zfs discuss - Nov 2010 - problem adding second MD1000 enclosure to LSI 9200-16e

I have 15x SAS drives in a Dell MD1000 enclosure, attached to an LSI 9200-16e. 
This has been working well.  The system is boothing off of internal drives, on a
Dell SAS 6ir.

I just tried to add a second storage enclosure, with 15 more SAS drives, and I
got a lockup during Loading Kernel.  I got the same results, whether I daisy
chained the enclosures, or plugged them both directly into the LSI 9200.  When I
removed the second enclosure, it booted up fine.

I also have an LSI MegaRAID 9280-8e I could use, but I don''t know if
there is a way to pass the drives through, without creating RAID0 virtual drives
for each drive, which would complicate replacing disks.  The 9280 boots up fine,
and the systems can see new virtual drives.

Any suggestions?  Is there some sort of boot procedure, in order to get the
system to recognize the second enclosure without locking up?  Is there a special
way to configure one of these LSI boards?

Thanks,
   Rob
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This message posted from opensolaris.org

> Any suggestions?  Is there some sort of boot procedure, in order to get the
system to recognize the second enclosure without locking up?  Is there a special
way to > configure one of these LSI boards?

It should just work, make sure you connect it right way and both JBODs are not
in "split" mode (which does not allow daisy chaining).

Yours
Markus Kovero

Markus,
I''m pretty sure that I have the MD1000 plugged in properly, especially
since the same connection works on the 9280 and Perc 6/e.  It''s not in
split mode.

Thanks for the suggestion, though.
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This message posted from opensolaris.org

As a follow-up, I tried a SuperMicro enclosure (SC847E26-RJBOD1).  I have 3 sets
of 15 drives.  I got the same results when I loaded the second set of drives (15
to 30).

Then, I tried changing the LSI 9200''s BIOS setting for max INT 13
drives from 24 (the default) to 15.  From then on, the SuperMicro enclosure
worked fine, even with all 45 drives, and no kernel hangs.

I suspect that the BIOS setting would have worked with >1 MD1000 enclosure,
but I never tested the MD1000s, after I had the SuperMicro enclosure running.

I''m not sure if the kernal hang with max int13=24 was a hardware
problem, or a Solaris bug.
      - Rob
> I have 15x SAS drives in a Dell MD1000 enclosure,
> attached to an LSI 9200-16e.  This has been working
> well.  The system is boothing off of internal drives,
> on a Dell SAS 6ir.
> 
> I just tried to add a second storage enclosure, with
> 15 more SAS drives, and I got a lockup during Loading
> Kernel.  I got the same results, whether I daisy
> chained the enclosures, or plugged them both directly
> into the LSI 9200.  When I removed the second
> enclosure, it booted up fine.
> 
> I also have an LSI MegaRAID 9280-8e I could use, but
> I don''t know if there is a way to pass the drives
> through, without creating RAID0 virtual drives for
> each drive, which would complicate replacing disks.
> The 9280 boots up fine, and the systems can see new
>  virtual drives.
> 
> Any suggestions?  Is there some sort of boot
> procedure, in order to get the system to recognize
> the second enclosure without locking up?  Is there a
> special way to configure one of these LSI boards?
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This message posted from opensolaris.org