LSI 9266-4i cim problem

[aqualityplacem]

Having a very strange problem. I have the latest vib installed and everything works fine. I can see the card under the health status using the vsphere client and I can connect from a remote workstation using the MSM.

As soon as I connect one of my intel 520 SSD drives, I can no longer connect via the msm or see the card under the health status.

I have tried reinstalling the VIB, latest FW on the raid card, rebooting and even clearing all configuration. As soon as the SSD drive is connected it jsut doesnt want to know.

I have logged a ticket with LSI, but I thought I would try here as well.

Anyone esle seen this before?

[RandomUser1234]

I have the same issue here (health info & MSM not available). Also using a LSI 9266-4i controller. It is triggered by the same ssd (Intel 520) - well at least on one machine - on the other it also depends on something else, which I have yet to identify. I also logged a ticket with LSI support (SR Number: P00050750). They seem rather nice and willing to help. So far the status is they are "working on it". My hope rest on the next firmware version - since these SSDs are listed as compatible on their own compatibilty matrix (which makes you kind of wonder what they test there exactly ).

This bug is pretty annoying since it makes administration a real pain (only options are webios or megacli).

Unfortunatly this isn't the only thing not working with this brand new controller. I have two other Support Request outstanding. One where this controller is incompatible with the Intel S1200BTL mainboard when using linux (driver won't load properly). And the other one being Consistency-check not wanting to start comlaining about missing inititialization of the array and destroying (or maybo just blocking) the data if you dare continue anyway.

I did not have these kind of problems before with the 9240-8i which works without causing any trouble. Guess we are still early adopters having to play guinea pig.

[aqualityplacem]

Hi,

LSI have asked me to try a new driver http://www.lsi.com/downloads/Public/MegaRAID%20Common%20Files/6.06_Vmware5_HWR_Driver_SAS.tgz havent had a chance to test yet.

Not sure if this will help you but my ticket number with LSI is P00052580

I will post here if I get anywhere with it

[RandomUser1234]

I already tried that driver - it did not help in resolving the issue. Support now told me this is an issue with 'ESX 5.0  Patch 03 Release (Build 698833)' (which I found nowhere but I suspect it is included in the newer builds). This patch is supposed to crash the smi provider and vmware is said to be looking into the issue. Although I'm still not convinced this is the issue we are seeing, I'm happy to see any sort of progress on this front 😉

We'll see whether lsi or vmware manages to resolve the issue.

Interestingliy I now have two different SSDs in a second server (same hardware otherwise) with which I do see health info in esxi but MSM gives me an error when trying to connect. (these are 80gb Intel G2 SSDs)

[aqualityplacem]

Well, after chasing LSI again today this is the response I got

"I am sorry but with our current case logs I do not have time to recreate this.  I can see if I can get out performance team to look at this"

All hardware is on their compatability list. Spent a lot of money on this hardware and for LSI to say they dont have time is very weak.

Thanks LSI, how very helpful of you

[RandomUser1234]

The support you get seems higly dependant on which support guy you get assigned. Which basicly means it's random chance whether one get's a decent support - not good.

My SR is still in the LSI / vmware 'are working on it' state - I have some small amount of hope left.

Reviewing my experience with this new 9266-4i controller I now regret having baught that thing. The software+firmware parts are in a really sorry state. It seems like LSI isn't putting enough resources into the software-side of the development.

[aqualityplacem]

I had some crucial V4 256GB SSD drives come in today for some laptops. Very low end drives but I thought I would give them a try.

No problems at all. I plugged them in hot with the server running and MSM picked up the drives and I could configure the cachecade. Certianly looks liek the issue is specific to the type of SSD drive being used.

I have updated LSI, hopefully they will pull there finger out and start looking into this

[aqualityplacem]

I found another thread last night with a post from someone with the same issue http://tinkertry.com/lsi9265iesxi51/ Finally LSI have said they have cretaed a defect notice so it gets looked at by engineering but they will not provide any SLA or any indication of when this will be fixed.

