On 10/12/2012 04:18 PM, Rich wrote: > All 4 are listed in there as being SAS2008-based, which makes sense > [AFAIK, Dell has no cards based on the LSI 22xx/23xx lines of chips > yet].
Yeah, but it all often comes down to PCI IDs and firmwares. The LSI SAS 2008 can run various firmware versions, which interact differently. You can get a SAS2008-based internal card running IR firmware which only exposes RAID arrays, not individual drives. Or you can get a SAS2008-based external card running IT firmware which only allows for JBOD functionality. Or you can get custom firmware which allows a combination of both. Or MegaRaid firmware, which again only allows for RAID arrays. It's often possible to cross-flash the firmware between different cards, provided that they use mostly the same system layout, and the H310 fits the bill here - you can reflash it to IT/IR firmware from the loaded MegaRaid software (which might be customized by Dell to allow for JBOD functionality - don't know, haven't tested it), but the reflashing procedure can bite you in the back here. You see, Dell machines typically have what's called a "storage slot", which is a special dedicated PCI-e slot for the RAID cards. The Dell BIOSes contain a nasty surprise for those who try to stuff anything different into these slots. If at boot the machine detects anything not registering as a proper LSI card, it will halt the boot sequence, no questions asked. Now this isn't a terrible problem with PCI-e cards, you can just unplug them and move them to a regular PCI-e slot, and continue the reflashing procedure there. However, it is a serious problem with Mini-type cards, which plug into a special, proprietary mezzanine connector. This is a PCI-e connector, only in a non-standard form-factor and the BIOSes still contain the boot bomb, so as soon as you erase the firmware on the card and reboot the machine, you've just stopped booting off of it, prohibing you from flashing in the proper firmware to get it to work again. And you can't move it to a different slot, since the connector is proprietary. That's why I said "make sure it's a full card, not the mini-type". Cheers, -- Saso _______________________________________________ OpenIndiana-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss
