HP SAS Expander Owner's Thread

PigLover said:
Solely based on reports earlier in this thread and the OPs summary that he keeps up on page one.
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Ok, went over the whole thread to find the sources of negative reports regarding LSI HBA...
My findings were:

Blue Fox said:
Well, I just got mine and have started testing it with the LSI 9280-8e.
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simplesam said:
Report on HP sas expander and LSI 9280-8e.
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The MegaRAID Storage Manager(MSM) seems to have issues with reporting disks etc, not sure if those problems still exists with latests firmware/drivers/MSM or if they are OS-specific. Unclear if the HBA-bios is also reporting incorrectly or if it's only the MSM.

omniscence said:
Maybe someone can help me with my current setup consisting of a LSI 9211-8i HBA connected to a HP Expander.
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Two disks tested and they run at 1.5gbps when attached to the expander, too little info to make any conclusions. Cable/software-issues not unlikely though.
Issues with this card I can try and reproduce/clarify if I knew more about the setup as I have this card myself.
 
Provantage just sent me a shipping confirmation and tracking number for the Chenbro expander - so I guess they really are shipping them again. They estimated 5 days backorder - and today is the 5th business day since I ordered.

Unfortunately, I am leaving on a series of short trips and won't have much time to play with my new toys until the first week of August...I'll keep you posted.
 
sweloop64 said:
Two disks tested and they run at 1.5gbps when attached to the expander, too little info to make any conclusions. Cable/software-issues not unlikely though.
Issues with this card I can try and reproduce/clarify if I knew more about the setup as I have this card myself.
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For my setup I ruled out cables (two different brands) and software is not involved as the drives already show up with 1.5 Gbps in the HBA's BIOS. I also tried firmware upgrades for two types of LSI controllers with no improvement. I'm currently attributing the problems to either the expander firmware or some basic incompatibilities with LSI controllers. I do not possess controllers of a different brand. Another possibility is that the expanders do not like fan-out cables without sideband.
 
The sideband signals are used only for chassis management (SES2 via SGPIO). So unless you have backplanes that have the necessary logic to interpret the SGPIO signals, there is no need for you to buy cables that carry these signals.
 
omniscence said:
For my setup I ruled out cables (two different brands) and software is not involved as the drives already show up with 1.5 Gbps in the HBA's BIOS. I also tried firmware upgrades for two types of LSI controllers with no improvement. I'm currently attributing the problems to either the expander firmware or some basic incompatibilities with LSI controllers. I do not possess controllers of a different brand. Another possibility is that the expanders do not like fan-out cables without sideband.
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The HP SAS Expander is perfectly happy with fan-out and reverse fan-out cables without sideband. My build uses both: fan-out from the expander to the backplanes, and reverse fan-out from my mobo's built-in LSI 1068E to the expander.
 
FYI only. As there seems to be various threads between SAS Expander and alternate RAID controllers.

I searched the HP web web recently to read about basic info for SAS Expander. I could not recall exactly but seem to read somewhere it says by default the disk cache will be disabled for drives connected to HP SAS Expander as HP expects it to connect to Smart Array SAS RAID controller and relies on SmartArray BatteryBacked Cache to handle the normal write caching duty.
 
Apologies for not reading through the entire thread, but was there a conclusion on the HP SAS expander and Areca 1680IX cards?

I seem to recall reading that they aren't recommended due to the internal expander on the Areca, but the first page seems to imply that they do work (providing you disable SES2?) or use a new beta firmware for the Areca.

Is that still the case? Is there any reason why they won't work with one or other of these work-arounds?

Have Areca released any non-beta firmware that addresses the problems? I have (already) a 1680-IX-8 and I am wondering if I will run into trouble with purchasing the HP expander...
 
Update on my 9690SA+HP Expander
1) Does not work with firmware 1.52, 1.52B, 2.02. 2.06.
2) Firmware can be up/down graded at will, so that's good.
3) 9690SA is latest current codeset (10.1? I think).
So unless someone with 9690 can actually prove they have it working with expander, maybe need to edit the 1st post and delete.
 
Yes, the 9690SA worked with my expander when it had version 1.0 firmware. It also worked when the 9690SA and drives were limited to SATA-I with other firmware.

I've since gotten rid of the 3ware controller and went to the 1680 route mainly because of the power saving features and the ability to get SATA-II speeds.
 
SeanG, thanks for update.
I'm waiting for my CK13601 to arrive then I'm gonna dump the P410i+HP expander combo.
Areca is still too much suck for my liking.
 
If any of you have a spare SAS expander, I'm in the market for another one. Send me a PM if you would like to part with yours.
 
Chenbro expander arrived yesterday - can confirm that they exist and are shipping again.

I won't have time to work with it for at least a week, maybe more.

Was surprised to see it shipped with a short 8087-8087 cable, presumably for the host interface. Nice touch.
 
Finally had time to play around a bit with the Chenbro expander. So far I've moved the existing WHS system into the Norco case, added the Chenbro expander between the existing drives and the AOC-SASLP-MV8. Worked perfectly first time, no problems at all. Added more drives, etc, and all is well.

I'm gonna let it soak that way for a bit before I get more creative. The Areca 1680i that I thought would be available to test with is committed to work (darn) so those tests will have to wait.

Next steps, I think, will be a MB/CPU upgrade, install of Server2008 and migration of the WHS to a VM.
 
PigLover,
I'm very interested in the Chenbro expander connected to the AOC-SASLP-MV8. Which Chenbro did you order from Provantage? Was it the CK13601? Did drives that you already had in the WHS storage pool show up without any damage to the data when you moved them to the Chenbro? What is you total drive count on the MV8-Chenbro combo up to?
 
xuniman said:
PigLover,
I'm very interested in the Chenbro expander connected to the AOC-SASLP-MV8. Which Chenbro did you order from Provantage? Was it the CK13601? Did drives that you already had in the WHS storage pool show up without any damage to the data when you moved them to the Chenbro? What is you total drive count on the MV8-Chenbro combo up to?
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The expander is the CK13601 (36 port expander). I plugged it into the WHS as a test only. The drives showed up first time, no problem. I only tested the 8 drives that were already directly attached to the AOC-SASLP-MV8. I pulled it out after just a few minutes because I wasn't ready to trust my data to it completely.

I've been a bit time limited the last couple of weeks. I've given up the idea of testing various combinations of HBAs and have decided just to finish project. I'm in the process (slowly) of building everything up as a new build in a new Norco case. I currently have it running on another AOC-SASLP-MV8 controller with 7 drives installed, WHS running as a VM under Server2008/Hyper-V. I've already duplicated all of the data from the old WHS (well, most of it). I'll probably start clearing data off the old one and move the existing 8 drives middle next week (I'm currently waiting on Norco to return 2 replacement backplanes that were defective in the case - I don't want to commit completely until I stop messing with the hardware).

So far couldn't be happier - but then again I also haven't done anything yet that a single 8-port HBA couldn't handle. The real test will be the 9th drive and beyond.

One question: does anybody know the max drives supported by this HBA and SuperMicro's drivers? I've searched and searched but can't find anything anywhere doucmenting it.
 
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PigLover - Thanks for the reply. Let me know how it goes with your build. I currently have 2 of the MV8 cards in a 4220 but the Chenbro looked promising for future expansion. I was thinking of pulling one of MV8 cards, replacing it with the Chenbro and adding another chassis.
 
@PigLover:

I had 48 2TB drives connected via two HP SAS expanders on the AOC-SASLP-MV8 for a test. During boot-up, the BIOS shows the usual 8 drives (first 8 drives of the first HP SAS expander) but once booted into WS2008R2, and after installing the latest available SuperMicro driver, all 48 drives showed up and I had access to the data on them. I since moved back to the Areca ARC-1680i controller. The boot process took about 10 seconds longer with the AOC-SASLP-MV8 compared to the ARC-1680i (measured from turning the system on until the Log-in screen for windows server appeared on the screen).
 
I have 20 hard drives connected to a Chenbro expander and a supermicro l8i card. Works well.

Looking at one of those UEK 36port expanders so I can expand my current setup. ;)
 
After making mistake of getting the HP expander I went ahead and also got CK13601 few weeks ago.
Works great with 22 drives inside Norco 4020 w/3ware 9690SA 4i, with 2 raid6 volumes. Drives are Hitachi 2TB and WD 1TB. Apparently only version 1.0 firmware of HP expander works with 3Ware cards, so thats a totally unreasonable combination at this point.
 
d00dz said:
I have 20 hard drives connected to a Chenbro expander and a supermicro l8i card. Works well.

Looking at one of those UEK 36port expanders so I can expand my current setup. ;)
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Provantage lists the UEK 36 port expander on their site. Its only $3.99 more than they sell the expander w/out the carrier.
 
For some reason, I couldn't daisy-chain the expanders. The 2nd one would never show up if I connected them via the external port (with my Areca 1680i connected internally). I bought an adapter off nitrobasss to use the 2nd internal port on my controller and it seems to be fine that way. Not too much of an issue as I think I'll manage with just 2 expanders, but still somewhat odd. The Chenbro ones I had had no issues being connected this way.
 
Is there documentation available on what the LEDs mean for the HP expander?

I just installed this card into a mobo (w. no cpu/ram) and i got 2 LEDs out and no drives showing up. (On Off Off On On On starting at the external port and moving away). I saw one person in this thread had the same issue and had to do all sorts of modifications to the mobo. Is this the only solution?

edit: This is the mobo
 
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I think you might be referring to the modifications I did to the motherboard to get the HP SAS expander working with it.

