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Created August 2, 2024 22:55
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lenovo_430-x_hba_firmware_BIOS_update.md

Lenovo 430-x HBA Firmware/BIOS Update

What?

Guide on how to update the firmware and BIOS of a Lenovo ThinkSystem 430-x SAS/SATA 12Gb HBA.

References

Steps

  1. Download the latest STORCLI utility for LSI SAS3.5 Controllers per the reference above.
  2. Download the latest HBA (Windows) driver package per the reference above.
  3. Extract the packages to a folder on your local (Windows) machine.
  4. Copy the relevant files to a FAT32 formatted USB, for example:
    • storcli.efi
    • 16i_24_00_07_00.fw
    • mpt35sas_x64_24_00_05_00.rom
    • mpt35sas_legacy_9_47_03_00.rom
  5. Boot to the USB via EFI shell.
  6. Identify the relevant (cX) HBA: 
    storcli.efi show all
  7. Confirm the relevant HBA: 
    storcli.efi /c0 show
  8. Backup STORCLI output to the USB: 
    storcli.efi /c0 show all > backup\output.txt
  9. Backup current controller bios, firmware etc. to the USB: 
    storcli.efi /c0 get bios file=backup\bios
storcli.efi /c0 get firmware file=backup\firmware
storcli.efi /c0 get mpb file=backup\mpb
storcli.efi /c0 get fwbackup file=backup\fwbackup
storcli.efi /c0 get nvdata file=backup\nvdata
storcli.efi /c0 get flash file=backup\flash
  10. Update the firmware: 
    storcli.efi /c0 download file=16i_24_00_07_00.fw
  11. Update the EFI BIOS: 
    storcli.efi /c0 download efibios file=mpt35sas_x64_24_00_05_00.rom
  12. Update the BIOS: 
    storcli.efi /c0 download bios file=mpt35sas_legacy_9_47_03_00.rom
  13. Check HBA versions have updated: 
    storcli.efi /c0 show
  14. Power cycle the machine.
@ForsakenRei
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I dont believe that it is officially supported to do nvme over the card, but it seems to be the same model. They look exactly the same, at least. I think you could enable it by using the mixed profile version. You really shouldn't be trying to do nvme over these if you are planning on using nvme drives, as these are awful to put a drive behind. If at all posible, avoid using these with nvme drives.

@WarmWelcome The 9400 series cards from Broadcom/LSI are tri-mode cards with full NVMe drive support. Any reason why one should avoid running NVMe drives with this car? Or what do you refer to by "putting a drive behind"?

LSI 9400 yes everything is supported, while Lenovo 430 shared the same hardware, they use their own firmware to disable NVMe drive support. But since it's the same hardware you can cross flash the firmware to enble that.
Because this card is only x8, 2 NVMe SSDs' bandwidth, so if you purely use NVMe SSDs you will lose performance, but if you have SAS SSDs or performance is not the top priority, you can definitly put NVMe SSDs on this card.

@glaserf
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glaserf commented Aug 28, 2025 •
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LSI 9400 yes everything is supported, while Lenovo 430 shared the same hardware, they use their own firmware to disable NVMe drive support. But since it's the same hardware you can cross flash the firmware to enble that. Because this card is only x8, 2 NVMe SSDs' bandwidth, so if you purely use NVMe SSDs you will lose performance, but if you have SAS SSDs or performance is not the top priority, you can definitly put NVMe SSDs on this card.

Thanks for the clarification. Yes I was going for a mixed SATA/NVMe config and anyways have a BW limit of 10Gb/s imposed by my NIC, so x8 PCIe 3.0 lanes are way more than that and I can never use the full BW of the card anyways (which is almost 8GB/s or 64Gb/s, more than 6x faster than my NIC..).

