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SAS 6/iR Integrated SAS + SATA (SSD) Negotiated speed PE1950
Hello,
I've installed on my PE1950 III two drives in SAS 6/iR Integrated (embedded).
First one is SAS 73GB 15k which uses 3Gbps and second one is Samsung 840 EVO 250GB (ssd). I know, that these SSD's are not supported by Dell, however it works fine, just one problem: I am having Negotiated speed 1.50Gbps which should be 3Gbps (Maximum read rate I am getting from tests is ~150MB/s, this SSD supports up to 500MB/s).
I did not install interposer on SATA disk, while mixing it with SAS hdd on the controller. Could interposer solve the problem and let me use whole 3Gbps of the channel? I have unused interposers at home, but asking, if it is worth going to the datacenter and placing one on the SATA.
Thanks in advance!
DELL-Daniel My
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6.2K Posts
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April 5th, 2014 13:00
Hello
Yes, SSDs are not officially supported on the SAS 6/iR.
I happen to be running a similar configuration on my home desktop system. I hadn't even noticed that my 840 EVO had negotiated to 1.5.
I booted into the SAS 6 controller BIOS and indeed the 840 negotiated to 1.5. I am running my OS on the 250GB 840 EVO and have 2x1TB SATA drives in a RAID 0 for data. The SATA drives are at 3.0.
I installed the latest Samsung Magician software: http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/samsungssd/downloads.html and used it to update the EVO to the latest firmware. I restarted and booted back into the controller BIOS with no change. It was still negotiating to 1.5.
I then stole an interposer from one of my 2950 servers and attached it to the 840 EVO. I booted back into the controller BIOS and it is now negotiating to 3.0, so it would appear that an interposer will allow it to negotiate link speed properly.
Thanks
tolga_c
9 Posts
3
March 20th, 2016 08:00
Hi there,
I was experiencing the same problem as you guys. First of all, I'm a hobby developer and not a multi-million dollar enterprise, so therefore I don't and cannot throw money at problems. If you're a multi-million dollar enterprise, this solution is not for you. Buy certified hardware and use certified software.
While I was already prepared for using SATA II for my Samsung 830 SSDs instead of SATA III (hardware limitation), I was not expecting SATA I. I'm not gonna sacrifice 50% performance, just because SAS 6iR negotiates extremely conservative speeds with non-certified drives (software limitation or unfair marketing strategies - decide for yourself).
I've been using these drives for years in SATA II environments without any problems. Also, I don't expect running them at the same speed in conjunction with the SAS 6iR. To me, it's just a form of unfair marketing strategy, in order to sell own, overpriced SSDs. IANAL and I don't know, whether this is okay in the US. But here in Europe / Germany, you can easily get *** for artificially limiting other vendors products, just to sell yours. There is no technical background for doing so - in my opinion.
Therefore, I've decided to share with you, how I've managed to run my non-Dell SSDs at 3Gbps instead of 1.5Gbps. No need for interposers or other weird stuff. Why would you need interposers for non-Dell SATA drives, if Dell's SATA drives are working fine without? Just software - the same way, Dell has limited your drives to run at lower speeds.
My setup: I'm using a Dell R410 with an integrated SAS 6iR, 4 drive hotplug chassis. Btw.: I cannot buy interposers for hotplug drive caddies seperately and would need to waste big money on them.
Here is a picture of proof: drive.google.com/folderview;usp=sharing
You will need a Linux environment - I have used CentOS 7. You will also need lsiutil 1.62. Fire up that utility, select SAS 6iR and enter option 13. Here, you will be able to set up a minimum and maximum speed for your ports, individually. Just set up 3.0Gbps as minimum speed for all your active ports, leave the rest at default parameters. Your result should look like this:
drive.google.com/.../view
After a restart you can finally have fun with your non-certified drives at 3Gbps. No need for further hardware or further costs.
Cheers,
Tolga
Vadzim
1 Message
2
April 13th, 2017 11:00
Thank you, Tolga, very much for this hint!
LSI.com is down now.
I've found lsiutil for many OSes at http://www.dzhang.com/blog/2013/03/22/where-to-get-download-lsiutil.
I works under Windows too.
It helped in my case to fix negotiated link speed 1.5 Gbps with Samsung 850 EVO SSD and LSI Logic SAS3444E HBA based on LSI 1068E controller.
No need for full reboot. It's sufficient to reset port via 99 command in lsiutil.
ZippoWindproof
17 Posts
0
April 5th, 2014 13:00
Thanks a lot for your great job!
