Driver for LSI MegaRAID SAS family

[jfive]

Just looked at a PERC 5i and 6i that are in my drawer. They BOTH have LSI SAS1068 ARM and FUSION-MPT etched/stamped on the controller chip. And we all know that these are compatible thanks to Dukzcry's kext.

 

Did you black out the SMBus pins on the Dell PERC card as recommend by the Overclocker's forum? Have you attempted flashing to LSI firmware or by using LSI's MegaCLI utility?

[jfive]


This method used Yosemite, I have no clue if things have changed with El Capitan.
 I doubt things have changed.

 

Things have in fact not changed. Today, I upgraded my Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD4H motherboard, to a new Asus Z97-A with USB 3.1. Used the new beast with clover from that other forum, which shall be unnamed. The upgrade couldn't have been easier. The kext still runs perfectly on El Capitan.

 

Thank you yet again for the kext, Dukzcry!

[xameleon]

Hello i have dell poweredge t110 ii

i have DELL PERC H200(LSI Logic SAS2008 MPT)
how i can make it work on el capitan

[Squuiid]

Does anyone know if the PERC 6i works in a Mac Pro 4,1 or 5,1 rather than in a Hackintosh?

I'd like to use one exclusively for booting Windows 10 with, so it neeeds to be bootable.

Thanks!

[jfive]

Does anyone know if the PERC 6i works in a Mac Pro 4,1 or 5,1 rather than in a Hackintosh?

I'd like to use one exclusively for booting Windows 10 with, so it neeeds to be bootable.

 

I'd say it's likely you could do so. However you'll need to research if and how Apple Boot Camp would recognize the Windows VD on the PERC card. Not sure if you can use an alternate boot manager, one that would load both Windows and OS X. You'd also need to research where to place the boot manager. It'll probably need to live on a VD connected to the PERC. Lastly, be certain you choose the correct VD and make it bootable (Manual page 110) in the RAID BIOS manager under the "Ctrl Mgmt" tab.

 

In order to install dukzcry's SASMegaRAID kext, you may need to disable OS X's kext signing, which is done automatically with a Hackintosh. Note that disabling kext signing will create a security risk. In theory you should be able to temporarily disable the security until after you've installed and the system rebuilds the kernel cache. Here is a tool that seems easy to use.

 

Sorry but I've never used Boot Camp but after looking at the setup guide, you'd need to start within the OS X environment. So, in order for the Boot Camp setup application in OS X to see the PERC's VDs, you will first need to install dukzcry's SASMegaRAID kext.

 

Don't attempt anything before making a complete backup of your system.

[dragonmel]

I need a HBA card that will run in IT mode.. I use ZFS and dont need or want raid... what I really need is to connect to a 16 drive DAS with expander via 8088.. 

 

an lsi 9200-8e would be the goto but this kext says it has to run in megaraid not IT mode.. 

 

anyone know of a solution! 

 

thanks

 

!!

[jfive]

I need a HBA card that will run in IT mode.. I use ZFS and dont need or want raid... what I really need is to connect to a 16 drive DAS with expander via 8088.

Do you currently use or want to use ZFS? Does data exist on the disks in the DAS. If so, is it under ZFS?

 

You could run the LSI RAID controller with all disks in JBOD or each independently in RAID-0 and layer OpenZFS within OSX.

 

OpenZFS http://open-zfs.org/wiki/OpenZFSOnOSX

 

Any reason you want to migrate you existing system to a hackinosh box?

[dragonmel]

here is what I have right now...

 

My server/storage box is a GA-EP45-DS3l hackintosh running 10.11.3 with clover with the following hardware

8G ram

e8400

10 drives (6 through onboard ICH / 4 SilImage 4 sata pci card)

sil3132 2x esata card (connects to SansDigital towerstor 8x1.5tb backup array (raidz).

 

This server runs Plex server among other tasks and has 6x2tb drives in a ZFS zpool using open ZFS OS X and works pretty well

 

the backup pool as stated above is a separate box using 2x esata cables and surprisingly good xfer for the setup and is 

 

what I would like to do is move the 8 drives in the esata enclosure to a SE3016 omnistor box.. 16 disks via 8088 since the box uses an expander onboard and would give me higher throughput, allow adding another 8drive vdev to the backup pool and only use one cable.

