LSI 9211-8i SAS Card Issues

[rcasero]

Hello, been going crazy trying to figure this thing out… Ok I have a HP DL360 Gen10, It has two controller one onboard which is a SATA only and the 480.

The last two bays 9 & 10 I would like to use for two more SSD SAS drives 1.9 TB

I purchased and installed the LSI 9211-8i on one of the PCI slots on the server, and connected to the back plane removing one of the cables from the 480 controller controller.

I power up the server and seems the controller is detected but unknown state, I remove the cable and still in a unknown state. It seems to be in IT Mode according to the BIOS

Removing original NVMe Cable:

Putting new SAS/SATA cable from LSI to backplane:

In the bios here is what it sees:

Desperate any help or direction on what to do next would be great…

Thank you in advnace.

[ericloewe]

Are you trying to connect a SAS controller to the backplane connector that was connected to PCIe? Yeah, there’s no way that’s ever going to work with a SAS2 controller, and from the labeling on your system I don’t think tri-mode/U.3 would work either (not that you’d want it to).

Judging by HPE’s docs, that backplane is probably the “10 SFF NVMe/SAS” ^[1] option. The last two bays are said to only support NVMe drives, much like what you see on the Dell R6515, for instance. So, by all indications, you have 10 U.2 bays, 8 of which are wired for SATA/SAS and PCIe, and two of which are only wired for PCIe (so that HPE can spare themselves the cost of a SAS expander for a measly two bays, something that was typical on high-end servers of the Xeon E5 generations).

We might be able to confirm this if you show us pictures of the whole backplane assembly and its labels.

Also, disconnect the SAS stuff from the PCIe connector on the backplane. It’s not likely that you’ll damage something, but it’s also not a great idea.

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1. People who say LFF and SFF: Please stop your obnoxious nonsense. The only correct terms are 3.5" and 2.5". ↩︎

[rcasero]

Yes, 10 SFF NVMe/SAS is what I have. So is no one of converting that to work I guess… unless I change the backplane which is not happening…

So I guess 8 drives it is… What the heck is the purpose of having the last two only MVMe…

[ericloewe]

@rcasero

What the heck is the purpose of having the last two only MVMe…

SAS expanders are expensive and it’s the 2020s. 99% of servers with more than 8 2.5" disks could probably use an NVMe drive or two. In fact, the SATA/SAS part could go away entirely with not much loss of value.

[rcasero]

Yes, thinking about it, makes sense, NVMe would most likely be the drive/chip of choice…

If I would come across some NVMe drives, could I replace the other bays with NVMe ? going to assume yes.

[ericloewe]

Presumably, from the limited photographs you shared all the bays seem to be wired up for PCIe.

[rcasero]

Awesome, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge.

[Stux]

It’s actually pretty cool having two hot swapable U.2 (I presume) nvme ports on the front.

You could find an Optane or Enteprise NVMe u.2 SSD, or use an m.2 to u.2 adapter like this

Adapter, M.2 to U.2 - M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs - Drive Adapters and Drive Converters...

[ericloewe]

@Stux

It’s actually pretty cool having two hot swapable U.2 (I presume) nvme ports on the front.

Actually 10, it’s just that only 8 are wired to the SAS controller.

[rcasero]

Yes, correct, I was reading up on it, and if I choose I can have 10 NVMe… For the mot part would most likely leave as is… and with the 7 2 TB drives create a RaidZ2 and call it a day. gives me around 8.x TB… for now is good.

Will take a look at that adapter incase I can just add and remove in the future…