SAS Controller Problems

I am sure that SAS controller has some sort of configuration screen, like Press CTRL+L or CTRL+I to configure or something similar. Don't you see it? How do you configure it otherwise?

No idea mate will do some digging around see if I can find owt out, I'll report back lol

Back again found out to get to the configure screen for the SAS card when rebooting after the card has finished initializing you can to press ctrl+ m keys which brings up the screen in the image below, no idea what to do in there dose'nt seem like a lot you can do but what the heck do I know lol

https://i.imgur.com/pU95ium.jpg

Assuming you are using a standard desktop PC (not a server) the following may be some guide.

Generally speaking SAS drives need to be initialised using the controller software before the machine will see them. Do this on BIOS startup using whatever key the controller S/W requires. F7 works on Asus boards but your mobo may need something else (F2, F8, F12 may work). Experiment! However, you may need to tap the F key rather than hold it down as this is probably the same key needed to access the HDD boot menu!

Once the controller has been accessed and the drives initialised the machine should restart and the SAS drives should now show up. However, not all SAS controllers allow their drives to be bootable (if you have 2 SAS drives you will probably only be offered either Raid 0 or RAD 1) so although they may show at the boot menu (F7 for Asus) they cannot be used until the machine has started up the O/S. Do not expect to see them in the standard BIOS screen as the only kick in after BIOS has completed its work.

The idea is that the BIOS needs to know about the controller before it will work and I suspect that there is a conflict. i.e the BIOS does its search, finds the SAS controller but does not understand and, essentially, gives up. This may explain why the problem goes away if the SAS drives are disconnected.

If you can provide the make and model of your controller it may help.

A couple of questions/observations:

If you only had the SSD plugged in during install why was AHCI not preset in BIOS set up as per normal.

Can you use the card if absolutely needed without raid? We see nothing but problems here with RAID, enough so that I would move the data off the drives and unRAID them which should let the bios AHCI setting take hold if it is not configurable per the other suggestions.

miket82 said:

Assuming you are using a standard desktop PC (not a server) the following may be some guide.

Generally speaking SAS drives need to be initialised using the controller software before the machine will see them. Do this on BIOS startup using whatever key the controller S/W requires. F7 works on Asus boards but your mobo may need something else (F2, F8, F12 may work). Experiment! However, you may need to tap the F key rather than hold it down as this is probably the same key needed to access the HDD boot menu!

Once the controller has been accessed and the drives initialised the machine should restart and the SAS drives should now show up. However, not all SAS controllers allow their drives to be bootable (if you have 2 SAS drives you will probably only be offered either Raid 0 or RAD 1) so although they may show at the boot menu (F7 for Asus) they cannot be used until the machine has started up the O/S. Do not expect to see them in the standard BIOS screen as the only kick in after BIOS has completed its work.

The idea is that the BIOS needs to know about the controller before it will work and I suspect that there is a conflict. i.e the BIOS does its search, finds the SAS controller but does not understand and, essentially, gives up. This may explain why the problem goes away if the SAS drives are disconnected.

If you can provide the make and model of your controller it may help.

Thanks for that it was very informative, not had chance yet to play with f keys on boot yet the card is a AOC-SASLP-MV8 REV:1.01

gregrocker said:

A couple of questions/observations:

If you only had the SSD plugged in during install why was AHCI not preset in BIOS set up as per normal.

Can you use the card if absolutely needed without raid? We see nothing but problems here with RAID, enough so that I would move the data off the drives and unRAID them which should let the bios AHCI setting take hold if it is not configurable per the other suggestions.

It probably was but I didn't want to risk it and run the risk of mucking the install up as for the raid setup this is my media machine hence the amount of drives just makes it easier for me and it has saved me bacon 2 when drives failed but was able to recover the media.

In that case then I'd definitely unRAID the card because you can lose all data if you lose a single HD. Back up your data now and investigate syncing it in real time.

Remember that i'm using flexraid which restores data to a new drive when you do a swapout, but i still need access to to the sas to be able to connect the 2 drives that i can't attach to sata ports on the motherboard as there all full.

Go here to get the install instructions.

Super Micro Computer, Inc. - Products | Accessories | Add-on Cards | AOC-SASLP-MV8

Follow precisely and hopefully all will work. Good luck.