Storage Spaces incorect Bus Type (raid)

Question

We are deploying a new VM server (2022) and were hoping to use Storage spaces (non clustered)

We have an LSI 9300-8e connected to an HGST 60 bay DAS and all Mechanical drives show correctly as SAS.

We then have a Lenovo M5210 in JBOD mode passing SAS SSDs through for a cache tier. the card reports Jbod in Megaraid, Get-Physicaldisk reports SAS, but storage spaces report a raid and won't let them work. The connectors in the x3850 x6 are proprietary so I really don't want to have custom cables made just to change HBA, the cache has been removed from the M5210 (making it just an HBA, only way to force JBOD mode)

I do have the option to move the cache drives to the HGST enclosure but it's designed for 3.5 drives and they would just kinda flop around in there. not m favorite Idea.

This is low-risk data so I don't care about "Microsoft approved" solutions. I just want to edit Bus Type or force Storage spaces to accept Raid disks for the cache.

I have heard of a megaraid driver that fixes this but people don't seem to want to post it.

Answer 1

So the problem is that the Lenovo M5210 uses a LSI 3108 chipset, which is a RAID controller and not an HBA, as such has no means of flashing to 'IT Mode' for straight passthrough of the drives.
While you've forced it into JBOD, it's not HBA mode, and so doesn't provide the full access to the disks that Storage Spaces is expecting.

Your best option is to swap out the M5210 with a Lenovo N2215 SAS/SATA HBA for System x, which has a LSI 3008 HBA Chipset that's fully supported for Storage Spaces. The part number is 47C8675 and looking at ebay, they're ~$150.

And as for not needing 'microsoft approved' solutions, it's not about approval, it's about avoiding pain and suffering later on when doing maintenance and the likes.

Answer 2

Hey,

As mentioned, you would need to have HBA passing through your drives to the host. LSI 3108 can't be flashed to IT Mode, thus the only option is to use supported HBA for S2D. Might be helpful:
https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/resolving-enable-clusters2d-bus-type-support-issue-on-some-storage-controllers

Cheers,

Alex Bykvoskyi

StarWind Software

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