@glaserf
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glaserf commented Aug 28, 2025 •
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@dgaglioni

As I stated above you need to connect the NVMEs with a compatible cable, these cards do not work with generic SFF8643 to SFF8639 cables due to Broadcom proprietary cable, anyway you can buy a compatible one on Aliexpress, link on my comment above:

https://gist.github.com/buswedg/f94a7978b07c1976e81e6d456ec37853?permalink_comment_id=5208888#gistcomment-5208888

Broadcom genuine: 05-50064-00 or 05-50065-00

https://docs.broadcom.com/doc/12354774

Do you have any clue if a SFF8643-to-SFF8643 cable connecting the card to an SFF8643-to-M.2 breakout board like these would work?

@webermar
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@dgaglioni

As I stated above you need to connect the NVMEs with a compatible cable, these cards do not work with generic SFF8643 to SFF8639 cables due to Broadcom proprietary cable, anyway you can buy a compatible one on Aliexpress, link on my comment above:
https://gist.github.com/buswedg/f94a7978b07c1976e81e6d456ec37853?permalink_comment_id=5208888#gistcomment-5208888
Broadcom genuine: 05-50064-00 or 05-50065-00
https://docs.broadcom.com/doc/12354774

Do you have any clue if a SFF8643-to-SFF8643 cable connecting the card to an SFF8643-to-M.2 breakout board like these would work?

Yeah sadly they do not work. I tried with a similar board. I don't know what it is, but something special is with the official cables, that generic cables and adapter/boards don't have. Maybe just some rearranged pins of the PCIe lanes? Would be nice if someone can reverse engineer this.

@glaserf
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glaserf commented Aug 29, 2025

@webermar

Yeah sadly they do not work. I tried with a similar board. I don't know what it is, but something special is with the official cables, that generic cables and adapter/boards don't have. Maybe just some rearranged pins of the PCIe lanes? Would be nice if someone can reverse engineer this.

Hmm snap! How about a combination of a "special" SFF8643-to-U.2 and a U.2-to-M.2 adapter?
Edit: Found one that was used in a LTT video: https://www.startech.com/en-ch/hdd/u2m2e125

But yeah, buying a regular and a special to-U.2 cable and comparing them shouldn't be that hard I guess..

@webermar
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@webermar

Yeah sadly they do not work. I tried with a similar board. I don't know what it is, but something special is with the official cables, that generic cables and adapter/boards don't have. Maybe just some rearranged pins of the PCIe lanes? Would be nice if someone can reverse engineer this.

Hmm snap! How about a combination of a "special" SFF8643-to-U.2 and a U.2-to-M.2 adapter? Edit: Found one that was used in a LTT video: https://www.startech.com/en-ch/hdd/u2m2e125

But yeah, buying a regular and a special to-U.2 cable and comparing them shouldn't be that hard I guess..

Yeah, funny this is exactly the Adapter I used (in combination with a generic cable).

@glaserf
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glaserf commented Aug 30, 2025 •
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Yeah, funny this is exactly the Adapter I used (in combination with a generic cable).

Okay - I‘ll give it a try with the special cable and report :)

@Eagle248
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Yeah, funny this is exactly the Adapter I used (in combination with a generic cable).

Okay - I‘ll give it a try with the special cable and report :)

Can you please share the link to the special cable to connect to nvme?

@Eagle248
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If I do not want nvme support in that case lenovo 430-8i will work fine with ASUS motherboard and seagate sata hard drives with original lenovo firmware?

@glaserf
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glaserf commented Sep 24, 2025

@Eagle248 No, in that case you don't have to do anything. SAS and SATA are always supported. The link to the cable was posted many times here already: https://de.aliexpress.com/item/4000758187693.html?gatewayAdapt=bra2deu

@glaserf
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glaserf commented Sep 24, 2025 •
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@webermar So I bought the adapter cable from Ali and the startech U.2-to-M.2 adapter (from Reichelt), cross-flashed my Lenovo HBA to the newest Broadcom mixed-mode firmware (now showing NVMe as supported mode in storcli) - and NO LUCK with an M.2 NVMe drive :( It simply isn't detected/listed during boot.

