SAS 5/IR Performance

I figure out how to enable the write caching without having to run stuff in linix, thank goodness.

To enable write caching on a Dell SAS 5/iR raid controller

Danger: this controller does not have a battery on board to handle cached writes
during an unexpected power outage, that's why they make it hard to set this.

This change makes a massive change in disk performance.  I was copying a 135 MB file from one folder to another to test this.  Before enabling write caching, it took between 25 and 37 seconds to copy this file.  After enabling write caching, it took 5 seconds.  In my case, we can risk the potiental corruption in the case of a sudden power outage.

Download LSIUTIL from lsi.com
Here:
http://www.lsi.com/storage_home/products_home/host_bus_adapters/fibre_channel_hbas/lsi7404eplc/#Firmware
Click support and downloads.  Last file is LSIUtil.  Accept their terms and the download commences.

Expand the zip file, run LSIUtil.exe from the windows subfolder.
This opens a dos box.
Select your controller - in my case there was only one.  <1 enter>
Select option 21 - RAID actions.  <21 enter>
Select option 32 - Change Volume Setting <32 enter>
First prompt is the main one:
Enable write caching: [Yes or No, default is No]
Offline on SMART Data [Yes or No, default is No] (leaves default)
Auto configuration: [Yes or No, default is Yes]
Priority resynch: [Yes or No, default is Yes]
Hot Spare Pools (bitmask of pool numbers): [00 to FF, default is 01]

Then <0 enter> your way out of the utility (take 3 of them).

I know it's been two years since the prior post, but hopefully it will save someone the hours of searching I spent coming up with this solution.

- Tony

In this case, “enable write cache” refers to the hard drive cache settings not the controller cache (data-lost on power outage still applies).
The SAS 5/iR does not have any memory to cache data, for which it does not support RAID volumes on Write Back, all RAID volumes on this controller are Write Through.
SAS drives may also help improving performance.
Make sure you are running on the latest FW, version: 00.10.51.00.06.12.05.00.

Ah, that makes more sense to me.  I could still see it saying "write through" in OpenManage, but the performance increased 5 to 7 times in my write tests.  I did upgrade all of the firmware including the SAS 5, that made no noticable performance difference (but didn't hurt anything either).

We are using SAS drives on all servers purchased since this one experiment in SATA.

- Tony

It's a good thing I found this link...I'm having the same issues and would like to make the change..

One question though...Do you have to rebuild the array after making this change, or can it be done on the fly?

Thanks..Jeff

This was a non-destructive change, there was no rebuild required.  Good Luck!

- Tony

This worked perfectly for me and SOLVED my very SLOW PowerEdge 840 server with SAS 5/iR.  I did have some trouble finding the utility on the LSI site, so here is the actually link as of 9/14/10.

Speed tests showed 100 times faster results after turning on write cache.  No reboot required.  Just need to be aware of the potential problems you could have in the event of a power failure.

http://www.lsi.com/DistributionSystem/AssetDocument/LSIUtil_1.62.zip

Hi Tony,

Just want to say a big fat thank you for this, i've had a precision 690 for a few years now and it's always been slow with defrags, general access times, and hanging on boot ups etc 

This has just made my work computer fantastic to use, it's like a new machine. 

Just saying thanks for the post, it was certainly helpful - i'm surprised DELL let this machine go out at £1500 with such poor performance. Not impressed with DELL at all! 

All the best

Ed

Hi,

I'm considering this on a live server and want to be sure before proceeding. 

I'm looking for user experience. 

 It seems this is a simple process, upgrade the firmware on the controller card and everything works smoothly from there, no data loss or reinstalls required.  Is that correct?  This performance upgrade is really that simple?  Anthing that I should be aware of that isn't already covered here?

Thanks

Bryan

Hi -- does this write cache fix actually update the firmware on the controller or is this specific only to the operating system on which this script is run?  I ask b/c I am using my 690 as an ESXi server which will run many VMs.  So, either I have to do this on ALL my VMs or, hopefully, this affects the controller's firmware itself & will "fix" this issue for any VMs I create on my box

It has been awhile, but I believe it did flash the firmware of the controller itself and thus would improve the write performance of all the VMs on the host system.

The 6/ir is just as bad..       I'll never order with this low end raid card again and I am only using the controller for my hypervisor O/S drive, no vms.

Awesome, great info.  One last question.  I have read in other threads that in order to runt he LSI script you found, the controller must be flashed w/ LSI's firmware (overwrite Dell's) so that your script will recognize the controller as one of LSI's own.  Is that true to your knowledge?  I don't find that "step" anywhere in this particular thread.

The link provided does not seem to get me to downloading this utility but to a registration page. How can I get this LSIUtil? I am having exactly the same problem. My RAID-1 with two 7200rpm drives yields a dismal 57Mbps when writing a 100MB file and it only gets worse as the file size gets bigger. Reading back the same 100MB file is not a problem I get almost 600Mbps! Why is this happening? It's driving me nuts!?! Please help! Thank you!