 

this requires a HBA and since I am using ZFS.. IT mode is the best performing with least hassle.. I dont want to have to export 16 drives (or more in the future though chaining multiple enclosure) manually and I dont want the drives 'tagged' by a raid controller making migration or HBA replacement difficult.  plus since its a daisy chain able enclosure using IT mode gives me the ability to attach like 125 drives or more where in IR or raid mode the drive count is usually much smaller..

 

So yes. like I stated in my original post.. I know I need an HBA but which ones will work in IT mode in OS X / hackintosh either with this kext or natively ... that I dont have to pass each disk as a raid 0 as that is just not the way to do it for the above reasons.... from what I have read this great kext project does not work with IT cards, only lsimegaraid... 

 

I am also considering building a new system on  a s5520 board and I would need new HBA / sata options for that solution as well.. although if I go that route I am seriously contemplating doing a esxi / napp-it all in one and putting OS X on a napp-it zfs pool as a VM....

 

so keep the tested and working card suggestions coming ... 

[dragonmel]

ok .. so as expected in el capitan a lsi 9212-4e4i card with a dev 1000 devid 0072 does not show up.. its a IT mode card

 

dukzcry's kext does not work for IT cards.. and I cant use IR individual drive because I am using external enclosures with expanders and zfs and that would be a nightmare..

 

does anyone know how to use the commercial drivers from astek?  I can see the kexts in the install package with pacifist but the website says it needs a registration key.. any way to use the kexts without their utilities or need for the key... or edit the kext to remove the key requirement..?

 

I really need to get this card running!!

 

Thanks

[CycleBurns]

i had great results with this driver on a LSI 9240-8i with 4x SAS and 4xSATA disks connected to the controller. Even the ' unsafe sleep' worked for me, on Windows i always get BSOD (CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED) when i try entering sleep. I wonder if it ever worked on windows 7.

Revisiting this thread to check on sleep.

I really need the sleep function to work, but am a bit afraid to break anything.

 

Any updates?

Note; This concerns also my start/boot volume.

@aphex6b, Dit you had it working on your start/boot volume?

[jfive]

SE3016 omnistor box.. 16 disks via 8088 since the box uses an expander onboard and would give me higher throughput, allow adding another 8drive vdev to the backup pool and only use one cable.

 

Some LSI MegaRAID controllers do not support JBOD mode. Some don't and some that do require tweaking through MegaCLI. To use ZFS for it's true intentions, you need passive/JBOD. Here's a quote from the first post in this forum by dukzcry:

 

Q: Is pass-through mode supported?

A: No it isn't. See explanation in linked post.

 

 

Furthermore, should you get a card operational within OS X, there is no guarantee it will be compatible with whatever backplane is inside the Ominstor enclosure, which likely has an active backplane given the SFF-8088 connection(s). My attempts to get disks on a internal Dell backplane via SFF-8484 to a PERC 6i yielded a fail.

 

So if you are unwilling to put forth the effort required in the RAID0 to ZFS setup, you should look into getting passive external enclosure(s) with standard SATA ports. But again, there is no guarantee it will work.

 

SFF-8087 to 4xSATA:

Link: http://amzn.com/B001L9DU88

 

SF8088 to 4xSATA

Link: http://amzn.com/B013G4EX9K

[dragonmel]

jfive

 

thanks for the reply.. but a bit confused...

 

an LSI9212-4e-4i is a passive, IT based card no?

 

the question is ... is there a driver for mac OS X that will make visible (ok passthrough might not be the right term?) the raw disks in osx

 

I dont want nor is it best practices to use a raid card for ZFS disks.. i.e. passing 8 disks as 8 separate raid0 volumes..

 

Has anyone got information on the astek drivers.. how to use them .. can they be used without a license or is it raid mode only

 

looking at the kexts I can see that the device ids are there but I dont want to install bloat to the system that I may or may not be able to remove everything since it has no uninstaller 

 

thanks

 

if there is a better IT mode HBA card for OS X hackintosh by all means let me hear about them.. 

[dragonmel]

loaded the kexts from the Astek driver package.. leaving out the management and registration software since I am not running a raid, just an lsi9212 HBA IT.. 

it works... so far

the Astek site claims that without a license (which they no longer sell) and using it on a non Astek card, it will be 'limited' but it does not say what the limitations are

a licensed copy can control up to 128 drives so perhaps it reduces that.

I have not tried to connect the card to an expander chassis so perhaps it won't permit that.

