Fujitsu D2607 (SAS2008) flashed to IT & 4 ports working under 10.2

smj

smj

tl;dr - Works, but only four ports / one SFF-8087 connector currently recognized

I recently picked up a used/refurb Fujitsu D2607-A11 SAS HBA to go in a "new" server build, and didn't find many posts about successfully flashing the LSI IT firmware to that card, let alone using it with FreeBSD. But I did reflash this one, and installed 10.2-RELEASE on a four disk RAIDZ2 last night.

The process I followed was primarily described in this servethehome.com thread. I say "primarily" because this is just one of tons of recipes on the 'Net for flashing SAS2008-based cards, all varying slightly (or wildly) for that particular mix of hardware, firmware, and software.

I wrote the empty SBR using the "megarec" utility, but it wouldn't "clearflash" successfully. I then ran about a dozen failed flashing attempts with the "sas2flsh" from Dell with different versions of the Dell and LSI firmware, and a number of reboots, because different reports had some of those working for their cards. Eventually I tried the "megarec" steps again and both worked. Then I was able to use "sas2flsh" per the thread linked above: -> Dell FW -> LSI P7 -> LSI P20.

Now the card has the P20 LSI firmware and BIOS. While it's working, similar to one story I found on the web only the lower SFF-8087 connector is recognized/working. So I got the IT firmware, but I lost four ports.

Might it be possible to enable that other port? Yes, if I kept spinning through versions of files and different ordering of steps. Will I try it? Doubtful, as I've got a ton of other things that need doing, and 4 ports is plenty for a DL360 with only a 4 port HDD backplane...
 
Hi, you have said it was used/refurbished - maybe the first SFF-8087 was not worked ? did you checked both ports on that card before flashing ? If yes - then you could try different firmware and just go lower by 1, but as you already said - you have a plenty ports for your server already. Reflashing might brick your card.

UPD: if the working port will die (never seen that before) - you will try to get other port to working by trying to lower firmware version.. better < good in this situation.
 
Thanks for the suggestion, ab2k. I didn't mention it but before I flashed the card I did go into the firmware and it did "see" drives on both SFF-8087 connectors.

One of the other reports floating around out there about flashing some variant of the D2607 ("Rev 3" I think) also saw the loss of four ports under the LSI IT firmware. That poster reverted to the original Fujitsu firmware to get all eight ports working. I happen to have the DL360 I mentioned with only four drive bays, so I can afford to give up the other four ports on this controller.
 
Hi again, I see. Seems card is working, problem is in firmware... but as you have said above - you have only 4 bays - so 1 port - 4 bays... more than enough ;) If port will die or enything extraordinary will happen - you can try to flash it, but before - i don't think it's a good idea, until you have alot of time to experiment...
 
smj said:
One of the other reports floating around out there about flashing some variant of the D2607 ("Rev 3" I think) also saw the loss of four ports under the LSI IT firmware. That poster reverted to the original Fujitsu firmware to get all eight ports working.
Click to expand...
There are 2 kinds of non-LSI-branded cards around: "Badge engineered" ones which are exactly the same as an LSI card (the only engineering done by the OEM was adding a badge with their name) and modified designs. Modified designs may or may not work 100% with LSI firmware, and the problems may be cosmetic or deeper. For example, if you flash the LSI firmware to a Dell H200E/6Gbps external SAS card, the card works fine but both port LEDs will be amber because the LSI firmware doesn't know about port LEDs. A more serious difference is the OCZ Velodrive which is a PCIe SSD with an onboard SAS2004. It only has half the flash capacity ("half-flashed") of the real LSI card, so any attempt to upgrade the firmware (for example, with megarec) will likely end up bricking the card.

It seems that the Fujitsu card you have has enough differences from the generic card that the stock firmware doesn't see all of the ports.
 
Terry_Kennedy said:
There are ... "Badge engineered" [cards] ... and modified designs.
Click to expand...
Thanks Terry. I'm very familiar with this phenomenon from taking video cards that shipped with factory firmware for PCs, and flashing them with firmware to work (better) with Macs. It becomes a very dicey proposition when the manufacturers start deviating from the "reference" designs in those cases, which are usually the cards that any Mac firmware is available for... And of course the same would apply in scenarios involving other types of cards.

FWIW the D2607 in question is now installed in the DL360 and the card BIOS sees the two attached drives.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top