don't see any when I go to volumes and try to add. So I was trying to use shell to see if it even sees the drives. When I booting into freenas I see some drive information as it scrolls real fast. But no drives detected on freenas 9.3

 

[dalekphalm]

3 minutes ago, Lupeflores09 said:

Well how can I confirm that it is in IT Mode? I thought I flashed it to IT mode already. I had to to flash because the bios was looping so I flashed without bios this time around. I can go into the web gui but there's no volumes there. It don't see any when I go to volumes and try to add. So I was trying to use shell to see if it even sees the drives. When I booting into freenas I see some drive information as it scrolls real fast. But no drives detected on freenas 9.3

 

-snip-

Going into the SAS "BIOS" is one of the ways to check which firmware you have. If it ends in IR, IR mode. If it ends in IT, IT mode.

 

The guide I linked explains all of this. I highly recommend going through and reflashing the card from the beginning. If the Flash was successful, you should see all the drives in the Web UI under storage.

[Lupeflores09]

2 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Going into the SAS "BIOS" is one of the ways to check which firmware you have. If it ends in IR, IR mode. If it ends in IT, IT mode.

 

The guide I linked explains all of this. I highly recommend going through and reflashing the card from the beginning. If the Flash was successful, you should see all the drives in the Web UI under storage.

Well I flashed without bios this time because of first issue with the sas bios stuck in a loop initializing. Could never boot anything. Now I can without bios flashed. So I don't have a sas bios. But I will reflash again to verify it's correct.

[Lupeflores09]

On 2/9/2018 at 1:14 PM, Lupeflores09 said:

Well I flashed without bios this time because of first issue with the sas bios stuck in a loop initializing. Could never boot anything. Now I can without bios flashed. So I don't have a sas bios. But I will reflash again to verify it's correct.

So I reflashed and still don't see drives on freenas 9.3 running off my usb. Should I try the latest freenas version? I attached a second pic that shows freenas boot process and I see some of the drives. Listed there. Why or what should I try next? Kinda stuck now.

[dalekphalm]

Can you log into the GUI?

 

What does it show under "Storage" -> "View Disks"?

[Lupeflores09]

29 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Can you log into the GUI?

 

What does it show under "Storage" -> "View Disks"?

Yes i can. It shows no disk. I looked everywhere under the volumes section. I have 12 2tb drives in server. 

[dalekphalm]

12 hours ago, Lupeflores09 said:

Yes i can. It shows no disk. I looked everywhere under the volumes section. I have 12 2tb drives in server. 

Hmm, well I don't know what the issue might be.

 

How exactly are you connecting the 12x drives, with an 8i card? Do you have an Expander Card?

[paddy-stone]

2 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Hmm, well I don't know what the issue might be.

 

How exactly are you connecting the 12x drives, with an 8i card? Do you have an Expander Card?

Sorry to butt in here, I am not trying to interfere I promise... I really appreciated you helping me with a similar question just recently, thank you again BTW

Anyway, so just wondering if it might be a version conflict between freenas 9.3 if the driver version is not p20?  I can recall that being a problem on several posts I saw?... again, sorry for butting in, and hope I wasn't way off in my suggestion. When my LSI card was version 20 and IR even it showed the drives and actually worked fine, as the driver was still matching with it being 20 in freenas 11 -u4 IIRC. I only flashed mine to IT mode so I could use it in ESXi and passthrough the drives directly to freenas then.

[dalekphalm]

44 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

Sorry to butt in here, I am not trying to interfere I promise... I really appreciated you helping me with a similar question just recently, thank you again BTW

Anyway, so just wondering if it might be a version conflict between freenas 9.3 if the driver version is not p20?  I can recall that being a problem on several posts I saw?... again, sorry for butting in, and hope I wasn't way off in my suggestion. When my LSI card was version 20 and IR even it showed the drives and actually worked fine, as the driver was still matching with it being 20 in freenas 11 -u4 IIRC. I only flashed mine to IT mode so I could use it in ESXi and passthrough the drives directly to freenas then.

It could be a version conflict, certainly. My own 9207-8e has a version mismatch (It's on like p9 or something), and it works totally fine - that's of course 100% anecdotal, so I can't say what effect version conflicts might have.

[Lupeflores09]

7 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Hmm, well I don't know what the issue might be.

 

How exactly are you connecting the 12x drives, with an 8i card? Do you have an Expander Card?

I am using a (SFF-8087) Serial ATA cable that goes from card to backplane of dl180 g6. 

[Lupeflores09]

4 hours ago, paddy-stone said:

Sorry to butt in here, I am not trying to interfere I promise... I really appreciated you helping me with a similar question just recently, thank you again BTW

Anyway, so just wondering if it might be a version conflict between freenas 9.3 if the driver version is not p20?  I can recall that being a problem on several posts I saw?... again, sorry for butting in, and hope I wasn't way off in my suggestion. When my LSI card was version 20 and IR even it showed the drives and actually worked fine, as the driver was still matching with it being 20 in freenas 11 -u4 IIRC. I only flashed mine to IT mode so I could use it in ESXi and passthrough the drives directly to freenas then.

