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MRSAS(4) Kernel Interfaces Manual MRSAS(4) NAME mrsas -- Broadcom/LSI MegaRAID 6/12Gb/s SAS+SATA RAID controller driver SYNOPSIS device pci device mrsas In loader.conf(5): mrsas_load="YES" In sysctl.conf(5): dev.mrsas.X.disable_ocr dev.mrsas.X.fw_outstanding dev.mrsas.X.mrsas_fw_fault_check_delay dev.mrsas.X.mrsas_io_timeout hw.mrsas.X.debug_level DESCRIPTION The mrsas driver will detect Broadcom/LSI's 6Gb/s and 12Gb/s PCI Express SAS/SATA/NVMe RAID controllers. A disk (virtual disk/physical disk) at- tached to the mrsas driver will be visible to the user through camcon- trol(8) as /dev/da? device nodes. A simple management interface is also provided per-controller via the /dev/mrsas? device node. The mrsas name is derived from the phrase "MegaRAID SAS HBA", which is sub- stantially different than the old "MegaRAID" Driver mfi(4) which does not connect targets to the cam(4) layer and thus requires a new driver which attaches targets to the cam(4) layer. Older MegaRAID controllers are sup- ported by mfi(4) and will not work with mrsas, but both the mfi(4) and mrsas drivers can detect and manage the Broadcom/LSI MegaRAID SAS 2208/2308/3008/3108 series of controllers. The device.hints(5) option is provided to tune the mrsas driver's behavior for LSI MegaRAID SAS 2208/2308/3008/3108 controllers. By default, the mfi(4) driver will detect these controllers. See the "PRIORITY" section to know more about driver priority for MR-Fusion devices. mrsas will provide a priority of (-30) (between BUS_PROBE_DEFAULT and BUS_PROBE_LOW_PRIORITY) at probe call for device id's 0x005B, 0x005D, and 0x005F so that mrsas does not take control of these devices without user intervention. Solid-state drives (SSD) get ATA TRIM support with mrsas if underlying adapter allows it. This may require configuring SSD as Non-RAID drive rather then JBOD virtual mode. HARDWARE The mrsas driver supports the following LSI/Broadcom SATA/SAS RAID con- trollers: Controller Chip Speed Broadcom SAS3916 Aero 12Gb/s Broadcom SAS3908 Aero 12Gb/s LSI MegaRAID SAS 9380 Invader/Fury 12Gb/s LSI MegaRAID SAS 9361 Invader/Fury 12Gb/s LSI MegaRAID SAS 9341 Invader/Fury 12Gb/s LSI MegaRAID SAS 9286 Thunderbolt 6Gb/s LSI MegaRAID SAS 9285 Thunderbolt 6Gb/s LSI MegaRAID SAS 9272 Thunderbolt 6Gb/s LSI MegaRAID SAS 9271 Thunderbolt 6Gb/s LSI MegaRAID SAS 9270 Thunderbolt 6Gb/s LSI MegaRAID SAS 9267 Thunderbolt 6Gb/s LSI MegaRAID SAS 9266 Thunderbolt 6Gb/s LSI MegaRAID SAS 9265 Thunderbolt 6Gb/s LSI SAS 3108 12Gb/s LSI SAS 3008 12Gb/s LSI SAS 2308 6Gb/s LSI SAS 2208 6Gb/s DELL PERC H830 Invader/Fury 12Gb/s DELL PERC H810 Thunderbolt 6Gb/s DELL PERC H730/P Invader/Fury 12Gb/s DELL PERC H710/P Thunderbolt 6Gb/s DELL PERC H330 Invader/Fury 12Gb/s Fujitsu D3116 Thunderbolt 6Gb/s CONFIGURATION To disable Online Controller Reset(OCR) for a specific mrsas driver in- stance, set the following tunable value in loader.conf(5): dev.mrsas.X.disable_ocr=1 where X is the adapter number. To change the I/O timeout value for a specific mrsas driver instance, set the following tunable value in loader.conf(5): dev.mrsas.X.mrsas_io_timeout=NNNNNN where NNNNNN is the timeout value in milli-seconds. To change the firmware fault check timer value for a specific mrsas driver instance, set the following tunable value in loader.conf(5): dev.mrsas.X.mrsas_fw_fault_check_delay=NN where NN is the fault check delay value in seconds. The current number of active I/O commands is shown in the dev.mrsas.X.fw_outstanding sysctl(8) variable. DEBUGGING To enable debugging prints from the mrsas driver, set the hw.mrsas.X.debug_level variable, where X is the adapter number, either in loader.conf(5) or via sysctl(8). The following bits have the described ef- fects: 0x01 Enable informational prints. 0x02 Enable tracing prints. 0x04 Enable prints for driver faults. 0x08 Enable prints for OCR and I/O timeout. 