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You won't be able to boot without this mistery-file if your BIOS (server) does not offer to boot directly into a UEFI-console (took me 5.5 hrs to understand this).
LSI SAS 9211-8i PCI Express to 6Gb/s SAS Host Bus Adapter
Booting went super fast now that detection is skipped! However there was an error message in the early stages of the Freenas BSD bootloader, saying that it couldn't detect one of my ZFS pools (the one that was half on/half off this HBA) - because the BIOS had not loaded the Option ROM nor had Freenas loaded the mps0 driver in at that point. I don't think this matters for my use case, but I'm curious if you can force the mps driver to load in /boot/loader.conf and then still gptZFSboot off the pools on the HBA in that way. I also know from the past, that hotswap in the Same Slots also does not register enough to work right.
So it seems like an even later BIOS version than the one I currently have is included in the firmware... I didn't do a full research but I understood that basically those connectors are just like a "1:n"-plug for HDDs/SSDs/whatever. So far I'm very happy with the performance of the card but I haven't done any hard reliability tests yet (e.g. extract a "live" drive and see how the others behave). For the next part of this mini-series, we’ll take a look at power consumption of each controller. Power consumption is a very important buying criteria for those wanting to keep their machines on 24/7 while not driving up the power bills. My current configuration: motherboard DFI HR100-CRM, i5-2510E 2.5GHz, 16 Gb RAM, FreeNAS 9.10 on 8 Gb CF card, 8 x 4Tb Seagate ST4000DM000 HDD.15, RAIDZ2, case Silverstone DS-380, Power Supply 450W Silverstone ST45SF-G.
Convert LSI 9211-8i HBA card to IT mode - nguvu.org Convert LSI 9211-8i HBA card to IT mode - nguvu.org
It was since a couple of years that I didn't have a look at this kind of hardware and I initially had to accept the fact that nowadays basically only Highpoint (at least in Switzerland) offers PCIE cards that have "normal" SATA-connectors/plugs attached directly to the cards.c) create the iso cd or the bootable images depending the boot device you want use: Virtual Media, usb key or portable cd. It is no secret that the LSI 1068e controller was one of, if not the most widely supported SAS controllers around but 3.0gbps serial interconnects have given way to 6.0gbps interconnects. Unlike the LSI 1068e based parts, support for things like 3TB drives is much better on 6.0gbps parts to the point where I have yet to encounter an issue. The LSI 9211-8i is a relatively inexpensive low-profile controller with no cache but that can do RAID levels 0, 1 and 10 on its eight 6.0gbps ports. Now, plug the USB drive into your computer. Install the LSI SAS 9211-8i card in the PICe8 slot, and start your PC. Once your system boots, choose UEFI boot device from the boot menu. You should see the rEFInd boot menu. Now select the EFI shell.
LSI SAS 9211-8i on Motherboards - TFiR Easiest Way To Flash LSI SAS 9211-8i on Motherboards - TFiR
The problem was how to flash the card for your motherboards. Unlike what Linus Tech Tips suggests, it doesn’t matter which motherboard you have. What matters is that you need access to an EFI shell where you can easily run some command to change the mode and flash the card. It seems, that some bios recognized that the card was not anymore an H200 but it is changed to the another card. If you want to keep using the IR-mode and are happy with the firmware's version then you don't have to do anything. Disclaimer & warning
Bad Move, Microsoft...
Looking for a better controller I’ve learned the popular LSI 9211-8i, which is optimal for my setup as well (8xHDD). The only disadvantage of the card is the IR firmware, which shall be overwritten at home by the IT version. People out there claimed with a lot of frustration attempting to overwrite the firmware. My experience has confirmed this and after a week of try-and-error, ending in success I've thought to share my experience. Once the installation is complete, cd to EFI directory of the USB drive. Then create a folder called ‘tools’ # mkdir tools
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