I obtained an AMI MegaRAID card today. It’s quite slick. Since it’s so hard to find specifications about the card online, I thought I’d publish the information I have found. My particular card is an AMI MegaRAID Express 200, series 466. Dell sold these cards with their PowerEdge 2400 series servers back in 2001 as the PERC2. Both Adaptec and AMI cards were labeled as PERC2 cards. The card I have is an OEM version of the MegaRAID 466.

Some specifications:

AMI MegaRAID Express 200 (Series 466)
PCI Ultra2 LVD RAID Controller
Intel i960 32 bit RISC Processor @ 33 MHz
PCI Bus Master with Burst Data Transfer Rate of 132 MB/sec
Up to 128 MB Cache Using One 72 Pin SIMM Bank
Symbios Logic 53C895 (LVD/SE) SCSI Processor
Supports Ultra2 Speeds of 80 MB per second
Supports up to 15 Devices per Channel
RAID Levels 0, 1, 3, 5, 10, 30 & 50 Supported
Fault Tolerance
SMART (Self Monitoring and Recovery Technology)
I2O (Intelligent Input/Output) Support

I found a PDF with a few pictures and marketing speak, which is essentially what’s written above. (And elsewhere too.)

Its still possible to obtain a firmware update for this card from Dell, if you have the OEM version and are in need. Search on these keywords: SCSI RAID: American Megatrends (AMI) PERC2/SC, Firmware, Multi Language, Multi System, v.3.13, A02. You can also obtain a firmware update from AMI. Select Express 200 - 466 from the product list.

The key sequence is CTRL-M to access the controller’s BIOS at boot time.

If the system hangs after pressing CTRL-M, its likely due to a MegaRAID firmware bug, possibly fixed in 2000. You need to download the latest firmware from AMI, linked above. The fix is not available in the latest firmware release from Dell. Fortunately, you can flash the OEM’d card using AMI’s official firmware releases without any problems at all. I’ve done it twice already.

If after upgrading the firmware you still cannot access the controller’s BIOS, DOS can save you. There is a DOS utility available from AMI that lets you interface with the MegaRAID through a DOS binary which is functionally equivalent to the card’s actual BIOS. You’ll want to download the DOS 6.22 driver from the AMI download Web page linked above. Uncompress it to obtain MEGACONF.EXE, the DOS binary in question.

If you already have logical drives defined and flash your BIOS, the controller’s NVRAM is cleared and you seemingly lose your configuration. To recover, enter the controller BIOS by whatever means available to you, be it regular style or via DOS, and select Configure->Automatic Configuration. It will detect your logical volumes and let you save that information to NVRAM.

If you have any other issues with your MegaRAID, I found a page at SCSI4me (somewhat overpriced) helpful.

I had almost given up all hope, but a random Google search turned up extensive documentation for the card under the AdacSCSI name given it by Gateway Computers. You can download extensive manuals in Adobe’s PDF format with kudos to Gateway. Everything is covered including basic RAID theory, driver installation, cache memory type, including voltage specifics, and jumper settings. You can also find beautiful, full colour pictures of each jumper and an explanation of its purpose.

I’m actually rather curious about the I2C connector, but no explanation is given as to its usage. There’s also a serial port connector, for a custom plug, but no explanation is given. In fact, you need not change any of the jumper settings. The factory defaults are the correct ones for operation, and anything else will likely produce strange effects.

My AMI card has the battery option disabled in the BIOS, although I have a lithium battery on the card. It may be dead.

The card has been supported under Linux for ages. Here’s the megaraid driver loading on my box:

megaraid: found 0x8086:0x1960:bus 0:slot 11:func 1
scsi0:Found MegaRAID controller at 0xf886b000, IRQ:10
megaraid: [3.13:1.43] detected 1 logical drives.
megaraid: channel[0] is raid.
scsi0 : LSI Logic MegaRAID 3.13 254 commands 16 targs 4 chans 7 luns
scsi0: scanning scsi channel 0 for logical drives.
  Vendor: MegaRAID  Model: LD0 RAID1 17278R  Rev: 3.13
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
SCSI device sda: 35385344 512-byte hdwr sectors (18117 MB)
sda: asking for cache data failed
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
 sda: unknown partition table
Attached scsi disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
scsi0: scanning scsi channel 4 [P0] for physical devices.
  Vendor: DELL      Model: 1×2 U2W SCSI BP   Rev: 5.32
  Type:   Processor                          ANSI SCSI revision: 02

And, lspci output:

00:0b.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 80960RP
  [i960 RP Microprocessor/Bridge] (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
      Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64
      Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=02, sec-latency=64
      Memory behind bridge: cfe00000-cfefffff
      Prefetchable memory behind bridge: cf300000-cf3fffff
.
00:0b.1 I2O: Intel Corp. 80960RP [i960RP Microprocessor]
  (rev 03) (prog-if 01)
      Subsystem: Dell Computer Corporation PowerEdge
        Expandable RAID Controller 2/SC
      Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 10
      Memory at cf800000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=4M]
      Expansion ROM at cffe0000 [disabled] [size=32K]