Is this the best counterfeit LSI HBA? | Tips to avoid fake LSI SAS controller cards
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- Опубліковано 31 лип 2024
- While flashing some IBM M1015 9220-8i MegaRAID cards to LSI IT mode, I came across what is probably the best counterfeit LSI HBA card I've seen after having sold thousands of these cards. In this video, I'll share with you what I found and some tips on what to look out for to avoid fake LSI HBA cards.
To shop for genuine LSI HBA cards, checkout the IT mode HBA SAS controller section of my store here: ebay.to/3l4xlch
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The eBay links in this video description are eBay partner affiliate links. By using these links to shop on eBay, you support my channel, at no additional cost to you. Even if you do not buy from the ART OF SERVER eBay store, any purchases you make on eBay via these links, will help support my channel. Please consider using them for your eBay shopping. Thank you for all your support! :-) - Наука та технологія
The counterfeit seems better than the IBM. Ports labelled correctly. Dual LEDs. All my counterfeit cards seem to be made in Malaysia. They work fine though.
Nice to see them side by side. Thanks for your time and effort.
Thanks for watching!
glad to see you back, excellent video :)
Thanks Unkyjoe! :-)
Welcome back good to see you
Thanks for the welcome back! :-)
Good to see you back :) Hope all is well in your world.
Thanks for the welcome back!
Finally... Welcome back!
Thank you! :-)
crazy to have the parts and the machines and skills to make counterfeits to this level is insane
I suspect the same factories that make the items for Broadcom/LSI probably just make more of these things on the side using less quality components, like the thinner heatsink.
Hi there,
good to have you back.
greetings from germany
Thanks for the welcome back!
Excellent video. Your attention to detail is amazing. You found so many tiny differences. However all the tiny differences could have legitimate reasons and be caused by LSI manufacturing changes. But the one point you make, which definitely convinced me, that this card is counterfeit: the different fonts on the labels. This cannot come from LSI as it just looks unprofessional to have such randomness on a product made by a top brand. Thanks for being so thorough and raising so many great points. In the end you caught one and its very helpful to see your analysis!!!
Thanks! Hope this was helpful!
@@ArtofServerYes very helpful. Also your video on testing 4Kn drives. However, my experience was different to yours: I tested a Seagate 4TB 4Kn drive and although the SAS adapter reported correct size, the disks were not presented to the OS. I tried this on 2 cards with LSI 2008 (9211-8i) chipset and 1 card with LSI 2308 (9217-4i4e) chipset, all flashed into IT-Mode. Do you have any suggestions why?
the solder mask (green overlay on the pcb) can be different shades as they may use different bare pcb manufactorers depending on pricing. Even different lots from the same PCB MFG can be different shades. The best thing to look for is lack of ground vias in the counterfeit along with cheap chinese capacitors instead of better japanese ones
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
nice you are back 🖐🏻
Thanks for the welcome back! :-) It's good to be uploading videos again.
I have a counterfeit which has both LEDs, has the ports labeled in the proper order for IT mode and is a different font size without the white background, and lastly the raid key header isn't present.
The heatsink appears to be a few mm short but it does have similar spacing and the straight cut left tab.
The pcb does appear to be of similar finish to one I purchased from AoS.
Thankfully, this counterfeit seems to be reliable as I've had it running since the end of 2019 with no issues.
thanks great! :-)
I had a 9311-8i with 100% LSI silkscreening that wouldn't take LSI firmware - I suspected a fake - turns out it was an Oracle FRU with no Oracle P/Ns or any indication otherwise. The Oracle specific firmware worked flawlessly. Long story short is that hundreds of thousands of these cards were made for OEM and vendors alike - sometimes with no indication. The market is flooded with these - plus fakes - making it almost impossible to determine definitively which are genuine. The good news is that (barring obvious poorly made one's) most of the fakes perform as designed. These is no OEM warranty either way from the OEM for the secondary market so no a huge deal.
@7:09 reading the M1015 user guide from the ibm web site, page 3-2 connector diagram, J4 (left) is listed as ports 0-3 and J5 (right) is listed as ports 4-7. Product photo sheets show it the same way, i suspect if you take the stickers off you'll see silkscreening showing the official hardware port order. The IBM product pictures also show non shiny finish.
Looks like the counterfeit board did a better job.
Oh wow it has been a while! how have you been?
And great to see someone looking out for us thank you!
Btw what would be the best way to contact you with a question/request?
Thanks for the welcome back! It's been crazy over here and finally finding time to do videos again. Try my email... that's probably best way to chat about tech stuff privately.
LEDs are programmable by firmware...I don't care if it's counterfeit or a clone as long as it works and is firmware compatible with original
I'm not sure why the port activity LEDs were amber. Usually, that's an indicator of a problem on the SAS port, but when I tested the card it didn't seem to have any problems on the SAS lanes. Sometimes counterfeits or "aftermarket" clones can be better than the original. In those cases, I wouldn't hesitate to use them... I use to spend time modifying cars, and there were a lot of aftermarket options that were often better than the original factory part. However, in this case, it looks like the counterfeiters cheaped out and used a smaller heatsink. So, it makes me wonder if they also cheaped out on SMD components? In this case, I wouldn't recommend the counterfeit, but that's just my opinion.
