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Cross-flashing-LSI-RAID-cards.md

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Cross-flashing LSI RAID cards

It's widely known that a lot of vendor-branded RAID cards are actually just rebadged LSI cards, and can be cross-flashed to an OEM LSI firmware, for example to turn a RAID card into a HBA (using the LSI IT firmware).

Here I document the cards I personally had success with cross-flashing and the methods I used to do so.

Cross-flashing basics

I mainly followed the guide at Fohdeesha Docs.

He provides two iso images with scripts for different cards. The H310 scripts worked for me for the H310 card. I had to slightly modify the H310 script to get it to work on the IBM M1015.

Dell PERC H310

  • Boot the fohdeesha DOS iso
  • run 'info', write down the SAS address
  • run '310FLCRS' (this will flash a modified LSI SBR with Dell PCI subsystem VID/PID that is required for it to work in a storage slot in a Dell server - otherwise it won't harm anything)
  • power off

This is where I deviated from his guide a bit, but still used his flashing script.

  • mount the fohdeesha linux iso, mount the squashfs under '/live/filesystem.squashfs' and copy '/root' and '/usr/local/bin' from it onto your bootable Linux of choice (I had a SSD ready with Devuan)
  • boot into Linux, cd to the directory where you put the copied files into
  • edit 'bin/H310' and adjust all paths from '/root' to './root'
  • run bin/H310, this will flash SAS2118 IT firmware
  • set SAS address with ./root/sas2flash -o -sasadd <address>
  • (optionally) flash option ROM BIOS images with /root/sas2flash -c 0 -b ./root/Bootloaders/mptsas2.rom -b ./root/Bootloaders/x64sas2.rom

IBM M1015

Same as Dell H310. I haven't tested compatibility with IBM or Dell servers. It might potentially work in a Dell, since the PCI subsystem VID/PID in the SBR are now for the Dell H310. For an IBM, if it doesn't want to boot with these VID/PID, you might need to make and flash your own SBR with IBM's VID/PID. You can find instructions on how to do this here. If your server doesn't complain if it sees a different subsystem VID/PID than its OEM wants (for vendor lock-in), the card otherwise works fine (maybe even in a generic PCIe slot not reserved for the RAID card).

Updating firmware after cross-flashing

Simply use sas2flash.