[RandomUser1234]

Thanks for your updates. My support representative told me they were able to reproduce the issue but they would not know the cause yet. He also told me there is another problem with the smis provider and some vmware patch, which may be totally unrelated to the problem we saw, but one should be aware of.

In the meantime I've gotten rid of the Intel 520 SSDs and settled for a pair of Plextor M5 Pro 128gb. They are working fine.

[aqualityplacem]

Im still holding out for them to fix the issue with the 520's since they are on the compatibility list.

I have looked at other drives but my worry with some of the SSD controllers is that they use a lot of internal volatile cache, which seems to the be the case with the plextors and the 88SS9174-BLD2 marvell controller.

I appreciate the 520's are not enterprise class drives as they dont have any power loss protection like the 320's but it is my understanding that the sandforce controller does not keep any user data in volatile memory.

We will be using this solution in a production environment but we will have further protection as these will be part of a clustered storage array and we have multiple UPS protection sources for all of the servers, so I am happy with the risk on the sandforce controllers but I still wouldn't go with any others at the moment.

Other vendors have are using the same controllers as the 520's but intel seem to have the best reliability and custom firmware.

I have spent far too long looking at this now. Currently our plan is to roll out with the lsi controllers without cachecade then implement once the intel 520's are working or if another SSD vendor takes our eye

[aqualityplacem]

version 5.4 firmware is no better. Same problem. Plus when I updated the firmare. The LSI BIOS claims there are no virtualdisks but if I boot esxi from a usb stick it sees them.

LSI are being there usual helpful selfs

On a plus note the SanDisk Extreme 240GB drive I have with the same sandforce controller as the intel 520 works

[RandomUser1234]

Unfortunatly I don't have the 520s here to test anymore. But I'm now also running the 5.4 firmware. Have you updated the smis provider (00.32.V0.02 now) and the vmware driver (6.504.51.00)? MSM also got an update but that is certainly not changing anything for the intel ssd issue.

Good to know there are other sandforce ssds working with the lsi controller. I have one in use in my desktop and I'm rather liking the low write amplification due to compression.

[Darklord86]

it doesn´t work with the new drivers

[clederer]

I received an email from LSI support last week. They have a fix for the Intel SSD issue and will release it with the next version of the SMIS software in December. It will be part of release 5.5.

Regards

Chris

[aqualityplacem]

Thanks for the post, LSI didnt bother to update us.

Now if only LSI could release a firmware which does lose all vDisk config at boot up we may have something we can actually use in production

[clederer]

aqualityplacem schrieb:

Thanks for the post, LSI didnt bother to update us.

Now if only LSI could release a firmware which does lose all vDisk config at boot up we may have something we can actually use in production

I am using a 9260-8i controller with 2x Intel SSDSC2CW480A310 and 2x WD2003FYYS configured as 2 raid1 vdisks

and never had an issue with lost configs.

Does this happen on normal reboots or after firmware updates?

[aqualityplacem]

Had the issue with the 5.4 firmware which now appears to have been pulled from the site

bios couldn't see the vdisks but if I booted up ESX from a USB stick with lsi drivers then I could see them.

Back to front really, if the raid card claims not to see the vDisk config how on earth can esx

ESX.

rolled back firmware and everything was ok again

[clederer]

LSI has released new firmware and drivers. I need a volunteer to try out the upgrade for us as we are already

in production with the disks and controller and I don't want to risk data loss 🙂

I would be interested to know if the firmware and driver updates from a previous running installation

works without loosing vdisk configuration and data.

Jan 8, 2013

4.9 Firmware

VMWare 5.x - 5.5

Description: VMWare Drivers

Version: 6.505.53.00

VMWare SMIS Provider VIB - 5.5

Description: VMWare SMIS Provider

Version: 00.34.V0.01

[aqualityplacem]

I tucked my skirt in and just upgraded. I dont have any intel 520 drives to test that limitation though.

I went straight from 5.3 firmware and drivers to 5.5

Havent lost any config...... so far so good

[Darklord86]

Hi,

Yesterday I installed the latest update (5.5) and now it does it work with the Intel 520. Even the MSM works out of a VM.

I had no loss of data come from the 5.4

Yepeah: D