@@ArtofServer have you tried flashing it with oem firmware to see if it changes LED behavior? Yes they can be made with subgrade components
Are the microcontrollers different? I'm making the comment half way through the videos.
@@paulloveless4122 unlikely
oh wow, i didn't know counterfeit cards were this common. I bought a cheap LSI 9200-8i in 2020. No clue if its counterfeit or not, luckily mines is still working and has been running 24/7 since the day I bought it.
It would be interesting to compare benchmarks between the two.
That might be interesting, but I don't think the LSI SAS2008 chip was different, so I would expect the same level of performance. My main concern is long term reliability with these counterfeits as can be seen, corners were cut. And those were only the ones that were easily identified. If they were willing to save 50 cents off the heatsink, did they do the same for other SMD components?
@@ArtofServer Did they? One has 9mm heatsink with 22 fins, the other has 7.5mm heatsink with 26 fins. Surface delta is about 0.1mm/fin. I would be more worried about the front plate. Original has perforated plate that allows (in some tight configurations) air to actually reach the heatsink, the other one is solid. I recently bought HP H220, and I wasn't even thinking about counterfeits, but when I was searching for what model to buy, I was just ignoring anything with a solid mounting plate.
@@kharkin0 i have a dell original h710 that came factory installed with a solid bracked.... bought a perforated one to make sure some airflow is possible in the R820
@@markvanloon Oh, I'm not saying that solid bracket is a definite fake. It's more like if you're worried about longevity of the card (especially in a 1u chassis), every bit of ventilation helps. And in some instances even a fake card with a decent cooling can outlive an original card without it.
nice one thanks
Thanks for watching!
so looking on an ebay/similar listing, the port furthest from the controller labelled port0 is bad, and the raid connector looking more like a 2 pin fan header? oh, and less shiny?
Thank you :)
You're welcome!
Interesting. I’ve never been in a position to check this, but is the weight the same between the real and counterfeit? I wonder if sometimes the reason for using different heatsinks and case brackets depends on how close to the original PCB weight can be achieved. Just reminds me of how some power supplies made of cheap components sometimes had weights added inside to make it seem like a quality product 😅
That's interesting about the fake PSUs... never heard that before! That would have been an interesting thing to check out, but I no longer have the suspected counterfeit cards.
brand new server from dell, sealed and shipped right from wholesaler's warehouse came with the "fake" card. I'm almost sure that it's only a more recent revision instead of a fake one.
This same card? because that wouldn't make much sense to get a brand new sealed Dell server that has an IBM card in it. Isn't that bit unusual? If it was a part Dell sold with a Dell server, it should have a Dell P/N, not an IBM FRU number like this card.
@@ArtofServer I'm sure it came from a brand new server and was switched with a different requested by a customer. I dont remember having bought ibm servers in the last year, mainly dell and fujitsu, thats why i wrote Dell server, but you're right it should have been an ibm.
Uhm..you made me think..how come i got that card in a server bought in 2019 ? Isn't it a bit old for a new server?
Yeah... That too. Lol
Hey nice to see your videos again. Is it possible to test the real and the fake cards? I mean if the components are similar maybe there is not much difference between both
Thanks for the welcome back. :-) I did test the card, and it functions normally. My main concern is more about long term reliability. Considering they cut the heatsink by 25%, what else did they cut corners on? And how does that affect long term reliability? Smaller heatsink might mean more thermal stress over time on the SAS2008 chip.
@Art of Server I feel you, thermal stress is a real problem, even more, when you have a 24*7 environment. Thanks for the insight
I think you might be wrong on this. I suspect that the card you feel is counterfeit is more likely assembled on a licensed manufactured PCB. There is one silicon foundry in Malaysia that I know of that has an LSI license deal to produce PCBs for LSI products. The company “Wafer Technology” in Malaysia paid LSI $120 Million for the license, with LSI also gaining equity in the foundry. The deal made in 2001 guaranteed LSI capacity, though this was not expected to exceed 50% of the PCBs used by LSI.
In the process of producing the cards, the PCB will be labeled at manufacture in Malaysia, and then once assembled in Thailand, labeled with additional information pertaining to the assembly and components used. In a sense, you actually explain this in your own video, just don’t get into the difference between manufactured and assembled.
I could be wrong. I certainly don't claim to have all the information here and so to an extent this is speculation. However, the 9220-8i cards were specifically made for IBM servers, known as ServeRAID M1015 cards in the IBM world. These were only ever sold with MegaRAID firmware, and so the port labeling would be incorrect and in reverse. IBM never sold this card with IT mode firmware (where the port labeling would be correct). So, although what you're saying could explain the conflicting manufactured/assembled difference, it doesn't explain the other differences like mislabeled ports, thinner heatsink, etc. All the points taken together still make me suspect this is counterfeit.