In the kexts I found some information in the plist file that mentions an activation process but not being a coder I cant tell if there is an easy way to circumvent the activation

I called astek and while they have it up for anyone to use free, they on longer provide ANY support, the coders that designed it moved on and they claim the no longer have the repositories or anything.. so it is AS-IS.

perhaps someone smarter than me here can figure it out!

A3DRV-HBA Legacy - Obsoleted, No Support - Astek Corporation

 

Apple Hardware

• Intel based MacPro (all models) with at least one PCI-Express slot available
• Intel based MacBook, iMac, MacMini systems with Thunderbolt external enclosures†

Processors/Kernels

• Intel x86 (32-bit) and Intel x86_64 (64-bit)

LSISAS Cards

• LSI SAS 9200-8e, 8 ports external, PCIe 2.0
• LSI SAS 9201-16e, 16 ports external, PCIe 2.0
• LSI SAS 9202-16e, 16 ports external, PCIe 2.0
• LSI SAS 9205-8e, 8 ports external, PCIe 2.0 (best for SSDs)
• LSI SAS 9207-8e. 8 ports external PCIe 3.0
• LSI SAS 9207-4i4e, 4 ports external, 4 ports internal, PCIe 3.0

LSISAS Controllers

• LSISAS2008
• LSISAS2116
• LSISAS2308

Firmware Features

• Integrated RAID0/1/10◊

[jfive]

perhaps someone smarter than me here can figure it out!

 

 

Please begin a new thread for your project since this has gone too far off topic.

[StoneTemplePilots]

 

the Astek site claims that without a license (which they no longer sell) and using it on a non Astek card, it will be 'limited' but it does not say what the limitations are

 

 

I can tell about the limits, only one attached drive is passed-thru, so it's unfortunately pretty useless using the LSI 9211-8i in single drive mode using the astek driver.

[TheMacMini09]

I can tell about the limits, only one attached drive is passed-thru, so it's unfortunately pretty useless using the LSI 9211-8i in single drive mode using the astek driver.

 

I contacted their support, and I was just informed that the licensing server for the driver was decommissioned years ago, so it's essentially impossible to use unless someone were to break the license check.

[z_may]

Hi there!

 

I've tried so far this kext with my lsi 9361--4i, but no luck. Kext is loading, but "dmesg | grep SAS" gives me nothing, as well as

 

bash-3.2# mfiutil show config

mfiutil: mfi_open: No such file or directory .

Is my card just not supported or is the driver not properly installed?

[bosica]

Hi all,

 

i have been studying and following this thread for some time since release of 10.9,  very excited to know that somone able to runa raid card on a osx platform

but i am afraid to ask some "silly  questions " to annoy someone.

also, i need time to search for a good platform able to match with a real Mac Pro

Finally some moths ago i got a use HP Z600 on a good deal, seem to be fast enough and allow me to invest more on hardware (include LSI raid card)

 

Therefore my question will be :-

 

1) Currently i am interested in LSI 9280-8e 6Gb SAS RAID

 

According to dukzcry's list (92xx) is this card was supported should be able to run the SASMegaRAID.kext in 10.10 Yosemite?

 

2) Installation process by putting this kext into S/L/E using kext wizard,  repair permission and rebuilt cache, add a boot flag of "kext-dev-mode=1" ? if not,  please shown me a proper procedure

 

3) i am quite concern about the on-going development of this kext. Currently i understand this kext can run under  10.10, but if this kext possible to run on 10.11?

 

Currently my HP Z600 running all of the HD  using a OEM LSI 3442E served as a HBA only using Fusion MPT

 

Thx all i need to know if anyone can answer my "Silly Questions" will be greatly appreciated

 

Regards

[jfive]

1) Currently i am interested in LSI 9280-8e 6Gb SAS RAID

 

According to dukzcry's list (92xx) is this card was supported should be able to run the SASMegaRAID.kext in 10.10 Yosemite?

 

2) Installation process by putting this kext into S/L/E using kext wizard,  repair permission and rebuilt cache, add a boot flag of "kext-dev-mode=1" ? if not,  please shown me a proper procedure

 

3) i am quite concern about the on-going development of this kext. Currently i understand this kext can run under  10.10, but if this kext possible to run on 10.11?

 

You aren't annoying any one by asking questions, this is a forum. =)

 

1) Yes to the card and yes to Yosemite. However, if you desire a PCI card with external storage, you must know that the backplane within the external drive enclosure is very likely to NOT work with the kext. So using an external disk enclosure really isn't an option. (I can only affirm the results from my experiences haven proven this to be true.)

