IBM M1015 SAS/SATA controller as a LSI9211-IT/IR
In the first article I introduced the M1015 in its native LSI9240 equivalent mode.
Here my thoughts were to not use this mode but to cross flash it to a LSI9211 based card.
These cards natively only have RAID 0, 1, 1e and 10 (no RAID 5 at all)
But more importantly when you add a drive it’s attached as a ‘Unconfigured Good’ drive.
This means the drive is shown to the OS directly.
The LSI9211 BIOS comes in 2 flavours, IR mode which is as above with RAID, and IT mode which has no raid.
LSI9211-IT mode
NO RAID functionality at all.
Any drive attached will be passed onto OS individually.
OptionROM has very few options, I would even recommend to not even instal this (MPTSAS2.ROM), this will make bootup faster as it’s not loading an OptionROM with nothing to tweak.
This is the best option for those with an Operating system that relies on Software RAID like ZFS or UnRAID, or even if you want to use a more well know OS with Software RAID or plainly you don’t want RAID at all.
LSI9211-IR mode
Similar to above, BUT you have the option to put the drives into a Virtual Drive (RAID 0,1,1E,10)
However any drive added or not in a Virtual drive is shown as ‘Unconfigured Good’ and like in IT mode will passthrough to OS directly
This would be the option I would use with my 4x SSDs as RAID0 and booting from them.
Any other drives I had could be attached and they would show in the OS just as they would had they been attached to the Motherboard SATA headers.
OptionROM
The OptionROM is completely different than the LSI9240/9260 series Controllers.
At boot you press CTR+C to enter the OptionROM (plus first pressing key combo to allow choice of boot device)
You can make/remove Virtual Drives (IR Mode only)
Choose a Boot drive
Choose a secondary boot drive, quite handy as the LSI9240/9260 controllers don’t have this
As mentioned above, to save time at boot you could remove possibly not install this BIOS and loose the ability to choose a boot drive, it will make bootup quicker.
Performance
Below are some benchies I took of the different modes at work
IT mode ofcourse can’t test RAID unless it’s software RAID, but if you go down this road then performance won’t matter, just that you have the drives in a 6Gbps controller.
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- LSI9211-IR single drv
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- LSI9211-IT single drv
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- LSI9240 single drv
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- Intel single drv
It shows that IT and IR modes perform very similarly, the LSI9240 in JBOD mode is not far behind, the Intel ICH controller makes up the rear but still respectable for SATA2 links.
To get the Write performance to perform I had to Disable the Cache on the Disk Drives other wise the write performance became unbearably slow.
SMART (is it ?)
M1015 in LSI9211-IR mode:
C:\Program Files (x86)\smartmontools\bin>smartctl -a /dev/sdd -d sat
smartctl 5.42 2011-10-20 r3458 [i686-w64-mingw32-win7(64)] (sf-win32-5.42-1)
Copyright (C) 2002-11 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model: OCZ-SOLID3
Serial Number: OCZ-JMVY052CY854YF72
LU WWN Device Id: 5 e83a97 f1b1ebc34
Firmware Version: 2.15
User Capacity: 60,022,480,896 bytes [60.0 GB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
Device is: Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is: 8
ATA Standard is: ACS-2 revision 3
Local Time is: Sun Dec 04 09:45:37 2011 NZDT
SMART support is: Available – device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
M1015 in LSI9211-IT mode:
C:\Program Files (x86)\smartmontools\bin>smartctl -a /dev/sdd -d sat
smartctl 5.42 2011-10-20 r3458 [i686-w64-mingw32-win7(64)] (sf-win32-5.42-1)
Copyright (C) 2002-11 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model: OCZ-SOLID3
Serial Number: OCZ-7OFMSH0UNLB882EV
LU WWN Device Id: 5 e83a97 ef29c5b33
Firmware Version: 2.15
User Capacity: 60,022,480,896 bytes [60.0 GB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
Device is: Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is: 8
ATA Standard is: ACS-2 revision 3
Local Time is: Sun Dec 04 09:19:21 2011 NZDT
SMART support is: Available – device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
How to cross flash
First things first, we take no responsibility for anything going wrong.
