SAS Expander Card firmware update.

[Benno de Loos]

for a test system I have acquired a HP SAS Expander Card (468406-B21 http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantstorage/arraycontrollers/sas-expander/index.html).
However, it seems to be an older revision with firmware 0.20 that looks like it is not compatible with my Smart Array P410 controller with firmware 2.72 (the SAS Expander Card does not show up in any way or form in the Smart Array Management tools, nor do drives attached to the SAS Expander Card).

The HP Firmware Maintenance CD does also not detect the SAS Expander card and is therefore unable to update the firmware on it.

I've tried connecting the P410 Array Controller and SAS Expander Card with one and two mini SAS cables and also tried both cards in various PCIe slots.

Is there any way to force the SAS Expander Card firmware update from the 0.20 to the current 1.52 or 2.02?

[Johan Guldmyr]

Hi, saw on the site you linked to that the P410 controller needs to have a cache for this to work. Do you have that installed? Maybe that's causing it not to be discovered?

[Benno de Loos]

Thanks for your reply. I have the P410 with 512MB BBWC.

[Johan Guldmyr]

Hi, hmm.. interesting.
Is it not found in BIOS either?

Haven't seen much about this card before, sorry can't help more :/

[Benno de Loos]

a.f.a.i.k. the SAS Expander Card only draws power from the PCIe slot and communicates solely via the array controller through the SAS link(s).
The Smart Array BIOS/ORCA also does not show any sign of the attached SAS Expander Card.

[marcus1234]

which server and which generation

what is current firmware on the server re bios etc
and was smart start 8.6 cd used for firmware updates

[TTr]

You are right that the card has not much intelligence and it draws power only from the PCI bus. However, the question is how is the firmware upgrade gets pushed in to the card? PCI or SAS interfaces?

The expander card is no more than a switch similar to a LAN switch. It switches the 8-ports from the P410/411 to the 24 ports of the disk cages. However there have been issues with its firmware that caused wierd results.

http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1379239

Also did you consider the possibility that the expander card is defective/DOA

[Benno de Loos]

I used the firmware update CD version 8.6, not Smart Start (is there a difference?)
I'm not ruling out the card is defective although it does seem to draw power from the PCIe bus as there are 4 little green LEDs lit and the heatsink on it gets rather hot.