I once had to do this on an 847 chassis with a dual expander backplane. Great job on this video explaining the process in great detail. I never had to go as far as editing the firmware update for the SAS address, and I never knew there was a "no fan" option!
compatibility issues with Adaptec SAS controllers are resolved with this update. Also, there have been reports of stability improvements with newer Broadcom SAS controllers like those from the 9400/9500/9600 series.
I didn't know about the loss of expander addresses on SAS2 as I believe I used the GUI tool which as you say, must do this for you but it's been many years since I flashed a SAS2 expander. I just flashed a SAS3 expander last week using CLIXTL and it preserves the expander/enclosure addresses but I don't think it works on SAS2 expanders. Thanks for the content!
Yup, the GUI tool does all this in the background. I wish they made a CLI tool since I rarely have GUI environment installed in my servers. Anyway, it's not too bad to do if I'm not trying to explain it and just doing it. Yeah, the newer CLIXTL tool only works for the newer SAS3 backplanes. Thanks for watching! :-)
Semi-unrelated, but you are the only guy to mention the BPN-SAS3-826SEL1. I have a 2U system I got that supports 24 drives with two of the 826SEL1-N4 versions of the backplane(12 bays each). I don’t plan on using NVME drives and I got a Lsi Logic 179356 16i card to act as HBA since the card daughtered to the motherboard is a RAID only card. The question is this: the 4 SAS ports on these backplanes are stated to be bidirectional in the data-sheet. Am I able to use a “ring-topology” to connect them to the 4 ports on the HBA? By this I mean connecting 2 ports each to the HBA and the using the included cascading cables(included card had 2 ports and the rear plane connected to the front) to connect the planes together and theoretically get all 16 lanes on each plane rather than a discrete 2x8. Does this work or would there be collision issues?
what would be the consequences of overwriting the SAS address? also some resources like where to get the flashing tools or backplane firmwares would be extremely useful - google did not bring up anything usable
all devices on a SAS network should ideally have unique addresses. if you overwrite the SAS address with the "default" address as shown in the files in this video, you could possibly have an address conflict. For example, some JBOD enclosures have multiple SAS backplanes.
If you are experiencing a problem with your Supermicro backplane and the problem is fixed in a firmware update, you would want to have that firmware update. Specifically, the release notes mention a compatibility update in the latest firmware (the version I installed in this video) for Adaptec SAS controllers. Additionally, I've seen people online mention that this update solved some issues they had with newer controllers like the 9400/9500/9600 series from Broadcom.
I once had to do this on an 847 chassis with a dual expander backplane. Great job on this video explaining the process in great detail. I never had to go as far as editing the firmware update for the SAS address, and I never knew there was a "no fan" option!
Did you use the GUI tool to do the update? Thank you for watching! :-)
New Art of Server video? Now my Christmas is complete!
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and soon to be Happy New Year! :-)
Thank you so much for supporting my channel and watching my stuff!
What does the new firmware provide? Ie what’s the reason for updating?
compatibility issues with Adaptec SAS controllers are resolved with this update. Also, there have been reports of stability improvements with newer Broadcom SAS controllers like those from the 9400/9500/9600 series.
I didn't know about the loss of expander addresses on SAS2 as I believe I used the GUI tool which as you say, must do this for you but it's been many years since I flashed a SAS2 expander. I just flashed a SAS3 expander last week using CLIXTL and it preserves the expander/enclosure addresses but I don't think it works on SAS2 expanders. Thanks for the content!
Yup, the GUI tool does all this in the background. I wish they made a CLI tool since I rarely have GUI environment installed in my servers. Anyway, it's not too bad to do if I'm not trying to explain it and just doing it. Yeah, the newer CLIXTL tool only works for the newer SAS3 backplanes. Thanks for watching! :-)
Having two SPIs to flash fw is a very common topology so that if you brick its recoverable.
yes, that's true. you can flash the firmware via the SAS controller, or you can connect to a serial interface on the backplane.
Semi-unrelated, but you are the only guy to mention the BPN-SAS3-826SEL1.
I have a 2U system I got that supports 24 drives with two of the 826SEL1-N4 versions of the backplane(12 bays each). I don’t plan on using NVME drives and I got a Lsi Logic 179356 16i card to act as HBA since the card daughtered to the motherboard is a RAID only card.
The question is this: the 4 SAS ports on these backplanes are stated to be bidirectional in the data-sheet. Am I able to use a “ring-topology” to connect them to the 4 ports on the HBA? By this I mean connecting 2 ports each to the HBA and the using the included cascading cables(included card had 2 ports and the rear plane connected to the front) to connect the planes together and theoretically get all 16 lanes on each plane rather than a discrete 2x8.
Does this work or would there be collision issues?
It's a good question, but I have limited experience with ring topologies. I believe it can work, so it would be worth trying.
Awesome video! Where do you get the firmware and xflash utility though? Also are there release notes somewhere that show what is being fixed?
When I find the time, i'm going to post it and put the links in the video description.
what would be the consequences of overwriting the SAS address? also some resources like where to get the flashing tools or backplane firmwares would be extremely useful - google did not bring up anything usable
all devices on a SAS network should ideally have unique addresses. if you overwrite the SAS address with the "default" address as shown in the files in this video, you could possibly have an address conflict. For example, some JBOD enclosures have multiple SAS backplanes.
Dumb question, but what is the reason for doing this?
If you are experiencing a problem with your Supermicro backplane and the problem is fixed in a firmware update, you would want to have that firmware update.
Specifically, the release notes mention a compatibility update in the latest firmware (the version I installed in this video) for Adaptec SAS controllers. Additionally, I've seen people online mention that this update solved some issues they had with newer controllers like the 9400/9500/9600 series from Broadcom.
Does this work for chenbro?
I don't know. This is specific to Supermicro expander backplanes from the SAS-2 generation.
I don't like when someone smart forget important things, how you log in to the backplne without itself be a computer it's just jbod
At the beginning of the video I showed how the backplane was connected to a SAS controller which is plugged into the server.