LSI Controller FW updates IR/IT modes


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I recently tried to update my controller firmware, using the method I previously documented here, using the Linux sas2flash utility.  That's when I discovered that sas2flash is a 32-bit ELF image, and won't run on unRAID 6.

 

Since sas2flash is, apparently, statically linked, should it not still be possible to run in the 64-bit environment?  Is there a way to convert a 32-bit ELF to a 64-bit ELF, without access to source code?  Or does anyone know whether the source code is available somewhere?

 

Or will I have to boot an unRAID5 image simply to flash my card?

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I recently tried to update my controller firmware, using the method I previously documented here, using the Linux sas2flash utility.  That's when I discovered that sas2flash is a 32-bit ELF image, and won't run on unRAID 6.

 

Since sas2flash is, apparently, statically linked, should it not still be possible to run in the 64-bit environment?  Is there a way to convert a 32-bit ELF to a 64-bit ELF, without access to source code?  Or does anyone know whether the source code is available somewhere?

 

Or will I have to boot an unRAID5 image simply to flash my card?

Even if it is possible to convert to/run on 64 bit I wouldn't trust it enough to actually do it myself.  I would stick with what has worked.  That is why I boot from a DOS USB stick and flash from a computer with a compatible chipset.  If it works don't fix it is what I live buy.  Saves me time if nothing else.
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  • 2 weeks later...

I would modify the original thread and link to your post Maglin.

Just add the files needed to your post and be a bit more precise.

 

I've never used EFI shell, so I can't comment on your instructions.

Are steps 1-4 doable under EFI shell also?

How did you perform stops 6 and 7? With EFI shell also?

Maybe highlight what is done in EFI and what in DOS.

Where is the deviation from the original instruction (DOS).

Why didn't you flash P19?

Please add the answers to your upper post to have all the info in one post.

 

Thanks for reporting your experience!

 

Been a little while so I'm going to try and outline this a little clearer.  You only need to download one more file to make this all work using the EFI shell for steps 5-7.  So I downloaded "Toolset_PercH310 to LSI9211_P19.zip" and "EFI_Installer_P5.zip" from here.

 

For steps 1-4 you can use MegaRec on every PC I've tried it on and so I used the .bat files from the toolset to accomplish those.  I also put all these files on a bootable DOS USBstick.  Unzip the toolset into it's own folder and the SAS2FLASH zip into it's own folder.  Copy the P5_sas2flash.efi from the P5 folder and paste it into the folder:

\Toolset_PercH310 to LSI9211_P19\H310_to_LSI\5_LSI_P7

And copy the P16_sas2flash.efi to folders:

\Toolset_PercH310 to LSI9211_P19\H310_to_LSI\5_DELL_IT

\Toolset_PercH310 to LSI9211_P19\H310_to_LSI\5_LSI_P16

 

Reboot into dos that is on your USB stick. Navigate to \Toolset_PercH310 to LSI9211_P19\H310_to_LSI using "cd" command.  Also to view contents you can use "dir /w" to see what you need to type.

 

1. Run 1.bat

2. Run 2.bat

3. Run 3.bat

4. Reboot

5. Boot into EFI shell.  type "FSx" [enter] x= the drive letter of your USB drive.  For me it was FS0.  Now you can use "ls" to list the contents of your usb stick and "cd" to change directory.  Also once you type about 3 characters you can auto fill with [Tab] which makes things like navigating long directory names easier.  Go to the \Toolset_PercH310 to LSI9211_P19\H310_to_LSI\5_DELL_IT folder. Now run the following command:

P16_sas2flash -o -f 6gbpsas.fw

  "I used a X10SLL which has the EFI shell in the BIOS image.  If you don't you should be able to use EFI shell v1.  I've added them to the zip I'm uploaded just in case.  You have to use google on how to use EFI shell on a puter that requires the EFI files to be on the root of the drive."

6. reboot back into EFI shell and go to the folder \Toolset_PercH310 to LSI9211_P19\H310_to_LSI\5_LSI_P7 and run the following command:

P5_sas2flash -o -f 2118it.bin

You will be asked to confirm the flash and just choose Yes and it will flash from the dell IR FW to the LSI IT FW.

7. Now reboot again into EFI shell and go to \Toolset_PercH310 to LSI9211_P19\H310_to_LSI\5_LSI_P16 and run the following command:

P16_sas2flash -o -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom (you can omit the "-b mptsas2.rom" if you don't want the boot BIOS.  I recommend you install the BIOS as you can see your drives at boot to ensure your card is working properly)

8. Now enter: P16_sas2flsh -o -sasadd 500605bxxxxxxxxx where "500605bxxxxxxxxx" is the SAS address that you got in step 1.

