mfi (Dell H700) + hot swapping doesn't appear to work with RC1

[Jan Mikkelsen]

On 16/12/2011, at 3:40 AM, Andrew Boyer wrote:

> 
> On Dec 15, 2011, at 4:19 AM, Jan Mikkelsen wrote:
> 
>> For the mfi controllers I have been testing recently (MegaRAID 9261-8i), you need to install the sysutils/megacli port, and use that to clear the "foreignness" of the disk you just added. Something like:
>> 
>>  MegaCli -CfgForeign -Clear -a0
> 
> I don't think that's what you want.  You want to use -Import, not -Clear, to keep your data intact.

OK. When I did a -Clear and recreated the drive as a single disk raid0 volume, the data was still there, but I wanted it to go away.

> On Dec 15, 2011, at 11:03 AM, Hugo Silva wrote:
> 
>> On 12/15/11 15:28, Hugo Silva wrote:
>>> As Borja said, part of the difficulty is the H700 abstracting a single
>>> disk as a RAID-0, I guess. So far I've been unable to find a way to
>>> bring the drive back, except by rebooting and recreating.
>> 
>> Turns out no interaction is needed after reboot. It was something else
>> unrelated. The main issue then is convincing the controller to once
>> again accept the hard disk. I'm going through MegaCli "documentation"
>> (ie --help).. it's not a pretty place.
> 
> I'm not sure it would even be possible to come up with a worse interface.  It boggles the mind.

I agree. It is insanely bad.

> I recommend you always run with this configuration:
> 
> # MegaCli -AdpSetProp AutoEnhancedImportEnbl -aALL
> # MegaCli -AdpSetProp MaintainPdFailHistoryEnbl -0 -aALL
> 
> AutoEnhancedImportEnbl will bring the foreign disk back in on a reboot.  LSI recommends turning off MaintainPdFailHistory when using single-disk RAID0 configurations.

What does PD Fail History actually do?

> Adding these capabilities to mfiutil is on my list of things to do, but it's not ready yet.

Thanks.

> Has anyone managed to get the real JBOD mode working on this controller?  It advertises support in the firmware but doesn't seem to do anything.  The documentation only lists JBOD mode as a feature of the lower-end controllers.

You mean using "MegaCli -PDMakeJBOD"? No, it doesn't work from me on the 9281-8i. I get "Failed to change PD state". Single disk RAID-0 works fine.

> Hope this helps.

It does, thank you.

Regards,

Jan.