ServeTheHome.com

IBM ServeRAID M1015

One of the most popular SAS 6.0gbps/ SATA III controllers for enthusiasts is the IBM M1015. In its native form, it is a very capable host bus adapter (HBA) based on the LSI SAS2008 chip. With the low price on places such as ebay (see here for an ebay search for the M1015) and an enthusiastic community that has learned to unlock many features, it has quickly become a go-to choice for low-cost SATA III connectivity. This series of articles was written by Pieter Schaar perhaps best known as the one behind laptopvideo2go.com. He has been a regular contributor in the STH forums and has been detailing his learning in threads such as these. I do want to note that these modifications are not endorsed by this site, LSI, IBM or others and the information herein is purely for educational purposes. If you do encounter problems, you are solely responsible for those consequences.

There are now quite a few parts to this piece including:

• IBM ServeRAID M1015 Part 1: Getting Started with the LSI 9220-8i
• IBM ServeRAID M1015 Part 2: Performance of the LSI 9220-8i
• IBM ServeRAID M1015 Part 3: SMART Passthrough on the LSI 9220-8i

Continue Reading

One of the most popular SAS 6.0gbps/ SATA III controllers for enthusiasts is the IBM M1015. In its native form, it is a very capable host bus adapter (HBA) based on the LSI SAS2008 chip. With the low price on places such as ebay (see here for an ebay search for the M1015) and an enthusiastic community that has learned to unlock many features, it has quickly become a go-to choice for low-cost SATA III connectivity. This series of articles was written by Pieter Schaar perhaps best known as the one behind laptopvideo2go.com. He has been a regular contributor in the STH forums and has been detailing his learning in threads such as these. I do want to note that these modifications are not endorsed by this site, LSI, IBM or others and the information herein is purely for educational purposes. If you do encounter problems, you are solely responsible for those consequences.

There are now a few parts to this piece including:

• IBM ServeRAID M1015 Part 1: Getting Started with the LSI 9220-8i
• IBM ServeRAID M1015 Part 2: Performance of the LSI 9220-8i
• IBM ServeRAID M1015 Part 3: SMART Passthrough on the LSI 9220-8i

Continue Reading

One of the most popular SAS 6.0gbps/ SATA III controllers for enthusiasts is the IBM M1015. In its native form, it is a very capable host bus adapter (HBA) based on the LSI SAS2008 chip. With the low price on places such as ebay (see here for an ebay search for the M1015) and an enthusiastic community that has learned to unlock many features, it has quickly become a go-to choice for low-cost SATA III connectivity. This series of articles was written by Pieter Schaar perhaps best known as the one behind laptopvideo2go.com. He has been a regular contributor in the STH forums and has been detailing his learning in threads such as these. I do want to note that these modifications are not endorsed by this site, LSI, IBM or others and the information herein is purely for educational purposes. If you do encounter problems, you are solely responsible for those consequences.

There are now a few parts to this piece including:

• IBM ServeRAID M1015 Part 1: Getting Started with the LSI 9220-8i
• IBM ServeRAID M1015 Part 2: Performance of the LSI 9220-8i
• IBM ServeRAID M1015 Part 3: SMART Passthrough on the LSI 9220-8i

Continue Reading

One of the most popular SAS 6.0gbps/ SATA III controllers for enthusiasts is the IBM M1015. In its native form, it is a very capable host bus adapter (HBA) based on the LSI SAS2008 chip. With the low price on places such as ebay (see here for an ebay search for the M1015) and an enthusiastic community that has learned to unlock many features, it has quickly become a go-to choice for low-cost SATA III connectivity. This series of articles was written by Pieter Schaar perhaps best known as the one behind laptopvideo2go.com. He has been a regular contributor in the STH forums and has been detailing his learning in threads such as these. I do want to note that these modifications are not endorsed by this site, LSI, IBM or others and the information herein is purely for educational purposes. If you do encounter problems, you are solely responsible for those consequences.

There are now a few parts to this piece including:

• IBM ServeRAID M1015 Part 1: Getting Started with the LSI 9220-8i
• IBM ServeRAID M1015 Part 2: Performance of the LSI 9220-8i
• IBM ServeRAID M1015 Part 3: SMART Passthrough on the LSI 9220-8i

Continue Reading

LSI has been fairly dominant in the 6.0gbps HBA/ RAID 0/1/10 market for quite a while now. Early market entry, low cost cards, and a myriad of OEM wins have made the SAS 2008/ SAS 2108 architectures the de-facto standard for use with software RAID or as RAID 0/1/10 devices. Adaptec paper launched their 6 series controllers which support the normal high-end features such as RAID 60 and flash backed write cache. Now Adaptec, following the PMC-Sierra acquisition, has moved to the lower end of the market previously occupied by cards such as the Adaptec 1045 with the new 6E series of controllers. The cards come in two flavors, the four port 6405E and the eight port 6805E. Continue Reading

It is no secret that the LSI 1068e controller was one of, if not the most widely supported SAS controllers around but 3.0gbps serial interconnects have given way to 6.0gbps interconnects. Unlike the LSI 1068e based parts, support for things like 3TB drives is much better on 6.0gbps parts to the point where I have yet to encounter an issue. The LSI 9211-8i is a relatively inexpensive low-profile controller with no cache but that can do RAID levels 0, 1 and 10 on its eight 6.0gbps ports. Continue Reading

The HP Smart Array P411 is a fairly inexpensive 6.0gbps SAS 2 and SATA III controller. To enhance performance, the HP Smart Array P411 has a variety of cache options available. This is a quick guide installing a 512MB DRAM plus BBU kit to the controller. A similar setup must be used in order to do things like flash the HP SAS Expander with new firmware. Continue Reading

One question I am often asked is what do I think about port multipliers. The short story here is that I think they can be valuable and I can see that they have a place in the market. The Silicon Image SiI3124 controller is an inexpensive SATA II controller that runs natively on a PCI-X bus. One of the biggest draws to the Silicon Image port-multiplier enabled ecosystems is cost. For about $100 one can purchase a controller and a port multiplier (based on the SiI3726 for example) and provide eight ports of connectivity. This low-cost architecture has been something that Silicon Image has been building for years. Continue Reading

A commonly asked question is what makes up a good RAID controller. There are many purveyors of RAID cards out there that will sell a FakeRAID solution supporting RAID 5 or RAID 6 for a premium. Continue Reading

With Windows Home Server 2011 coming out in the near future many less experienced home users are looking into RAID subsystems to create larger storage pools. This is a segment where without a very solid basic understanding of what the technologies involved are, a user can make a purchasing decision detrimental to their machine’s ultimate performance and data security. It is important that a user understands the relative strengths and weaknesses of different RAID philosophies, software RAID, “Fake-RAID”, and hardware RAID. Continue Reading