9. Enjoy your new flashed LSI 2008 card.

 

I've done this exact process on 3 different cards now.  Even the M1015 just without installing the 6gbpsas.fw first.  I'm not using UnRaid as I like FreeNAS and it is currently on P16 firmware so that is why I stopped there.  If you want to install P19 then go to the LSI site that I linked above and download the Installer_P19_for_UEFI and use that sas2flash.efi file to flash the P19 FW.  You don't want to use the wrong installer for your FW as it can do some strange things.  I only used the P5 installer to be able to  accept the cross flashing of IT FW over IR firmware.

 

I uploaded to my dropbox.

P5_sas2flash.zip

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Thank you for the summary Maglin.

I like FreeNAS and it is currently on P16 firmware so that is why I stopped there.

OK, apparently this is a requirement for FreeNAS. I don't know if this is

recommended for unRAID also?

Anyway, P19 is the last firmware known to be free of issues for the card.

 

There is P20 also, which had some file corruption issues and also a later P20 bugfixed release.

Version no: 20.00.04.00    Release date: 21-MAY-15

At the moment I don't see the benefit vs. extensive testing to make sure the corruption issue

is gone.

 

I have one more H310 lying around at home. Given I have some time, I will try to perform the UEFI-way

to flash the card according to your input and taylor a UEFI package.

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I'm having troubles flashing a M1015 card.  This is a card I'm helping flash for a buddy.  My card (which didn't have the LSI silkscreen on it like this one) went flawlessly using the same PC. 

 

This one keeps giving me a "Firmware Download Failed!" when running the following command:

sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118IT.BIN -b MPTSAS2.ROM

 

I've cleaned things out by running the megarec -cleanflash 0 from a DOS boot disk, then restarting into UEFI to run the sas2flash.  Every time it fails; any ideas? 

 

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I have a M1015 flashed to IT mode. I am facing same issues with my Unraid built and the card / driver came up as one potential reason (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=42806.0). I am not sure what FW I have installed and had some issues before updating it (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=26774.45). Any idea what I can do? I am pretty much stuck now...

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@Fireball13

 

I've tried following ths tutorial:  http://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-m1015-part-4/  It's the same one I did on my other M1015 card.

 

The card will accept

megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin

megarec -cleanflash 0

 

but when I run:

sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom

it says firmware download failed. 

 

One glimer of hope is that I can run :

Megarec -m0flash 0 0061_lsi.rom

and it appears to successfully flash each individual component of the card with a message of SUCCESS at the end.  However on reboot and issuing SAS2FLSH -listall it tells me firmware is not loaded and gives me a prompt to load the firmware.  Every file I've tried results in firmware download failed. 

 

Any ideas?  Is there a way to do a full firmware "upload" from my other card and "download" onto this one?

 

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Hello,

i search the web and tried alot, but now i dont know how to proceed further. I have got a Dell H310 and wanted to flash to IT-Mode P19. I used commands:

MegaRec -cleanflash 0

reboot

sas2flsh -o -f 6GBSAS.FW

sas2flsh -o -reset

sas2flsh -o -f 2118P7.BIN

sas2flsh -o -reset

sas2flsh -o -f 2118IT.BIN -b FW2657A.rom

sas2flsh -o -sasadd xxxx

but the card wont boot any drive and it dont show any configuration for the card while booting.

 

first time i saw that the card was recognized as lsi sas2008(G2) but now it shows lsi 2008( ??? ) and i dont know what todo - need help. mainboard is a consumer gigabyte ga75m thx

The method to flash a H310 was posted in this thread by Fireball3.  And the commands to use are coded in the ".bat" files in the archive earlier in this thread.  I've done 4 H310's so far myself it works great. I use Fireball3's method and flash from USB dos boot.  Here is his post http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12767.msg259006#msg259006

 

Why is everyone doing the extra steps on the H310 cards? These are the only commands I used and both cards I flashed are working just fine in my unraid server now.

