One of the most popular server RAID controller chip and HBA controller chip out there is the LSI SAS 2008. The LSI SAS 2008 is a 6.0gbs SAS 2 or SATA III based controller that features eight ports and native PCIe connectivity. In the forums we have maintained a LSI Controller Mapping between LSI controllers and their OEM counterparts. This post will be updated with both information on the LSI SAS 2008, including how to flash cards between IT and IR modes for initiator-target and RAID modes, as well as the different OEM models commonly found in the marketplace. Oftentimes LSI SAS 2008 controllers are less expensive when found as OEM parts from Intel, Dell, HP, IBM, Supermicro and others, so it makes sense in many cases to purchase the OEM versions of the LSI SAS 2008 based cards such as the 9211-8i.
Quick Notes on the LSI SAS 2008
- The RAID controller supports both SAS 2 and SATA III at 6.0gbps
- Approximately 9w of power consumption for common cards
- Single PowerPC core at 533MHz
- No onboard cache
- PCIe 2.0 x8 interface
- Supports SAS expanders (with dual linking)
- Uses sas2flash utility to flash to IT/IR mode (when possible).
Supported HBA Modes
- RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 1E, RAID 10 and Passthrough (non-RAID)
Supported RAID Modes
- RAID 0, RAID1, RAID 10, RAID 5, RAID 50 and JBOD
ServeTheHome Guides
- Flashing the IBM ServeRAID M1015 Part 1 (Getting Started)
- Flashing the IBM ServeRAID M1015 Part 2 (Performance)
- Flashing the IBM ServeRAID M1015 Part 3 (SMART Data)
- Flashing the IBM ServeRAID M1015 Part 4 (Cross flashing into IT/ IR mode of the LSI 9211-8i)
Cards Based on the LSI SAS 2008
The following listing is for the RAID Controllers and HBAs based on the LSI SAS 2008 SAS 2 and SATA III RAID controller.
Naming Convention: i=internal port(s), e=external port(s)
LSI original SAS 2008 based controller, all cards are PCIe 2.0 x8 unless otherwise noted.
LSI Logic Cards
LSI9240 series use iMR mode (integrated MegaRaid)
- LSI9240-4i Supports RAIDs 0, 1, 10, 5, 50 and JBOD
- LSI9240-8i Supports RAIDs 0, 1, 10, 5, 50 and JBOD
LSI920x/921x series are LSI HBA / Fusion MPT 2.0 all in IR mode support RAIDs 0, 1, 1e, and 10, IT mode = passthrough only
- LSI9200-8e
- LSI9201-16e SAS2116 version
- LSI9201-16i SAS2116 version
- LSI9202-16e Dual SAS2008 controller using PCIe 16x
- LSI9210-8i OEM version of LSI9211, vertical SAS ports
- LSI9211-4i Horizontal SAS ports
- LSI9211-8i Horizontal SAS ports
- LSI9212-4i4e 1×4 SAS external port and 4x single internal SAS/ SATA 7-pin connectors
IBM SAS HBA’s
- IBM ServeRAID M1015 similar to LSI 9240-8i but the ServeRAID M1015 does not support RAID 5 unless you add the ‘Advanced feature key’ to enable it
- IBM ServeRAID M1115 newer version of the IBM ServeRAID M1015
- IBM 6 Gb Performance Optimized HBA (46M0912) – LSI-9240-8i (SSD enhanced)
- IBM 6 Gb SAS Host Bus Adapter (46M0907) – LSI 9212-4i4e – 4x Internal SAS 2/ SATA III and 1x 4 SAS 2 SFF-8088 external connector.
Dell Cards
- Dell PERC H200 ships with IT firmware but seems similar to the LSI 9211-8i
- Dell Perc H310
Cisco Cards
- Cisco UCSC RAID SAS 2008M-8i
Fujitsu Cards
- Fujitsu D2607 – Rebranded LSI 9211-8i ?
