mpt problem on a Supermicro motherboard (FreeBSD 9.2 amd64)

[Victor Sudakov]

Victor Sudakov wrote:
> 
> I have several Supermicro-based servers with the mpt RAID adapter:
> 
> # mptutil show adapter
> mpt0 Adapter:
>        Board Name: UNUSED
>    Board Assembly:
>         Chip Name: C1068E
>     Chip Revision: UNUSED
>       RAID Levels: none
> #
> 
> The problem is, I cannot configure any RAIDs (please see output
> below) from FreeBSD. If I configure volumes from BIOS setup, FreeBSD
> still sees them as separate physical discs.  What am I doing wrong? 
> 
> I cannot use gmirror with these servers because a) if no MPT RAID is
> configured in BIOS setup, it cannot boot from HDD and b) if an MPT
> RAID *is* configured in BIOS setup, it occupies the last sector and
> prevents GEOM from working with these drives. 
> 
> Any help please? (or redirect me to a more appropriate maillist).

After many unsuccessful trials and googling, we had to reconfigure the
adapter from RAID mode to IT mode. It required flashing the adapter's
BIOS from a Supermicro-supplied image and changing a jumper setting on
the motherboard. 

Now as the adapter is in IT mode, it is a plain HBA the BIOS can
boot from, and I have set up a gmirror on the SAS disks.

After flashing the adapter BIOS, don't forget to enter its setup
(Ctrl-C) and enable hotplugging of disks (called "Removable Media
Support" in the menu, off by default).

People come across similar problems and solutions on other OSes, like
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-973912.html


-- 
Victor Sudakov 
Tomsk, Russia
Russian Barefoot FAQ at http://www.barefooters.ru/barefoot.txt