 

megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin    (wipes the card so to recognize as an LSI)

MegaRec -cleanflash 0

reboot

sas2flsh -o -f 6GBSAS.FW

 

After that you are done. You don't need the BIOS boot, unless you have to boot into the card for some reason. Also, I never had to reprogram the cards address. I guess you don't need to do that since I used the Dell 6GBSAS firmware. Seems from looking at the batch files if you use the LSI firmware you need to re-program the SAS address. Why not with the Dell IT firmware, have no idea. I used the utility RUFUS to make a bootable USB stick and flashed each card by itself in the PCIE slot.

 

EDIT/UPDATE: I did want to mention that I have read the Dell firmware only supports a queue depth of 25. The LSI firmware supports a queue depth of 600. I have tried both variations of the firmware and saw no increase/decrease in performance. Does this apply to IT passthru which unraid uses? I don't know. I guess to be safe, use the LSI firmware.

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I have a M1015 flashed to IT mode. I am facing same issues with my Unraid built and the card / driver came up as one potential reason (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=42806.0). I am not sure what FW I have installed and had some issues before updating it (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=26774.45). Any idea what I can do? I am pretty much stuck now...

Did you have this problem from the beginning or did it appear lately?

Did you do any updates of unRAID?

 

Any ideas?  Is there a way to do a full firmware "upload" from my other card and "download" onto this one?

Try to flash the P7 firmware. Use the sas2flsh.exe that comes with the P7 package. (download from LSI or use the one

within the H310 package)

Within the H310 package it is described how you dump a copy of the SBR of your OK card.

But I fear there is something else going on with that thing.

 

Why is everyone doing the extra steps on the H310 cards?

Guess nobody tried the DELL IT firmware with unRAID.

Before the H310 was flashed the procedure for the M1015 was already established and the LSI firmware

is known to work with unRAID.

LSI firmware is probably more up to date - don't know if its an advantage though.

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I have a M1015 flashed to IT mode. I am facing same issues with my Unraid built and the card / driver came up as one potential reason (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=42806.0). I am not sure what FW I have installed and had some issues before updating it (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=26774.45). Any idea what I can do? I am pretty much stuck now...

Did you have this problem from the beginning or did it appear lately?

Did you do any updates of unRAID?

 

Any ideas?  Is there a way to do a full firmware "upload" from my other card and "download" onto this one?

Try to flash the P7 firmware. Use the sas2flsh.exe that comes with the P7 package. (download from LSI or use the one

within the H310 package)

Within the H310 package it is described how you dump a copy of the SBR of your OK card.

But I fear there is something else going on with that thing.

 

Why is everyone doing the extra steps on the H310 cards?

Guess nobody tried the DELL IT firmware with unRAID.

Before the H310 was flashed the procedure for the M1015 was already established and the LSI firmware

is known to work with unRAID.

LSI firmware is probably more up to date - don't know if its an advantage though.

 

The Dell IT firmware's release date of July 2014. The LSI one I believe is September 2014. Can't be much of a difference. I stuck with the Dell firmware since it is actually approved by Dell for that card and IT mode. Grabbed it right from Dell's website. The daily read/write speeds compared to my Supermicro SAS2 cards are the same. Just the parity checks are much faster.

 

Update:

Hopefully this link will stay put. This is Dell's NON-RAID (IT) firmware for the H310 card.

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=YJ78T&fileId=2731103519&dgc=CJ&cid=47997&lid=4279734&acd=12309198375458460&ven1=11708984-5838698-skim34691X927548X206090f813c979889b17a6fca312016c&ven3=775302971985010933

 

I did put all the files on my FTP server in case you need to download them.

 

ftp.diggsnet.com

user = [email protected]

pw  = unraid

 

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The Dell IT firmware's release date of July 2014. The LSI one I believe is September 2014. Can't be much of a difference. I stuck with the Dell firmware since it is actually approved by Dell for that card and IT mode. Grabbed it right from Dell's website. The daily read/write speeds compared to my Supermicro SAS2 cards are the same. Just the parity checks are much faster.

Well, good to know it's that easy and works with unRAID.

I will add that info to the firmware update post.

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I recently swapped out my SAS2LP cards for several M1015 cards, which I flashed to firmware 20. However the parity check performance sucks. I was getting 95MB/sec with the SAS2LP cards, but I am not getting 82MB/sec with the M1015 cards. I re-ran tunables which had every setting identical (118.2 MB/sec).

 

I am somewhat surprised that I've lost performance with these cards. I expected them to be at least as fast as my SAS2LP cards if not faster.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions? It's by no means the end of the world, but a bit annoying to say the least.