If your top most LED (closest to the external connector) is not blinking steadily, then the SAS expanders processor is not working and hence you will not be able to see any drives. This is caused by the power good signal on the PCIe slot.

I had posted more information on that issue in post #3 here

Also, I don't think that HP has ever publicly released any documentation on the SAS expanders operation (as in detailed information on what the LEDs are for).
 
Yes treadstone I was referring to your post. The top most LED is not blinking steadily Problem is I'm not as knowledgeable on electronic circuits as you are to make your modifications. Do you have any recommendations or am I pretty much screwed? This mATX board only has one pciex16 slot and one pciex1 slot so this I can't swap the location of the expander.

edit: Just wanted to add that I modified the pciex1 slot so it's open ended and still get the on,off,off,on,on,on sequence with the LEDs on the expander and top most LED is on solid, no blinking.
 
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As a test you could try to put a small piece of tape (Kapton tape works best but a small piece of scotch tape should do the trick too) over the A11 (PWRGD) pin.

Have a look at this wikipedia page to see where the location of pin A11 is.

Just make sure you ONLY cover the A11 pin! Remember that the tape may come off the board when you insert the board into the socket, so if it doesn't work the first try, check if the tape was pushed away by the sockets pin.

I wouldn't run the expander this way, since you are basically leaving the signal floating, but just to see if the expander actually works, this test should work for you.

Hope this helps.
 
I can give that a shot but I can imagine it'll be a pain in the ass to cover up that one pin? What would you recommend as a more permanent fix? Do I need to install a cpu/hsf or buy a new mobo?
 
Tape is usually more robust and would also be easier to remove in case a piece ends up in the connector!

At least the power good pin is right at the end of the connector and hence there is a bit more board space right next to the pin so that should help you with applying a bit of tape. You might be able to actually wrap the tap around to the other side as the signal on B11 is not used (if memory serves me right).

I doubt that putting a CPU into the ASUS board would help you. My motherboard was also a ASUS (although a different model) and did not work with the power good signal even with a CPU on it!

If all you are looking for is a way of powering the expander in a drive only type setup, you may want to check out some previous posts in this thread. Some folks have experimented with some other cards and seem to have had success with them.
 
Here's an update:

Tried the tape, couldn't get it stay put as I inserted the expander into the pciex1 slot so I opted for nail polish and got the CR6 light to blink. (CR5 and CR4 off, CR1,2,3 all on).

The AOC-SASLP-MV8 bios shows 4 sata drives connected from port 1 (breakout cable) and 2 sata drives connected from port 2 (sff-8087 cable to port 8 on sas expander, breakout cable from port 2 on sas expander to 2 sata drives) WHS asks me for drivers for the "HP HP SAS EXPANDER SCSI ENCLOSURE DEVICE" which I ignore but I can't find the 2 new sata drives attached to the expander. Also, when I reboot now, I get a BSOD.(DRIVER IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL)

I know this issue has been posted at least twice already on this thread with no solution it seems. The previous posters haven't logged on in some time so I have no idea if they sorted this out or not.

2 questions:
1. Since it seems the expander works, would you recommend getting a small backplane with a pcie slot and atx power adapter or leave it on the mobo modified the way it is.
2. Any ideas on how to get the drives to show up in WHS and stop the BSOD?

edit: Let me add I've looked for the missing hard drives in both the WHS console via another computer as well as disk management directly logged into the server. And every time I reboot, the AOC-SASLP-MV8 shows all 6 drives.
 
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Have you tried to connect all drives via the expander (e.g. move the breakout cable from port 1 of the AOC-SASLP-MV8 to port 3 on the SAS expander) to see if they show up?

I know of one other poster on this forum that had similar issues like you where only the drives connected to the AOC-SASLP-MV8 showed up but none of the drives connected via the expander would show. Once he moved all the drives to the expander they showed up in windows. I think this has something to do with the BIOS or driver of the AOC-SASLP-MV8 that you can't mix SATA drives and SAS drives (I think the SATA drives connected via the expander are treated as SAS drives).

I don't remember what the solution to the driver problem was, I do however remember that this issue has been discussed or posted about before.
 
For ease of troubleshooting I disconnected port 1 on the supermicro card which was the breakout cable to the 4 sata drives so all I had was one sff-8087 cable going from port 2 on the SM card to port 8 on the SAS expander. I also left the 2 new drives connected to the expander on port 2.

Booted up computer and AOC-SASLP-MV8 bios showed 2 drives this time instead of 6. WHS started up, went into drive management and it only shows the drives connected directly to the mobo's sata ports, nothing from the expander.

WHS home console shows 4 missing drives (the ones attached to port 1 of the AOC-SASLP-MV8) and that's it. No mention of the 2 new drives attached to the SAS expander
 
I have found that the saslp doesn't like both local drives and an expander connection. Throwing all drives on the expander and using only one channel causes all drives to show.

Edit: Treadstone was talking about my experience.
 
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