[weblacky]

I checked my firmware version beforehand...was older than jwhats...and if you checked my posted image...FOR DEMO ONLY! So, yeah...I don't want demo firmware from 2006. But I agree in principle...however the original Nekochan post from this area did say there were still issues to be resolved...so last firmware should be the best firmware...by that logic.

[jwhat]

Hi vvuk & Weblacky,

one of motivations for using new firmware is that it is "rumoured" to enable use of 3Gb/Sec with SATA as well as SAS.

When originally released the 1608 had support for:
- 1.5 Gb/Sec SATA
- 3.0 Gb/Sec SAS

Subsequent to card release SATA II was released and new firmware supported this (as physical support for 3 Gb/Sec was already available for SAS).

This was initially documented by Ian Mapleseon (SGI Depot), but he did not keep full details, hence why I documented more fully.

I have not done performance tests across older / newer firmware release so cannot confirm if this is really correct.

As per note I had a very old board originally that has "beta" software and IRIX actually complained about the firmware version.

NOTE: The enabling of HBA (vs RAID) mode was based on findings of "UnRaid" community and was performance motivated as well.

Cheers from Oz,

jwhat/John.

[weblacky]

Well...that was fruitless.

My flashed LSISAS3442X doesn't see SATA drives (at least internally). Looks like you need to get a LSI SAS3041X-R: if you just want straight SATA on these things. I have a friend coming over that can bring SAS stuff to try...really disheartening. Doesn't work :-( I tried a SCSIHA probe and such..nothing.

[jwhat]

Hi Weblacky,

the HBA (IT) or RAID configuration is based on the firmware flashed onto card.

You should flash with the HBA firmware.

I think this is why you did not have to erase your prom first.

When changing from RAID to HBA firmware you need to erase prom first to allow change over.

Boot on PC and bring up bios configuration mgt and post picture of what it reports.

It should report as: 1.33.00.00-IT where IT == Initiator == HBA (not RAID).

The RAID and IT firmware image variants are identified by naming convention.

NOTE: I have experienced cases when SATA SSD is visible on PC but not on SGI, not sure of cause of this … but in general SATA SSD seem to work ok.

cheers from Oz,


jwhat/John.

[weblacky]

Yes I went back into the Rom config after firmware to confirm. I chose IT firmware from flasher interface.  ROM screen says IT, see attached pic.  All RAID functions don’t exist. Yes erase was auto because it had to do a 2MB flash instead of 1MB. I used the included flashing script. I didn’t manually do the steps which is why is automatically knew to do full firmware change out.  


1MB is normal update and can be done in windows.  Have to use DOS to change entire flash (2MB flash due changing everything, not an upgrade).  HBA fully recognized in windows (drives unknown) after IT firmware. 

Not a flash failure or misunderstanding, even verified the SAS address before and after.  Everything intact, unknown if windows sees SATA but doesn’t matter, Irix doesn’t - which is the thing I care about.


Your site instructions assume manual issuance of steps. I read through the Broadcom script and it’s better to run that because it helps you determine the firmware file you need to use on your board revision and has ability to do full firmware swap over from RAID to IT in its questions.  

Reduces hassle if an already poorly documented flashing procedure.  

I have the right firmware, doesn’t magically make it SATA compatible under Irix.  SGI tech pub for 3442 claims SAS only!!!  Even if the doc talks about a PCIe layout…same chip on PCI-X.  

Had I seen that tech pub and read between the lines, I’d have known.

---

Techpub: https://irix7.com/techpubs/860-0477-001.pdf

Read Internal connector, only 3 of the cards claim SATA/SAS support.  3442X is SAS only. 

Yes I see that the layout shows PCI express. Doesn’t change the chip type used on the board.

---

The only thing I can do is try another HDD on the Fuel (pain the *** to get it into the drive cage) and see if it works. Product literature claims to support SATA, not seeing it so far under Irix.

[jwhat]

Hi Weblacky,

yes on initial glance it looks ok,

Can you test on PC first to verify SATA is working and then try to resolve IRIX issue.

Cheers from Oz,

jwhat/John.

[weblacky]

I will be testing a SAS breakout cable and placing it into an SATA drive to see if the breakout cable I have is the problem..could be? I know you can connect a SAS connection onto a SATA drive...so I'll be trying that. I originally bought a fan cable that gave SATA connectors natively. I'll rule that out when my friend brings a SAS fanout cable tomorrow.

