Re: Good SAS adapters for 6 Gb/s SATA SSD's (with TRIM)?

Stefan Hübner
2011-08-14T20:00:31Z

Hi Doug,

that indeed is right - it's kind of a pita and took me some time to make
a well-suited DOS-bootstick for basic hardware initialization...

But actually Supermicro.nl at least provides good support and how-to's
(via mail if you ask support@supermicro.nl). And there should have bee
a correct script for flashing from IR to IT (including the erase-option,
if you took the Supermicro-package).

Cheers,
Stefan

Am 12.08.2011 15:42, schrieb Douglas Gilbert:
> Stefan,
> My test was done with IT firmware.
>
> Actually I switched from IR (initiator raid?) to IT
> (initiator target) firmware in the process of upgrading
> from 9 to 10. [Wouldn't it be great if someone would
> hookup these controllers in target mode to the Linux
> kernel's new target infrastructure.]
>
> As far as I have seen, most LSI SAS HBAs come with IR
> firmware on them. Switching IR to IT firmware with
> their sas2flash tool is a bit of a pain. First sas2flash
> didn't work on a AMD 64 bit platform (DOS to the rescue),
> then it refuses to load IT over IR firmware. The latter
> problem is solved by clearing the flash ("-o -e 6" was
> the magic for the clear (in the past when I did
> "-o -e 7" I had to program the controller's SAS address
> back in by hand)).
>
> Doug Gilbert
>
>
> On 11-08-12 03:16 AM, Stefan /*St0fF*/ Hübner wrote:
>> Douglas,
>>
>> have you double-checked to use the IT (Initiator Mode) Firmware from
>> LSI? I mean we build up systems based on the X8SI6-F mainboard from
>> Supermicro which has a LSI SAS2008 with 8 Lanes on-board. If using
>> HW-RAID (Modes 0, 1, 1E, ...) on those, we have to flash the "IR"
>> firmware. If using the chip as HBA for Linux software RAID, we flash
>> the "IT" firmware, and if the customer needs HW-RAID5-Support, they get
>> an extra chip onto the board and we have to flash "iMR" firmware...
>>
>> So you have 3 different firmware versions. IT would be the way to go
>> here...
>>
>> Greets,
>> Stefan
>>
>> Am 12.08.2011 05:19, schrieb Douglas Gilbert:
>>> On 11-08-11 03:59 PM, Douglas Gilbert wrote:
>>>> On 11-08-11 11:18 AM, Prof. Dr. Klaus Kusche wrote:
>>>>> I'm looking for ways to hook up fast 6 Gb/s SATA SSD's (non-RAID!)
>>>>> to (server or i-X58) mainboards which do not have native 6 Gb/s SATA.
>>>>>
>>>>> From the reviews I've read so far, two things became obvious:
>>>>> * The SSD's I'm looking at really want a working SATA TRIM command.
>>>>> * All the onboard Marvell 88SE9128 (or ASmedia) solutions
>>>>> seriuosly lack performance, as do PCIe cards based on those chips.
>>>>>
>>>>> So basically, there seem to be two choices:
>>>>> 1.) LSI 2008
>>>>> 2.) Marvell 9485
>>>>>
>>>>> 1.) seems to be fast, reliable and well-supported,
>>>>> but as far as I can tell, it doesn't support TRIM at all:
>>>>> It neither maps SCSI unmap to SATA TRIM,
>>>>> nor accepts TRIM as a SATA passthrough command.
>>>>>
>>>>> Is that true?
>>>>
>>>> What counts in Linux for "trim" support on a SSD (SATA,
>>>> SAS or FC) is correctly processing the SCSI WRITE SAME (16)
>>>> with the UNMAP bit set. In the case of a SATA SSD, a SCSI
>>>> to ATA Translation Layer (SATL) should map that SCSI WRITE
>>>> SAME (16) with the UNMAP bit set to the ATA DATA SET
>>>> MANAGEMENT command with the TRIM attribute set.
>>>>
>>>> Many Linux SATA low level drivers use libata which
>>>> implements the above mapping. However some SAS HBAs
>>>> (e.g. LSI MPT Fusion 3 and 6 Gbps) implement the SATL
>>>> in their own HBA firmware.
>>>>
>>>> I tested a LSI SAS 9212-4i4e HBA running its most recent
>>>> firmware (9.0 from Feb 26, 2011) with a Intel SSDSA2M080
>>>> which does support trim. I used my ddpt utility and the
>>>> SCSI WRITE SAME (16) with the UNMAP bit set was rejected
>>>> as an "illegal request". With the UNMAP bit clear it
>>>> accepted the command. I also checked the SCSI UNMAP
>>>> command and it was also rejected.
>>>>
>>>> LSI have some more work to do on their firmware.
>>>
>>> I did check the LSI support page for my HBA just before sending
>>> my original reply. And the version 9 firmware was showing at the
>>> top of the list. Alas, that page had been alpha sorted on the
>>> file names so that version 10 of the firmware (May 2011) was
>>> hiding further down the page :-)
>>>
>>> So I installed the newest firmware and redid the above tests.
>>> Now the SCSI WRITE SAME (16) with the UNMAP bit set works on
>>> that SSD. The SCSI UNMAP command was rejected and I did not
>>> test sending the ATA DATA SET MANAGEMENT command through
>>> the pass-through (but I expect that would work).
>>>
>>> So Linux file systems will be able "discard" (="unmap"(SCSI);
>>> ="trim"(ATA)) data using LSI HBAs based the LSI 2008 chip
>>> which are running recent firmware.
>>>
>>> Doug Gilbert
>>>
>>>>> I didn't find much about 2.)
>>>>> * The only cards based on this chip are the HighPoint 27xx,
>>>>> or did I miss something?
>>>>> * Running a 27xx with the mvsas driver was reported to have stability
>>>>> problems or random errors. Are these problems solved?
>>>>> * Is the 27xx fast (with SATA SSD's& mvsas driver),
>>>>> i.e. significantly faster than onboard SATA 3 Gb/s ports?
>>>>> * Does the 27xx+mvsas support TRIM when connected to SATA drives?
>>>>>
>>>>> Are there any other solutions?
>>>
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>>
>>
>

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