0x10 Enable prints for AEN events. PRIORITY The mrsas driver will always set a default (-30) priority in the PCI sub- system for selection of MR-Fusion cards. (It is between BUS_PROBE_DEFAULT and BUS_PROBE_LOW_PRIORITY). MR-Fusion Controllers include all cards with the Device IDs - 0x005B, 0x005D, 0x005F. The mfi(4) driver will set a priority of either BUS_PROBE_DEFAULT or BUS_PROBE_LOW_PRIORITY (depending on the device.hints setting) in the PCI subsystem for selection of MR-Fusion cards. With the above design in place, the mfi(4) driver will attach to a MR-Fusion card given that it has a higher priority than mrsas. Using /boot/device.hints (as mentioned below), the user can provide a pref- erence for the mrsas driver to detect a MR-Fusion card instead of the mfi(4) driver. hw.mfi.mrsas_enable="1" At boot time, the mfi(4) driver will get priority to detect MR-Fusion con- trollers by default. Before changing this default driver selection policy, LSI advises users to understand how the driver selection policy works. LSI's policy is to provide priority to the mfi(4) driver to detect MR-Fu- sion cards, but allow for the ability to choose the mrsas driver to detect MR-Fusion cards. LSI recommends setting hw.mfi.mrsas_enable="0" for customers who are using the older mfi(4) driver and do not want to switch to mrsas. For those us- ing a MR-Fusion controller for the first time, LSI recommends using the mrsas driver and setting hw.mfi.mrsas_enable="1". Changing the default behavior is well tested under most conditions, but un- expected behavior may pop up if more complex and unrealistic operations are executed by switching between the mfi(4) and mrsas drivers for MR-Fusion. Switching drivers is designed to happen only one time. Although multiple switching is possible, it is not recommended. The user should decide from boot which driver they want to use for the MR-Fusion card. The user may see different device names when switching from mfi(4) to mrsas. This behavior works as intended and the user needs to change the fstab(5) entry manually if they are doing any experiments with mfi(4) and mrsas interoperability. FILES /dev/da? array/logical disk interface /dev/mrsas? management interface SEE ALSO cam(4), mfi(4), pci(4), device.hints(5), camcontrol(8) HISTORY The mrsas driver first appeared in FreeBSD 10.1. mfi Driver: mfi(4) is the old FreeBSD driver which started with support for Gen-1 Controllers and was extended to support up to MR-Fusion (Device ID = 0x005B, 0x005D, 0x005F). mrsas Driver: mrsas is the new driver reworked by LSI which supports Thun- derbolt and onward products. The SAS+SATA RAID controller with device id 0x005B is referred to as the Thunderbolt controller throughout this man page. cam aware HBA drivers: FreeBSD has a cam(4) layer which attaches storage devices and provides a common access mechanism to storage controllers and attached devices. The mrsas driver is cam(4) aware and devices associated with mrsas can be seen using camcontrol(8). The mfi(4) driver does not un- derstand the cam(4) layer and it directly associates storage disks to the block layer. Thunderbolt Controller: This is the 6Gb/s MegaRAID HBA card which has de- vice id 0x005B. Invader Controller: This is 12Gb/s MegaRAID HBA card which has device id 0x005D. Fury Controller: This is the 12Gb/s MegaRAID HBA card which has device id 0x005F. AUTHORS The mrsas driver and this manual page were written by Kashyap Desai <Kashyap.Desai@lsi.com>. CAVEATS The mrsas driver exposes devices as /dev/da?, whereas mfi(4) exposes de- vices as /dev/mfid?. mrsas does not support the Linux Emulator Interface, mfiutil(8), or device name aliases for switching drivers without editing fstab(5). FreeBSD ports 15.quarterly January 6, 2026 MRSAS(4)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | HARDWARE | CONFIGURATION | DEBUGGING | PRIORITY | FILES | SEE ALSO | HISTORY | AUTHORS | CAVEATS
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