LSI 1068E - disk support >2TB (BIOS disabled)?

[crurer]

Hello friends,

 

this is my 1st post here. First I would like to say many thanks for sharing that project to build an own Synology NAS. I've been using for multiple years Openfiler as FC target. This works great but it always requires to have my computer on if I want to access the shares. I decided to use a NAS instead a SAN now. The hardware is a bit old but Ok because it's only using as backup for my Backup on USB3 drives. 

Specs: Intel SH2200 Mainboard with Xeon DC 3110 + 8GB DDR2 ECC RAM. 6x AHCI SATA onboard + 1x LSI 1068E B3 8 port SAS/SATA (patched with IT [no Raid support] firmware 1.33.00.00 - BIOS disabled); 4x 2TB WD green + 4x 2TB Seagates 3.5". There are 2x Raid5 with BTRFS formatted. OS 6.1 current release. approx. 120W power consumption in idle.  

 

Here the question: The LSI 1068E only supporting disk drives with <=2TB. As far I understand is this limitation only when the BIOS is enabled which isn't in my case. Can the 1068E be used with hard drives >2TB with BIOS disabled? I was unable to find any thread which is covering this request. 

 

br Chris from Germany.

 

 

Edited February 6, 2018 by crurer
changed title

[IG-88]

does not look like it will do anything above 2.2TB

 

https://lime-technology.com/forums/topic/12114-lsi-controller-fw-updates-irit-modes/

[crurer]

....true, if or when the disk is controlled by BIOS it's not supporting >2TB. But my question is for drives >2TB not controlled by BIOS (because of disabled).

 

br Chris

[crurer]

update:

disk drives >2TB won't work on LSI 1068E SAS controllers even BIOS is diabled......detected as 2TB. Verified with 3TB Toshiba disk.

 

Edited February 7, 2018 by crurer

[Gccarvalho]

i have the same controller using 4 SAS 3Tb, if i use raid it only detect 2.2Tb, if i remove the Raid, i can see 2.7Tb, so i think it´s right. Because i have a USB 3Tb and a Sata 3Tb, and in both cases also detect only 2.7Tb, sorry replying a old post, but i was looking information about the 1068e that stopped work with the 6.2.2-29422 Update 4.

[Dave Ireland]

I'm using an old Supermicro X8DTL-3F with an LSI 1068 SAS controller.

I was curious about the hard limit of 2TB, but it turns out it's only in RAID mode. Setting the onboard jumper to enable IT mode and slotting in a Seagate 3TB SAS disc, it's filling up quite happily on test to its full capacity.

This is mentioned here...

https://www.broadcom.com/support/knowledgebase/1211161495837/using-drives-2tb-in-capacity-with-lsi-sas-hbas

 

There's also an LSI Engineering Note I came across which comfirms this - non-RAID capacity is 'no restriction' in SAS, but still stuck at 2TB in SATA or RAID (for both). Exactly what they mean by 'no restriction' I don't know yet.

https://www.supermicro.com/support/faqs/data_lib/S11196_v1.0_Support_for_Drives_Greater_than_2_TB_for_SAS1_IT_IR_Products.pdf

Edited September 5, 2020 by Dave Ireland

[IG-88]

38 minutes ago, Dave Ireland said:

AS, but still stuck at 2TB in SATA or RAID (for both)

 

in your link from broadcom

"...

3Gb/s SATA+SAS HBAs will detect drives with greater than 2 TB in capacity (in other words, the 3Gb/s SATA+SAS HBAs will work with 3 TB SAS disk drives) if Phase 13 or newer IT firmware only (i.e. not IR firmware)(SAS disk drives only, not SATA) is used.

..."

 

and the statement in the pdf is simply you can access up to 2TB of the drive if its SATA (with the newer firmware), the hardware limit is still in place and thats also quoted a few lines below table 1 and 2

if using a 3TB sata drive it will be usable as 2TB drive with the newer IT firmware and thats all you will get from that 3Gb/s controller

 

[Dave Ireland]

14 hours ago, IG-88 said:

 

in your link from broadcom

"...

3Gb/s SATA+SAS HBAs will detect drives with greater than 2 TB in capacity (in other words, the 3Gb/s SATA+SAS HBAs will work with 3 TB SAS disk drives) if Phase 13 or newer IT firmware only (i.e. not IR firmware)(SAS disk drives only, not SATA) is used.

..."

 

and the statement in the pdf is simply you can access up to 2TB of the drive if its SATA (with the newer firmware), the hardware limit is still in place and thats also quoted a few lines below table 1 and 2

if using a 3TB sata drive it will be usable as 2TB drive with the newer IT firmware and thats all you will get from that 3Gb/s controller

 

I thought it might be obvious from the way I framed the statement, that I was currently filling up the drive.

Finally filled it up at 3am and it successfullly holds 3TB, in accordance with Broadcom's statement - it's a SAS running in non-RAID and works fine.

I don't know yet how large I can go, but I will eventually find out, as I''m reluctant to waste all those lovely slots.

[IG-88]

1 hour ago, Dave Ireland said:

I thought it might be obvious from the way I framed the statement, that I was currently filling up the drive.

Finally filled it up at 3am and it successfullly holds 3TB, in accordance with Broadcom's statement - it's a SAS running in non-RAID and works fine.

I don't know yet how large I can go, but I will eventually find out, as I''m reluctant to waste all those lovely slots.

if its SAS it should work in any size, even 10TB  (in IT mode) just SATA will not, but seeing the price point of SAS drives (usually enterprise class) it might be cheaper to buy a used lsi sas2 controller or use a ahci controller instead (jmb585 is ok when its paired with pcie 3.0)

[Dave Ireland]

2 hours ago, IG-88 said:

if its SAS it should work in any size, even 10TB  (in IT mode) just SATA will not, but seeing the price point of SAS drives (usually enterprise class) it might be cheaper to buy a used lsi sas2 controller or use a ahci controller instead (jmb585 is ok when its paired with pcie 3.0)

I have a SAS-2 controller card coming (pre-flashed to IT mode), which I'll use for booting at better speed, and will give me the option of faster storage for three other SAS drives, but the onboard SAS-1 slots can still be very useful as I'm not doing any RAID at all.

Given the paucity of PCI-e slots of useful bandwidth, I might just hold off on the deployment of the SAS-2 card.