Booting with an HBA

Question

Hi

So I have recently acquirred a R720xd server to replace my current R710.

In my R710 I have a H310 PCIe card (cross-flashed to LSI 9211-8i IT-mode firmware), where 6 drives are connected.

I have transferred the drives and the controller to the R720xd and booting a Linux Live CD/USB also shows the drives are there. The controller/HBA is also registered as a RAID-controller by the LCC and iDRAC.

However, no drives are selectable to boot from. I have removed the included H710 Mini Mono card.

I also have an add-in PCIe card with a SATA M2 drive connected. This will not boot as the onboard SATA ports apparently do not work on the R720xd, but they do work on the normal R720.

To fix this, I connected a random SATA PCIe card, which should allow it to show. Except that this card is based on a Marwell chipset and this seems to cause an error in Ahci.efi during boot.

So I do basically have to issue, which I need help solving.

1. How can I get the drives, connected to the HBA, to show up during boot

2. How can I get the PCIe M2 card to show as a boot option? it would not be a problem to have to get a SATA to M2 adapter and connected to the backplane. But this does require a solution to the above.

As I run ZFS, the H710 will not work for me, since it cannot be set/flashed to HBA-mode/IT-mode

DELL-Chris H · Answer

KHIT93,   This likely will come down to compatibility. Would you do me a favor and clarify the part numbers for the HBA, the pcie M2 card, as well as the M2 drives?  Thank you. Let me know.

KHIT93 · Answer

Hi Chris

Thank you for your reply.

As mentioned, the HBA is a Dell Perc H310, which has been cross-flashed to be an LSI 9211-8i in IT-mode.

The P/N on the card is 010166C00-000-G

The M.2 SSD is a LITE-ON LSS32L6G-HP and originated from an HP device.

The M.2 PCIe card does not really have a brand as it is a cheap card bought from eBay. It has a part number of LM-412N-V1.0

All the above hardware worked fine in the old R710 on BIOS 6.6.0 and the drives connected to the HBA do also show up if I fx. boot a CentOS/Ubuntu Live USB/CD environment. Additionally, the UEFI boot manager seems to recognize the entries on the drive

For example if I connect a Windows Server 2016 UEFI installed harddrive to the backplane, then it shows "Unavailable: Windows Boot Manager". The same goes for Linux-based systems, where it shows "Unavailable: Linux Boot Manager".

servernewb · Answer

Did you find an answer to this? I have a r720 and it cannot boot from the embedded sata port. There are 2 ports on the MOBO and i tried both.

My ssd connected to the sata is detected in setup during startup but NOT as a boot device for some reason.

DELL-Marco B · Answer

Hello, which OS is installed in the SSD? Did you try to change BIOS boot mode from UEFI to legacy? Thanks Marco

wbravin · Answer

Hello all

I came upon this thread because i was given an r710 several years ago on which i installed opnsense and all was well.

I was recently gifted an HP ml350 g6 with VMware 6.7 installed on it (tyhis acted as my introduction to virtualisation)

This did not do what i needed.

Hence i installed proxmox 7.2 on the dell. after trying to install proxmox on the ML without success

I created a vm for opnsens and it works well.

I then loaded Home Assistant os and this is going fine (still needs to be fully configured)

Seeing the my success with this i plan to add truenas as a vm in the very neer future. Then the dell will become my primary server

Currently the dell r710 has a perc6 as a controller . as i said this is working fine.

However my plan to add truenas to this mix causes me to look for a flashed HBA that would:

a) fit in the r710

b) provide connectivity to 8 drives (see note below)

c) that is flashed with the latest and most secure version for truenas (i have no clue on how to do this )

I see many messages relating to the h200 h310 and h7xx nic not to mention the others and i do not have the required knolkedge to decide wich is best for me.

one this issue is defined, I will 6 X 3 (or 4) TB drives (preferably hgst) dedicated to truenas.

Note: I will then move proxmox and all the vms to a 500GB ssd that i would connect to the mb sata 1 port that will be my boot drive (or can i connect it the the HBA)

Once this ia ll done and dusted I would like to install on the dell a high speed nic so to connect the dell to my supermicro server that acts as my backup (which i do once a week)

By connecting these 2 server directly (i still need to study and figure out how to do it) i could reduce the time it takes to backup my media (currectly it take between 17 and 21 hours)

Please help me chose the correct card for this project

Thank you all for your patience and your eventual reply

DELL-Young E · Answer

Hi, you have rather an old system and trying to plug in a newly released part component. I imagine it will be very hard to work like that. But we can wait around to see what other users can offer. Wish you a good one.

wbravin · Answer

Hellon    Yes this is an older system. However it still works fine. the H200 or 310  are old as well I would have expected a better answer

PowerEdge Hardware General

Booting with an HBA

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