Please read carefully, don’t take shortcuts, and BE CAREFUL.
If in doubt or you can’t afford a replacement should it go wrong then ‘walk a away’
Warnings are done, lets flash:
Make a bootable USB stick, needs to be DOS bootable for the flasher etc to work, there are number ways to do it, ask Google
Download the files I have compressed over here
Self Extract the files somewhere, then place onto the USB stick
Turn machine off grab the SAS address of the card, it’s on the back on a green sticker (ie 500605B0xxxxxxxx)
Turn machine on (with card back in) choose USB stick at boot option, for all the below it is assumed you are booted to USB stick in the directory with the files from download.
Convert LSI9240(IBM M1015) to a LSI9211-IT mode
Type in the following exactly:
megarec -writesbr 0 emptysbr.bin
megarec -cleanflash 0
<reboot, back to USB stick>
sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom
sas2flsh -o sasadd 500605b0xxxxxxxx (x= numbers for SAS address)
<reboot>
Done!
Convert LSI9211-IT or IR to LSI9211 IR or IT
Type in the following exactly:
Megarec -cleanflash 0
<reboot, back to USB stick>
sas2flsh -o -f 2118ir.bin -b mptsas2.rom (2118it.bin = IT mode FW, change according to which way to flash)
sas2flsh -o sasadd 500605b0xxxxxxxx (x= numbers for SAS address)
<reboot>
Done!
Convert LSI9211-IT/IR to LSI9240
Type in the following exactly:
Megarec -cleanflash 0
Megarec -writesbr 0 m1015sbr.bin
<reboot, back to USB stick>
Megarec -m0flash 0061_lsi.rom (for latest LSI firmware, also included 2x IBM roms too, just change name)
<reboot>
Done!
0061_lsi.rom = Very latest LSI9240 FW
0052_lsi.rom = Latest IBM M1015 FW
2118it.bin and 2118ir.bin very latest LSI9211 FW from LSI (p11)
You could with LSI9211-IT mode not flash the MPTSAS2.ROM and have no OptionROM at boot time
You won’t be able to choose a boot drive, but you will speed up boot time.
Might be of use.
Conclusion
I will probably run my 4x SSDs in LSI9211-IR mode to have the best of both worlds
Great performance
Any drive added just shows to the OS no need to make it a Virtual Drive or JBOD first.
ZFS folk seem to be very happy with LSI9211-IT mode with no RAID functionality at all.
SMART passes through in either mode but NOT with RAID of course.
Overall the IBM M1015 is a great card, now will the IBM M5015 be just as satisfying it’s next on the block…
I recently benchmarked a 90gb vertex 3 on the 9240 in jbod mode. I had similar writes to you but the reads were slow, less than 1mb/s on 4k, Im using the card on sabertooth x58 (latest bios). Is there some setting in megaraid i need to change? Thanks
Turn diskcache off, the only setting you can play with on a LSI9240
REBOOT for it to take affect.
But this only really affects Writes in RAID5
You should be getting around 550MB/s for the Vertex3 in sequential reads.
4k reads are the slowest of all benchies, but you should be getting 20+MB/s
Make sure the card is in a PCIe 2.0 8x capable slot
Try setting the Intel and any other onboard controller to IDE mode (not AHCI)
Other than that it should just work.
Can you convert the M1015 directly to “LSI9211 IR” mode or do you have to do the IT mode step first then convert?
You can flash directly from M1015 to LSI9211 IR mode, no need to flash via IT mode first.
You flash to any FW from another FW version
Important insights! I have been looking for something like this for a little bit now. Thanks for your insight!
Thanks
Just about to add one to our HP MicroServer Vsphere ESX Lab.
Will run it RAID 10.
The article and comments have been a big help – Thanks