You aren't butting in at all. Any suggestions are appreciated. When you say driver version p20 are you talking about the sas2flash version of p19 I used? As seen in pics above 

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Lupeflores09 said:

I am using a (SFF-8087) Serial ATA cable that goes from card to backplane of dl180 g6. 

So the backplane as 12x SAS/SATA ports?

 

Are you using a single SFF-8087 cable? How many SFF-8087 inputs does the backplane have on it? 1x, 2x, or 3x?

[Lupeflores09]

3 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

So the backplane as 12x SAS/SATA ports?

 

Are you using a single SFF-8087 cable? How many SFF-8087 inputs does the backplane have on it? 1x, 2x, or 3x?

Yes backplane has 12xports. And only 1 cable I'm using. And backplane does only have 1 input.

[paddy-stone]

8 hours ago, Lupeflores09 said:

You aren't butting in at all. Any suggestions are appreciated. When you say driver version p20 are you talking about the sas2flash version of p19 I used? As seen in pics above 

Thanks, I didn't want to presume is all... I don't know a lot about this stuff TBH, only what I have read online.

Every one I have looked at says to make sure you're using the same versions, so I guess that means the installer and package versions yes.

It may have been simpler for me, as mine is a desktop board, and I just used the efi shell to flash it, documentation of which is here https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/how-to-flash-lsi-9211-8i-using-efi-shell.50902/

It was SO simple in the end I almost cried..

If you can use the efi shell, I would have a go that way TBH, and the instructions while being a little confusing at times, do get there... and having done it myself I can give you a better step by step if you need it.

 

13 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

It could be a version conflict, certainly. My own 9207-8e has a version mismatch (It's on like p9 or something), and it works totally fine - that's of course 100% anecdotal, so I can't say what effect version conflicts might have.

Ahh I see, so may not be a problem.

 

Just wanted to post some info for you, if you remember me saying in my thread where you helped me about flashing from within freenas?  they do have sas2flash built in, there's some info about it here https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/confirmation-please-lsi-9211-i8-flashing-to-p20.40373/

 

I didn't use that way, I used the efi shell way as mentioned above to do it, but just wanted to let you know is all that it might be able to be done that way.

[NelizMastr]

5 hours ago, Lupeflores09 said:

Yes backplane has 12xports. And only 1 cable I'm using. And backplane does only have 1 input.

1 mini-SAS 8087 cable, so one SAS channel, can't address 12 drives, so I'm not sure you have the correct cables attached to the backplane. One channel can use 4 drives max.

[Lupeflores09]

2 hours ago, NelizMastr said:

1 mini-SAS 8087 cable, so one SAS channel, can't address 12 drives, so I'm not sure you have the correct cables attached to the backplane. One channel can use 4 drives max.

I have read in different forums that the 9211-8i card can do up to 24 drives? That's only reason I got this card. How else can I do this then? I've seen people post that they just swapped raid cards to this and got all 12 drives working.

 

Not to mention when I had the p410 card that came with system I only had 1 cable also and saw all 12 drives.

[Lupeflores09]

2 hours ago, NelizMastr said:

1 mini-SAS 8087 cable, so one SAS channel, can't address 12 drives, so I'm not sure you have the correct cables attached to the backplane. One channel can use 4 drives max.

The HP ProLiant DL180 G6 12-bay LFF drive backplane has a single 4-lane SFF-8087 SAS connector (See #4 on the graphic below).

The backplane has an integrated SAS expander that accommodates the 12 bays. The expander actually supports 14-ports, with two backplane-mounted SATA connectors to interface to the rear-mount 2-drive cage option (HP #488234-B21).

If you're interested in replacing your Smart Array P212 controller, you can safely use a Smart Array P410 or Smart Array P812 controller to accomplish your goal. Only one SFF-8087 port will be used

[NelizMastr]

1 hour ago, Lupeflores09 said:

I have read in different forums that the 9211-8i card can do up to 24 drives? That's only reason I got this card. How else can I do this then? I've seen people post that they just swapped raid cards to this and got all 12 drives working.

 

Not to mention when I had the p410 card that came with system I only had 1 cable also and saw all 12 drives.

As long as the card and cable support 4-channel operation mode, 12 drives should indeed be possible. Should be good to go. What was wrong with the P410 though? The Smartarrays are decent controllers imo. At least now you know your LSI card is the main problem factor here.

[dalekphalm]

4 hours ago, NelizMastr said:

1 mini-SAS 8087 cable, so one SAS channel, can't address 12 drives, so I'm not sure you have the correct cables attached to the backplane. One channel can use 4 drives max.

The backplane has an integrated SAS Expander - basically it takes the single 4-channel cable, and allows many more SAS connections - though your bandwidth is capped at 4-channel.

 

I'd suggest it's possible that the SAS Expander might have some sort of incompatibility with either the OS driver, or the HDD's themselves.

 

@Lupeflores09 do you have any other HDD's lying around? Pull out all the drives, and put in one of your other ones, and see what happens.

 

If that one drive works, put one of the 2TB drives back in, and repeat.