If that fails...then Irix isn't seeing it. I've ordered the preferred card with native SATA anyway from eBay...so either way...this stuff is being replaced.

[ruckusman]

Just thought I'd put this out there as I'm searching for a potential Sata card for Octane, 5V PCI64 cards do exist, just waiting for one to appear locally.

Hope you don't consider this to be a thread hijack, just not sure where it best belongs.

I'm connecting a few dots here, this may also assist with other potential cards to try, especially LSI

Firstly this broadcom/LSI document mentions something call Fusion - binary compatibility across SCSI, Fibre channel and Sata
https://docs.broadcom.com/doc/12353452.

Looks to be that they're possibly writing a single unified driver across those three interface types, they are all essentially SCSI/FC derived, so it seems wholly sensible.

The fuel hardware aggregator would seem to support this - I don't have an IP35 system and the O2 need the Dallas battery, but it was on 6.5.22 anyway
https://gainos.org/~elf/sgi/nekonomicon/...046/1.html

Lots of LSI card supported for the Fuel.

Where this gets interesting is that the QLA2324 works in O2 and Octane - thanks Jan-Jaap for that discovery - that's what got me thinking.
Is that IP35 driver for LSI fibre channel working for O2 and Octane.

The objective is to find, possibly an LSI SAS1064 based card, running Sata drives which accommodates the O2 and Octane 5V PCI slot.

I'm waiting for potential candidates to come available locally - one is the LSI Ser523 - I cannot for the life of me find the specific PCI ID for that card, I am hoping that it's SAS1064 based.

Another is just called the LSI Megaraid - they're on ebay, listed as Sata 150 cards.
There's plenty of others, question becomes, if they have SAS1064 chips, can they be flashed to IT mode HBA's.

Even Sata 150 for an O2 or an Octane would be both a performance and storage capacity boost.

There's lots of moving parts, is the IP35 LSI driver "Fusion" encompassing other LSI SCSI and SAS cards?

If anyone can run strings on the LSI firmware or binary driver that may yield some helpful clues, not unlike patching PCI ID's to get firmware and drivers to recognise compatible cards.

The PCI ID's may already be in there to begin with.

[weblacky]

Just thought I'd put this out there as I'm searching for a potential Sata card for Octane, 5V PCI64 cards do exist, just waiting for one to appear locally.

Hope you don't consider this to be a thread hijack, just not sure where it best belongs.

I'm connecting a few dots here, this may also assist with other potential cards to try, especially LSI

Firstly this broadcom/LSI document mentions something call Fusion - binary compatibility across SCSI, Fibre channel and Sata
https://docs.broadcom.com/doc/12353452.

Looks to be that they're possibly writing a single unified driver across those three interface types, they are all essentially SCSI/FC derived, so it seems wholly sensible.

The fuel hardware aggregator would seem to support this - I don't have an IP35 system and the O2 need the Dallas battery, but it was on 6.5.22 anyway
https://gainos.org/~elf/sgi/nekonomicon/...046/1.html

Lots of LSI card supported for the Fuel.

Where this gets interesting is that the QLA2324 works in O2 and Octane - thanks Jan-Jaap for that discovery - that's what got me thinking.
Is that IP35 driver for LSI fibre channel working for O2 and Octane.

The objective is to find, possibly an LSI SAS1064 based card, running Sata drives which accommodates the O2 and Octane 5V PCI slot.

I'm waiting for potential candidates to come available locally - one is the LSI Ser523 - I cannot for the life of me find the specific PCI ID for that card, I am hoping that it's SAS1064 based.

Another is just called the LSI Megaraid - they're on ebay, listed as Sata 150 cards.
There's plenty of others, question becomes, if they have SAS1064 chips, can they be flashed to IT mode HBA's.

Even Sata 150 for an O2 or an Octane would be both a performance and storage capacity boost.

There's lots of moving parts, is the IP35 LSI driver "Fusion" encompassing other LSI SCSI and SAS cards?

If anyone can run strings on the LSI firmware or binary driver that may yield some helpful clues, not unlike patching PCI ID's to get firmware and drivers to recognise compatible cards.

The PCI ID's may already be in there to begin with.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble but you'll be waiting forever. There is already been an enormous amount of work on this topic and basically just because the drivers are in Irix and just because you could run that version of Irix on the system does not mean at all that you can install that hardware. Regardless of a standard PCI or PCIX bus being present. A lot of the later drivers were formulated to only run on those later processors on those later boards. Believe me you're not the first to try on this path, back in the days it was firewire support and even that is really odd on certain systems. For example I know people seem to have trouble getting it to run on octane versus O2 with the exact same firewire cards. At least last I heard, someone can please correct me if I'm wrong.