I really appreciate that! :emotion-1:
A.Brad.Crawford
1 Message
0
February 5th, 2015 06:00
Hi Daniel,
I have a Dell T7500 (SAS 6/iR) and tried installing 2 Samsung 840 EVOs in RAID 0. I am not an IT specialist so it took some time to understand why the read/write performance was only ~250Mbps. I expected to see double that with SATA 2 in RAID 0 (2 x 300Mbps).
Finally I figured out that the SSDs negotiate at 1.5 (SATA 1) while my backup HDD negotiates at 3 (SATA 2).
I tried updating firmware, BIOS, etc. and had practically given up on finding a solution until you mentioned interposers, which I hadn't heard of before. A bit of internet searching led me to find this:
'Dell Precision T7500 SAS to SATA Interposer Board Converter M199P'
Is this the correct part (it costs $9!) or do I need something else? How do I connect it up?
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Brad.
motah33
22 Posts
0
February 17th, 2016 08:00
Hi Brad,
The MP199P is a special board with a temperature sensor - one side plugs into your drive and the other side into the HDD_Temp connector on the board. The idea is that the Hard Drive fan (which sits between the cages, underneath the PSU) will respond to the temperature reported by the sensor and so keep the drives cool if the temperature hits a certain threshold. I've just got one of these and I'm testing it but I haven't seen the Hard Drive fan change speed yet.
What you want is a standard Dell Interposer board as shown here: www.amazon.com/.../B00E0OFHM8. All you do is plug the Interposer Board into your hard drive connector, plug in the power connect into the board and plug in your SAS data cable which will run from one of your 4 SAS connectors to the Interposer Board.
I presume you've got your SSD in one of those internal cages? You'll notice the 4 power connectors that are already there. The Interposer Board is there to allow SATA drives e.g. your SSD SATA drives, to plug to plug into a SAS Controller - the SAS 6/ir in your case (I also have T7500). Here's a more detailed explanation:
"The Interposer adds a lot of functionality to the drive. The primary function of the Interposer is redundant pathing. SATA has a single path, and SAS has a dual path. The Interposer adds a second path for active redundancy. It also allows the SATA drive to use the same signaling as a SAS. The Interposer will reduce spin-up delays, and there is improved error recovery and logging. It also adds the capability to assign the drive to multiple hosts."
I hope that helps.
Regards
Mohammed
tolga_c
9 Posts
0
March 20th, 2016 08:00
multi-post - sorry for that
tolga_c
9 Posts
0
March 20th, 2016 08:00
multi-post
tolga_c
9 Posts
0
March 20th, 2016 08:00
multi-post
tolga_c
9 Posts
0
March 20th, 2016 08:00
multi-post
tolga_c
9 Posts
0
March 20th, 2016 08:00
multi-post
supriyo
2 Posts
0
May 20th, 2016 08:00
Hi Daniel,
Can you kindly let me know what type of Interposer you used? I have the same issue of having a negotiated speed of 1.5G in Dell T7500. Will a Dell UF070 Interposer do the trick?
Thanks in advance.
SD
doublespaces
1 Message
0
August 17th, 2016 21:00
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I have purchased an R510 which has this same controller. Is there a way to do this with ESXi 6.0? I will run various linux distrubutions on the machine, but only as virtualized containers, not as the host.
chris yeowell
2 Posts
0
January 5th, 2017 10:00
On your ESXi server you would have to take your ESXi host offline. By booting into a linux live environment and running the LSIutil (which can still be downloaded here docs.broadcom.com/.../12351668 now that LSI have been taken over by Broadcom)
Once you have run the utility it updates the settings in the SAS IR card and you can reboot into your ESXi environment. Please be aware that there is no guarantee that your drives will operate at the higher speed so recommend doing this in a test environment or at the least ensuring that you have backups of your drives.
I used a similar method to force higher speed for SSD's before installing the OS without using interposer in a test environment. If I plan to move such a server to production I expect I will pay the extra for interposers.
CC330
1 Message
0
June 27th, 2018 01:00
I made an account just to give you Kudos for this post!
I was about to give up on this altogether, it's not a big deal for me really as I only use a single PCIe x8 PERC 5/iR (0UN939) in a test rig desktop for connecting HDDs/SSDs up to for testing/copying things. I just ended up getting extremely hooked and interested as to why all the drives kept negotiating at SATA 1.5GB/s
I even tried changing the firmware/BIOS with no luck but the answer was staring me in the face all along via the LSIUtil software which was one of the first things I downloaded when looking into this. Thanks to your post I learnt how to find that menu to change the speeds manually, can't believe it was so simple yet so hidden...
Now after making the change I can transfer files at 230MB/s~ instead of 130MB/s~ ...so yeah it's a huge increase!!!
I realise it's pretty much outdated technology now and an old post but for the curious minds among us, it's posts like this that keep the knowledge flowing!
Thanks again :)