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I recently swapped out my SAS2LP cards for several M1015 cards, which I flashed to firmware 20. However the parity check performance sucks. I was getting 95MB/sec with the SAS2LP cards, but I am not getting 82MB/sec with the M1015 cards. I re-ran tunables which had every setting identical (118.2 MB/sec).

 

I am somewhat surprised that I've lost performance with these cards. I expected them to be at least as fast as my SAS2LP cards if not faster.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions? It's by no means the end of the world, but a bit annoying to say the least.

 

The same tunables results for me happen when there is a bus bottleneck or it’s hitting the maximum speed of the slowest disk in all settings.

 

Are all your WD30EZRX disks 1TB/platter your do you have some 750GB/platter?

 

If all are 1TB/platter parity check speed should start at 145/150MB/s, if you have at least one 750GB/platter parity should start at about 125/130 Mb/s.

 

But this can’t explain that according to what you posted in the SAS2LP thread, your starting speed is higher than the SAS2LP and in the end the average speed is lower.

 

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I recently swapped out my SAS2LP cards for several M1015 cards, which I flashed to firmware 20. However the parity check performance sucks. I was getting 95MB/sec with the SAS2LP cards, but I am not getting 82MB/sec with the M1015 cards. I re-ran tunables which had every setting identical (118.2 MB/sec).

 

I am somewhat surprised that I've lost performance with these cards. I expected them to be at least as fast as my SAS2LP cards if not faster.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions? It's by no means the end of the world, but a bit annoying to say the least.

 

The same tunables results for me happen when there is a bus bottleneck or it’s hitting the maximum speed of the slowest disk in all settings.

 

Are all your WD30EZRX disks 1TB/platter your do you have some 750GB/platter?

 

If all are 1TB/platter parity check speed should start at 145/150MB/s, if you have at least one 750GB/platter parity should start at about 125/130 Mb/s.

 

But this can’t explain that according to what you posted in the SAS2LP thread, your starting speed is higher than the SAS2LP and in the end the average speed is lower.

 

The parity check peaks around 125MB/sec, so it must include the 750GB/platters.

 

Of course, I wasn't smart enough to keep the tunables report from the SAS2LP cards the last time I ran them, but there were much larger variations with those cards, and it had me applying much higher values for the various attributes. The tunables report I ran for the M1015 cards says the following:

 

These settings will consume 136MB of RAM on your hardware.

This is -422MB less than your current utilization of 558MB.

 

So, you can imagine how much higher the settings were with my last config.

 

It's definitely bizarre, and somewhat frustrating and I am not sure what to try next.

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I recently swapped out my SAS2LP cards for several M1015 cards, which I flashed to firmware 20. However the parity check performance sucks. I was getting 95MB/sec with the SAS2LP cards, but I am not getting 82MB/sec with the M1015 cards. I re-ran tunables which had every setting identical (118.2 MB/sec).

 

I am somewhat surprised that I've lost performance with these cards. I expected them to be at least as fast as my SAS2LP cards if not faster.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions? It's by no means the end of the world, but a bit annoying to say the least.

 

Seems that M1015 cards don't allow higher speeds. I have 3 of them running on my mainserver and I don't get much better results. I run them on the "old" X9SCM-F mainboard with an old E3-1240 CPU. The M1015s are in PCI-E 2.0 x8 slots. Yours are in PCI-E 3.0 8x slots which should result in better performance, but not so it seems.

 

Might well be a driver problem that limits speed on the M1015.

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Seems that M1015 cards don't allow higher speeds. I have 3 of them running on my mainserver and I don't get much better results. I run them on the "old" X9SCM-F mainboard with an old E3-1240 CPU. The M1015s are in PCI-E 2.0 x8 slots. Yours are in PCI-E 3.0 8x slots which should result in better performance, but not so it seems.

 

Might well be a driver problem that limits speed on the M1015.

 

I have M1015 cards in my setup too, just started a parity check, after 9 minutes the results are:

Total size: 4 TB

Elapsed time: 9 minutes

Current position: 83,6 GB (2,1 %)

Estimated speed: 162,3 MB/sec

Estimated finish: 6 hours, 42 minutes

Sync errors detected: 0

 

see all hardware details in my sig below. i'm on unRAID v6B15 - did not upgrade further cos i'm on esxi with USB drops issue with V6 final..

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Seems that M1015 cards don't allow higher speeds. I have 3 of them running on my mainserver and I don't get much better results. I run them on the "old" X9SCM-F mainboard with an old E3-1240 CPU. The M1015s are in PCI-E 2.0 x8 slots. Yours are in PCI-E 3.0 8x slots which should result in better performance, but not so it seems.