@@ArtofServer Good points. So whilst you might be wrong, you might also be right!
Avago, Broadcom and rework companies are stationed in Penang Malaysia.
That's good to know! Thanks for sharing!
Can you please do a follow up video of performance and physically removing the heat sink to see if the chips were the same?
No longer have that card.
thank you! will you describe your chia experiments?
No, sorry, I will not be involved with Chia related stuff.
Yeah, let's test the functionality !
I did test the card. The I/O function is the same as a genuine one, other than the amber activity LED not functioning normally. The concern is really about the long term reliability considering they cut the heatsink by 25%, what other corners did they cut?
Is there any chance that maybe one of them is early revision? It's quite common for parts. Because I don't think people would counterfeit a card so thoroughly. Maybe we can ask LSI about this?
Well, since we don't have any definitive information (like a counterfeiter's confession video LOL), there's always a chance my suspicions are wrong. However, the aggregate of all the "suspicious" things I pointed out in this video I think makes that chance pretty small. But this is speculation in lieu of anything definitive.
Just ordered a card from you..... I almost got a fake one from a guy.. thanks for the heads up.
Thanks for your support of my store! :-)
If possible can you take the heat sink off the fake ? LSI adds codes to the heat spreader on the main chip and just thinking if its the an identical SOC and if all the info on the SOC is identical to the real thing.
The LSI SAS2008 cards usually have a thermal epoxy that glues the heatsink to the chip, making it very difficult to remove, and have a high risk of damaging the BGA solder joints if you try to pry on it too much. But I agree with you, that would really interesting to investigate, although I no longer have that card.
I may have purchased a counterfeit LSI card that is coming... I will still try it out though.
Not long ago I did buy a counterfeit Intel network card, and that one worked very well for years, so I may be okay.
It did die in the end though, but it could be a system pull that have served for years, so I cannot say it would be bad or not in terms of lifetime expectancy.
that's good information. yeah, i'm not sure how poorly the counterfeits will perform. there's not a lot of data on how these counterfeits perform out in the wild, so your experience is interesting. thanks for watching!
@@ArtofServer The price was cheap, and the bundle of cables alone was worth the price.
Especially seeing as it seems like those SATA breakout cables aren't too easy to come across and even you were sold out :D
@@CMDRSweeper I just bought the same counterfeit card + cable bundle, will report back on how it runs!
Can you test both in system, like the throughput and error rates?
I did test the counterfeit card, but not in comparison with the genuine card. In general, it functions the same as I believe the LSI SAS2008 chip is identical. My real functional concern about these counterfeits is really more about their long term reliability. The thinner heatsink might mean more thermal stress on the components.
Could the company that makes the controller for IBM got a batch of pcb that did not meet IBM standards. And instead of disposing of them they used cheaper components and sold them on eBay?
I can only speculate, but I don't think we'll know for sure.
Does it work?
Interesting vid, did you find out what it was originally? And if so can you flash back to original for the shits and giggles 🤣
I think it was originally a counterfeit copy of the IBM M1015, but it was made for use with IT mode firmware likely... that's my guess as to why the port number was reversed.
are you absolutuly sure the same thing was not legally ordered to make / assemble in different suppliers and in different times.
I don't think we have enough information here to really talk in "absolute" terms. But there are certainly a lot of indicators here that are very suspicious. This M1015/9220-8i was ordered by IBM for their servers, and they definitely would not have ordered it with the port numbers in reverse since IBM only ever offered this card with MegaRAID firmware and never with IT mode firmware. But, could there have been a very rare IBM special project for a special customer? Who knows... that could be possible, but then why would IBM order it with a 25% reduced heatsink? If it was just one or two of the suspicious factors taken individually, one could give the benefit of the doubt, but collectively, all the suspicious factors point towards my suspicion as explained in the video.
Looks like the counterfeit card doesn’t have a vented bracket.
Yes, that's true. Good observation. At least, the brackets are easy to change.
did you test it? are you just blocking competitors
I did test the card and it did seem to function other than the weirdness mentioned in the video about activity LED misbehaving. I did not test it long term.
Not sure what you mean by "blocking competitors"? How? and who?
The text on the counterfeit card looks rastered. Less crisp.
yeah, you could be right...
@@ArtofServer I bought a LSI card from your store for my unraid server a year ago and it's been working fantastic. Your videos made it really easy to get into a new line of server hardware that I wasn't familiar with at the time. Thanks for all the great information.
@@anakin513 thanks for your support!
Doesnt look counterfeit to me. Looks like licensed 2nd source fab.
The 2nd source fab did a really poor job then... since labeled the ports backwards to what IBM would want for their M1015 9220-8i MegaRAID firmware needs.