Oracle (Sun) Cards
- SUN SGX-SAS6-EXT-Z (p/n 375-3641) – LSI 9200-8e (external connectors)
- SUN SGX-SAS6-INT-Z (p/n 375-3640) – LSI 9211/10-8i (internal connectors)
Intel RAID Cards
- Intel RS2WC080 looks identical to the LSI 9240-8i and IBM M1015, but supports RAID 5 and RAID 50 like the 9240-8i.
Intel Proprietary PCIe x4 Cards
- Intel RMS2AF040 (Proprietary PCIe 4x)
- Intel RMS2AF080 (Proprietary PCIe 4x) As above but 8 port
Hewlett Packard HBA’s
- HP H220 Host Bus Adapter
- HP H221 Host Bus Adapter (2x External SFF-8088 connectors)
- HP H222 Host Bus Adapter
- HP H220i Host Bus Adapter
- HP H210i Host Bus Adapter
Supermicro Proprietary Format UIO Cards
- SuperMicro AOC-USAS2-L8iR – 9240-8i spec’d but with 16MB cache and RAID 5 but no RAID 1E has IR firmware (UIO Card!)
- SuperMicro AOC-USAS2-L8E – HBA version so most like a 9211-8i has IT firmware (UIO Card!)
- SuperMicro AOC-USAS2-L8i – LSI 9240-8i spec’d no RAID 5 but does have RAID 1E has IR Firmware (UIO Card!)
Lenovo RAID Controllers
- Lenovo 67Y1460 is a barely re-branded LSI 9240-8i.
Feel free to contribute to anything here by posting in the LSI Controller Mapping post. We need community feedback to make this as useful as we can for everyone.
Bookmarked. Great job. Please keep updating.
great resource. thanks for this. are you guys doing other LSI chips like the sas 2108 and 2308 also?
Thanks for this, so many cards based on the LSI 2008 chip, could you show more detail differences of these cards besides the brands? Do they have the same performance or not?
Thanks.
Hi there,
the HP SC08e is a relabelled LSI 9200-8e.
The original labels are still visible on the pcb.
I have a Dell PERC H200 LSI 2008 chip and works a corei7 “Lynnfield” (45 nm) now I have a new intel corei7 Ivy Bridge but not working.
Somebody know if is possible works this card on my intel corei7 Ivy Bridge?
Any one know how to get SATA drives connnect to this controller (9211-8i in IT mode) to show up as removable in Server 2012 R2?
Asus also uses the 2008 SAS controller on the following two cards / Motherboard:
Asus Pike 2008
Asus Pike 2008 / IMR
The second seems like a port of the 9240i. These cards are kind of unique though as they only fit in the Pike slot on select Asus server and worksgation motherboards. The actual SAS or SATA connectors the card uses are also built on to the motherboard and are just unusable until you add in the card. I found it to be a good way to leave room for expansion later on if you are looking for something less expensive in a server build.
Great List by the way. It was exactly what I was looking for.
Hi,
I have an Asrock Extreme 11/AC motherboard. It has an inbuild Lsi sas 2008 controller but i am not sure if it can be flashed to support in IT mode so that I can passthrough it to my windows server 2012 r2 vm on ESXi.
http://asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z87%20Extreme11ac/
Thanks for your feedback.
Ravi
Ravi – it should be. There is lots of information on this topic on the STH forums.
Hi,
I had found the fix for this issue. I did not need to flash it to IT mode to support this. This might help others.
The issue was that the vm was not able to start and then after looking at the vmware.log, I found the cause of this issue.
Issue error : PCIPassthru: 05:00.0 tried to modify MSI-X vectors number 32-32, but maximum supported vector number is 31
KB Fix: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2032981
Regards,
Ravi
Great job.
Wonder which SAS2008 matches with the embedded into TYAN S8236 (S8236WGM3NR) https://www.tyan.com/Motherboards_S8236_S8236WGM3NR .
It’s pretty important to always mention which of those have the 2TB limit.
No mention in this article anywhere.