 

Might well be a driver problem that limits speed on the M1015.

 

I have M1015 cards in my setup too, just started a parity check, after 9 minutes the results are:

Total size: 4 TB

Elapsed time: 9 minutes

Current position: 83,6 GB (2,1 %)

Estimated speed: 162,3 MB/sec

Estimated finish: 6 hours, 42 minutes

Sync errors detected: 0

 

see all hardware details in my sig below. i'm on unRAID v6B15 - did not upgrade further cos i'm on esxi with USB drops issue with V6 final..

 

Wow... I would be interested in seeing the final results once the parity check is complete. That is definitely way higher than I start, though I usually start around 120MB/sec, but end up at 82MB/sec. I do see I have 2 drives with the 750GB platters, which I know are not ideal and I will try and replace down the road, but it would be great to get somewhere near where you are.

 

For you and dikkiedirk, what firmware are you on? I am on P20 as it looked stable after the fix, but I am curious if this makes a difference at all (as well as the UnRAID version). It may be worth trying to go back to a beta build and see what happens.

 

Can anyone confirm, if I am on 6.1.2 is there any potential issue with me moving back to a beta build for testing? I only have my one production box and don't want to risk my data at all.

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Wow... I would be interested in seeing the final results once the parity check is complete. That is definitely way higher than I start, though I usually start around 120MB/sec, but end up at 82MB/sec. I do see I have 2 drives with the 750GB platters, which I know are not ideal and I will try and replace down the road, but it would be great to get somewhere near where you are.

 

For you and dikkiedirk, what firmware are you on? I am on P20 as it looked stable after the fix, but I am curious if this makes a difference at all (as well as the UnRAID version). It may be worth trying to go back to a beta build and see what happens.

 

Can anyone confirm, if I am on 6.1.2 is there any potential issue with me moving back to a beta build for testing? I only have my one production box and don't want to risk my data at all.

Current progress:

Total size: 4 TB

Elapsed time: 3 hours, 19 minutes

Current position: 1,84 TB (46,1 %)

Estimated speed: 145,1 MB/sec

Estimated finish: 4 hours, 7 minutes

Sync errors detected: 0

 

i'm on FW version 18 - flashed it 2.5 years ago and it's working :) so no need for change i think..

 

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Wow... I would be interested in seeing the final results once the parity check is complete. That is definitely way higher than I start, though I usually start around 120MB/sec, but end up at 82MB/sec. I do see I have 2 drives with the 750GB platters, which I know are not ideal and I will try and replace down the road, but it would be great to get somewhere near where you are.

 

For you and dikkiedirk, what firmware are you on? I am on P20 as it looked stable after the fix, but I am curious if this makes a difference at all (as well as the UnRAID version). It may be worth trying to go back to a beta build and see what happens.

 

Can anyone confirm, if I am on 6.1.2 is there any potential issue with me moving back to a beta build for testing? I only have my one production box and don't want to risk my data at all.

Current progress:

Total size: 4 TB

Elapsed time: 3 hours, 19 minutes

Current position: 1,84 TB (46,1 %)

Estimated speed: 145,1 MB/sec

Estimated finish: 4 hours, 7 minutes

Sync errors detected: 0

 

i'm on FW version 18 - flashed it 2.5 years ago and it's working :) so no need for change i think..

 

Looking at your sig, I see you have a RAID 0 array as your parity. I am wondering if that is giving you the better than expected results. I am sure it would have a positive impact, I just don't know how much.

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I was able to grab two more DELL H310's from work. I flashed them successfully with the 2188IT firmware, but I intentionally left out re-assigning the SAS address. I did this with two cards. Removed my flashed Dell IT cards and installed the two I just flashed and unraid booted right up. Apparently you do not need to assign the SAS address back to the card. I imagine that may have been used during old school days when you needed the address of hardware, but these days the mainboard and OS pretty much take care of all that now. Note, I did not apply the BIOS part. No need, since the card is just passthru. I also came to a conclusion that using the right sas2flsh utility version makes a difference. I used the brand new version and kept getting that manufacturer version error and the flash would bomb out. But if I used an older version of that same utility it actually asked me if I wanted to flash even though the hardware manufacture ID was different. This is a good tip, since you can say YES and the flash will continue to work. I'm using the cards now. See the capture.

 

sas2flsh.jpg.f562e28e0eec771a091da51a396896b5.jpg

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