But unfortunately that's why the whole octane PCI shoebox was sort of an extra add-on. It only really worked for installing gigabit ethernet and extra SCSI and fiber channel controllers for SAN Arrays. There is also a second seat PCI card and called the duo that allowed a second person to use the system simultaneously as a two seat, multi seat system. You had to have either a dual graphics card or a graphics card with a dual head, the adding card gave you an ethernet and keyboard and mouse port. Otherwise that's about it outside of serial which is normally for controlling various times of video decks.

Also to be fair an O2 or potentially even an octane doesn't have the bus or processor speed to hope to get data that fast. There's a reason they never built a gigabit ethernet card for O2. It can't possibly handle it. It's similar with the other systems, they were evolutionary jumps.

[chulofiasco]

Just thought I'd put this out there as I'm searching for a potential Sata card for Octane, 5V PCI64 cards do exist, just waiting for one to appear locally.

Hope you don't consider this to be a thread hijack, just not sure where it best belongs.

I'm connecting a few dots here, this may also assist with other potential cards to try, especially LSI

Firstly this broadcom/LSI document mentions something call Fusion - binary compatibility across SCSI, Fibre channel and Sata
https://docs.broadcom.com/doc/12353452.

Looks to be that they're possibly writing a single unified driver across those three interface types, they are all essentially SCSI/FC derived, so it seems wholly sensible.

The fuel hardware aggregator would seem to support this - I don't have an IP35 system and the O2 need the Dallas battery, but it was on 6.5.22 anyway
https://gainos.org/~elf/sgi/nekonomicon/...046/1.html

Lots of LSI card supported for the Fuel.

Where this gets interesting is that the QLA2324 works in O2 and Octane - thanks Jan-Jaap for that discovery - that's what got me thinking.
Is that IP35 driver for LSI fibre channel working for O2 and Octane.

The objective is to find, possibly an LSI SAS1064 based card, running Sata drives which accommodates the O2 and Octane 5V PCI slot.

I'm waiting for potential candidates to come available locally - one is the LSI Ser523 - I cannot for the life of me find the specific PCI ID for that card, I am hoping that it's SAS1064 based.

Another is just called the LSI Megaraid - they're on ebay, listed as Sata 150 cards.
There's plenty of others, question becomes, if they have SAS1064 chips, can they be flashed to IT mode HBA's.

Even Sata 150 for an O2 or an Octane would be both a performance and storage capacity boost.

There's lots of moving parts, is the IP35 LSI driver "Fusion" encompassing other LSI SCSI and SAS cards?

If anyone can run strings on the LSI firmware or binary driver that may yield some helpful clues, not unlike patching PCI ID's to get firmware and drivers to recognise compatible cards.

The PCI ID's may already be in there to begin with.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble but you'll be waiting forever. There is already been an enormous amount of work on this topic and basically just because the drivers are in Irix and just because you could run that version of Irix on the system does not mean at all that you can install that hardware. Regardless of a standard PCI or PCIX bus being present. A lot of the later drivers were formulated to only run on those later processors on those later boards. Believe me you're not the first to try on this path, back in the days it was firewire support and even that is really odd on certain systems. For example I know people seem to have trouble getting it to run on octane versus O2 with the exact same firewire cards. At least last I heard, someone can please correct me if I'm wrong.

But unfortunately that's why the whole octane PCI shoebox was sort of an extra add-on. It only really worked for installing gigabit ethernet and extra SCSI and fiber channel controllers for SAN Arrays. There is also a second seat PCI card and called the duo that allowed a second person to use the system simultaneously as a two seat, multi seat system. You had to have either a dual graphics card or a graphics card with a dual head, the adding card gave you an ethernet and keyboard and mouse port. Otherwise that's about it outside of serial which is normally for controlling various times of video decks.

Also to be fair an O2 or potentially even an octane doesn't have the bus or processor speed to hope to get data that fast. There's a reason they never built a gigabit ethernet card for O2. It can't possibly handle it. It's similar with the other systems, they were evolutionary jumps.

We've made some firewire gains.  I've been using a CF reader on Octane with native IRIX drivers. 

It's fascinating.