Any idea how I can debug this or what else could be going wrong in the U2/M2 adapter? Otherwise I'll have to quit this exercise, buying U.2 drives is pointless as they are stupidly expensive, even used ones on ebay.

@webermar
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webermar commented Sep 24, 2025 •
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@glaserf thank you very much for testing! I got mine from Reichelt, too, I wonder if they have high return rates of this adapter because of this! :D
That's sad to hear, but I stumbled upon the same topic over at servethehome which finally answers the question: https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/broadcom-9500-8i-nvme-u-2-u-3-tri-mode.39426/
Basically, the Ali cable isn't genuine, they did it with u.2 adapters and this is also what I thought what the problem is, because u.2 and m.2 don't differ in protocol, u.2 only provides more lanes (AFAIK!).

In short for all others still reading along:
In the end, it isn't worth it connecting nvme drives with those hbas/raid controllers. Use bifurcation cards with power loss protection drives instead.

@glaserf
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glaserf commented Sep 24, 2025

@webermar Thanks for the link - but I still don't get the explanation part why the Ali adapters don't work to be honest.. What do you mean by "they did with with u.2 adapters" (who is "they", Ali or Broadcom)?

@webermar
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webermar commented Sep 25, 2025 •
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@webermar Thanks for the link - but I still don't get the explanation part why the Ali adapters don't work to be honest.. What do you mean by "they did with with u.2 adapters" (who is "they", Ali or Broadcom)?

Yeah nobody else knows what is special about that cable, too. From images we can infer that it has no active components but they way it connects to the controller must be special.
The people at servthehome did it with u.2 to m.2 adapters. So for me, that confirms the cable is the critical part.

If you look at it it seems there are only genuine cables which connect 2x SAS8643 to 2x U.2. I would speculate that this is for some reason...
https://www.genuinemodules.de/05-50065-00

@glaserf
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glaserf commented Sep 25, 2025 •
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@webermar Thanks for the link - but I still don't get the explanation part why the Ali adapters don't work to be honest.. What do you mean by "they did with with u.2 adapters" (who is "they", Ali or Broadcom)?

Yeah nobody else knows what is special about that cable, too. From images we can infer that it has no active components but they way it connects to the controller must be special. The people at servthehome did it with u.2 to m.2 adapters. So for me, that confirms the cable is the critical part.

Ah okay, got it. Yeah indeed no active components neither in the cable nor the U2/M2 adapter. What all threads in this regard seem to agree on is that the "secret sauce" really is Broadcom somehow mapping NVMe on a connector that can also do SAS/SATA (SFF-8643). For this to work they had to get creative in the pinout, and the special cable "undoes" this. I suspect that this is also the reason that there is no single-SFF-8643 to single-U.2 cable, but only dual-to-dual and each U.2 gets some signals from both of the SFF-8643 connectors.

However, that still does not explain why this darn cable from Ali does not work even though it claims to be Broadcom compatible/special, or why this setup as a whole does not work.
I found this cable from Amazon which looks different compared to the Ali one (and is even cheaper), reluctant to give it a try: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JM1H18S

@webermar

@glaserf
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glaserf commented Sep 25, 2025

If you look at it it seems there are only genuine cables which connect 2x SAS8643 to 2x U.2. I would speculate that this is for some reason... https://www.genuinemodules.de/05-50065-00

Damn.. there's also this https://www.genuinemodules.de/05-50061-00 which further cements our suspicion about the 2x 8643 being necessary. And now I really wonder if these cables work with what I originally had in mind (see above).

@glaserf
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glaserf commented Oct 10, 2025

Well, what should I say?

It bloody works - finally!

Turns out, the cable from Ali was dodgy - who would've thought! Not sure if only mine or they don't work in general, either way it is straight going back and my money refunded.
The cable from Amazon just works, is cheaper, and in general looks like its built with higher quality.

What a journey. Sadly, temperature reporting for the NVMe drive connected to the HBA does not work, as has been mentioned here and elsewhere already. Apart from that, it absolutely fits my use case, given the PCIe limitations of my MoBo/platform.

@webermar

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