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February 12th, 2022 09:00
Precision T7920 M.2 PCIe SSD (NVMe) Drive not Detected on MegaRAID 9460-16i Controller
I have a T7920 and I am trying to upgrade the boot drives to 2TB NVME drives in a Raid 1. I have added the flex bays, the NVME backplane, the NVME drives and caddies and a Dell MegaRaid 9460-16i card.
The issue:
The Raid card will not recognize the nvme drives.
Here's what I have done to trouble shoot:
- I started with 9440 cards (Have two different cards... neither will see the drives). Found a note that 9440 cards can’t be used for boot so I acquired a 9460. Still not recognized.
- added SATA drives and the 9440 cards will see those
- tried a different flex bay back plane with PCIE board. No luck
- tired different cables, no luck
- tired a different power input from the mother board, no luck (I see the drives are powered)
- changed one of the nvme drive to a different model (no luck)
- Tried different PCIe Slots
- Made sure the card is an an x16 pcie slot
- have set the card profile to 11_PCIe4 (only NVMe drives), no luck
- Plugged the drives directly into the PCIE on the motherboard, they are recognized.
- Pulled one of the NVME drives and put it an external USB sled, connected it to a different machine and it is recognized.
This looks like something to do with the MegaRaid card but I can’t find any info on what I’m missing. The system is out of warranty and Dell doesn’t offer support on specific cards (the megaraid was purchased new from a third party).
Anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance for any help.
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mburke911
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February 24th, 2022 16:00
I can confirm that using 575-BBSP will allow you to setup two NVME drives in a Raid 1 with a MegaRaid 9460-16i and boot from it. If you already have flex bays all you really need is the cable. The cable is part number 04MMDF (at least that's what is marked on the cable) but no one at Dell has been able to find that part.
I hope this saves someone else some time.
Dell on-site tech NewYork
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February 12th, 2022 12:00
Motherboard replace it also in the back of the Modular flex bay check all the contacts on the daughter board ( SAS TO NVME )
mburke911
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February 13th, 2022 13:00
Why replace the motherboard? Are you suggesting that dell has a different motherboard to support the raid add on card. Seems highly unlikely.
the flex bay I have allow the onboard pcie controller to see the drives. When I plug those cables into the raid card it will not see the nvme drives. If I plug a SAta drive into the same flex bay the raid card can see it.
mazzinia_
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February 14th, 2022 02:00
Actually i guess I was wrong, partially
https://docs.broadcom.com/doc/MR-9460-16i-8i-IG100
it mentions you need the right cable enabler , section 6
https://docs.broadcom.com/doc/pub-005851
mazzinia_
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February 14th, 2022 02:00
Hello,
I'm seeing a "small" issue. The nvme backplane for the flexbay does NOT allow to see sata units.... if you are now saying that if you put normal sata drives , you see them in the controller, to me seems that you installed the wrong flexbay kit, probably
Is the kit you installed to convert , the same as in the pic posted by Dell on-site tech NewYork 2 posts above ?
mburke911
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February 16th, 2022 19:00
When I said I added SATA drives I used the SATA drive bay (with the cable connected to the raid card), not the flex bay to make sure that the Raid Card could a drive any drive. IE, To rule out the RAID card was bad. Unfortunately I can't edit the original post.
I have also purchased the Broadcom enabler cable and still cannot see any of the m.2 drives with any of the 3 megaraid cards I am working with.
mburke911
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February 16th, 2022 19:00
The connector is the same but the board looks different.
mazzinia_
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February 17th, 2022 09:00
Thanks for the clarification. But are you sure that there's a single cable enabler ? Because the way they wrote, hints at more than one version.
Have you considered contacting Broadcom support to ask the cable p/n for this specific case, to make sure?
mburke911
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February 17th, 2022 12:00
Thanks for replying, as far as I can tell there is only one part number that should work with the megaraid. It’s this cable
https://www.pc-pitstop.com/055006100-nvme
which looks like what’s described in the Broadcom manual. Still no luck with that cable.
mazzinia_
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February 17th, 2022 14:00
mmm the flexbay goes from oculink to minisas ( so 8611 or 8612 to 8643 that plugs on the mb ) with 2 cables.
https://docs.broadcom.com/doc/12354774
Now I wonder if the solution would be to remove the 2 cables (I assume they are removable ?) given with the flexbay (to plug directly to the mb) and use the 05-50063-00 in that doc, that I guess should plug in the 2 oculink ports on the flexbay backplane
mburke911
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February 17th, 2022 16:00
The cables that came with the flex bay are minSas to Mini-sas. The 05-50063-00 cable has 8654 SlimLine, not the mini-sas on the backplane. They definitely won't plug into the flex bay backplane. attached photo of the backplane connectors. The 05-50061-00 cable fits the plugs and locks in place but the raid doesn't see the drives. It's either the cable, the backplane or some other setting I'm missing. There's zero documentation on how to make this work... Sigh.
Chino de Oro
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February 17th, 2022 16:00
Have you try to connect NVMe flexbay to the motherboard header PCIe0, PCIe1? That way you can verify if the cable is working properly. Dell uses mini-SAS SFF-8643 to U.2 SFF-8639 to connect LSI card to NVMe flexbay.
mburke911
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February 17th, 2022 17:00
I am aware. Thank you for the suggestion. I'm not interested in hybrid raid, really want the megaraid card to work.
Chino de Oro
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February 17th, 2022 17:00
Other lower cost solution is VROC key. But you may lose the cache vault ability.
Chino de Oro
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February 17th, 2022 17:00
If NVMe drives in flexbay are visible when connected to motherboard headers, then the cables are working correctly. If you view the video from my previous post, you will see the SFF-8639 were mounted onto the flexbay and the other end appeared to be SFF-8643 connector routing to the LSI card.
The backplane in your picture appeared to use SFF-8643 cable connector. SFF-8643 to SFF-8643 cables connecting flexbay to LSI is all you need. But I saw all the steps you took for troubleshooting already. Only thing left I could think of is settings. Try VMD disable/enable/auto, PCIe0 and PCIe1. This article may helps.