 

---- The GOOD news is that you can get an external box that is completely passive.

-------- SFF-8088 to 4xSATA Link: https://amzn.com/B013G4EX9K

-------- Passive External Enclosure Link: https://amzn.com/B00DGZ42SM

 

 

2) Correct. You cannot repair permissions from the Disk Utility app in 10.11. You can either of the following methods, both yield the same result. Be patient during the process.

 

A) Use the Disk Utility app by booting to the recovery partition. Hold CMD+R during boot.

 

From the Terminal command line.

 

- To Verify Permissions (You will be prompted to enter the user/admin password)

sudo /usr/libexec/repair_packages --verify --standard-pkgs /

- To Repair Permissions

sudo /usr/libexec/repair_packages --repair --standard-pkgs --volume /

3) My Dell PERC H700 (LSI 9280-i) is still functioning on 10.11.6 El Capitan with the latest security update released last week. It ran without any issues on Yosemite. macOS Sierra will be released very soon. I'll try to upgrade and report back about the functionality of this kext as soon Sierra is released.

[bosica]

thx jfive that's useful info. that i need. 

 

also i discover that the mega raid kext somehow evolved into a standard installer package, but i will try it anyway.

 

P.S. idea of using a "Major Brand SAS Backplate" had cross my mind somewhat

 

Over here in Southeast Asia i can get some good deal on retired enterprise grade SAS hardware (IBM, HP, Dell etc) However, those components were always stripped into parts ( i.e.  backplates/ outer shell / HD trays / Connection Cables / power supply etc.),

You have to pick them up smartly, not to mention reliability / functionally issue. Therefore, looking for a 4 bay SAS /Sata HD cage in the future seem to be logical choice

It seem that all these brands seem to be implants some kind of "firmware restrictions" into their products to make them "exclusive"

 

 

Moreover, may i ask how did U power up the external HD cage? using a AT/ATX power supply?

 

Regards

[jfive]

It seem that all these brands seem to be implants some kind of "firmware restrictions" into their products to make them "exclusive"

 

Moreover, may i ask how did U power up the external HD cage? using a AT/ATX power supply?

 

 

Yes, most enterprise equipment is locked in order to ease manufacturing, sales and support-which they SHOULD do. You don't want to support (or build) a Dell box with an HP mobo, a Sun processor, an IBM RAID card, and Corsair power supply.

 

Made a rig for a friend of mine. The ATX power supply is modular and I made a custom cable with Belden wire and Molex pins and connector housings. It looks similar to this cable (LINK), but much longer.

 

BTW, the longest SFF-8088/8080/8484 to SATA/mini-SAS you'll find is one meter. If you do find one longer, you probably shouldn't use it. High Point and Tripp Lite are good brands but you could scavenge one easily. I know I have. ;-)

[iTTT]

good day all,

 

upgrade my osx from 10.11.6 to 10.12 macos sierra, and now my LSi-9260-8i works but my macos cannot sleep anymore.

 

any fix driver ?

[b.m]

Hello,

 

How can I load the SAS MegaRaid driver by Dukzcry in El Capitan? I constantly get This computer doesn't contain any Parallel SCSI devices in System Report. The process to disable the driver signing in Yosemite is easily done and the card recognized. 

More details on the problem. I have LSI 9261-8i raid controller in Mac Pro 1.1 with El Capitan. By entering the Recovery HD I followed the procedure of driver signing off. As a result I have the card not detected.

Any clue, advices are highly appreciated.

 

Thanks!

[DrLechter]

I have Clover booting from a USB stick.   Unfortunately, it does not see any of the virtual disks I have under my LSI 9265-8i RAID controller.  I am hoping the SASMegaRAID kext will help.  

 

I'm not sure how to add the kext to Clover. Kext Wizard won't run under Lion which is the only OS X I have available.  

 

Can anyone please tell me how to manually add the kext to Clover?

 

Thanks!

[jfive]

How can I load the SAS MegaRaid driver...

Did you run the installer package? Did you go into system preferences, Security & Privacy and enable "allow applications downloaded from: Anywhere?"

 

DrLechter, you shouldn't need to use Clover. Just run the installer package from OP once you get the OS installed. I can't give insight about constantly booting from USB.

 

 

.... but my macos cannot sleep anymore.

 

any fix driver ?

Wrong thread. Sounds like a DSDT issue.