LSI 9265/9266 CacheCade Pro 2.0 information

The differences in port placement of the 9265 and 9266 are shown in the graphic I created, and in this related, recent article:
TinkerTry.com/x79-lsi-developments-change-vzilla

There's a lot of back and forth going on between LSI support and sales, outlined here:
TinkerTry.com/lsi-9265-8i-firmware-update

All of this LSI info was admittedly far more difficult to find than it should be. Let's hope this will be cleared up once the 9266 card, and the separate CacheCade Pro 2.0/FastPath combination (part #LSI00293), arrive later this month. If the speed and stability turn out to be that all we're hoping for, then these difficulties will likely be quickly forgiven and forgotten

I will keep this article up to date as new information arrives, throughout April 2012. I may go with a FAQ approach, depending upon visitor's comments below: please consider contributing by asking questions in the comments section below the article.

So far, it seems to all boil down to the following relevant details:

• we (owners of the 9265) have to wait another 3 weeks roughly for CacheCade Pro 2.0 to ship, and it appears likely that part # for the software (automatically bundled with FastPath) is LSI00293
• owners of the soon to ship 9266 will have CacheCade Pro 2.0 firmware preloaded, but it appears it'll still be a separate purchase of LSI00293 to activate CC Pro 2.0/FastPath using a software key
• owners of the 9260/9280 series have had CacheCade Pro 2.0 ordering capabilities for many weeks now, that's the 2 pin hardware dongle that won't fit 9265, giving SSD caching of RAID0/RAID1, 9265/9266 SSD caches RAID5 too, for both read and writes, the potentially killer feature we paid the big bucks for, discussed at TinkerTry.com/whylsi9265-8i, without the need for ESXi support (it doesn't care what OS or filesystem)
• there is no documented list of compatible SSDs (yet, or perhaps never), but it shouldn't be too picky, based on published info so far (dating back to August 2011 announcements)
  there are hints on LSI's site that a list may emerge, but I suspect it'll only indicate enterprise (expensive) SSDs that have been tested: most home-brew/enthusiast types will try more realistic price points. 
• the 9265 and 9266 are basically the same specs (same speeds, same drivers), the only significant differences appearing to be the placement or ports, and the battery backup technology (optional battery, versus supercapacitor)
• the new MSM (MegaRAID Storage Manager - Support for CacheCade Pro 2.0) Windows Version: 11.08.03.03 is picky about the install:
  detailed instructions appear at TinkerTry.com/msminstallonwindows , which can be summarized thusly:
  on Windows 2008 be sure to enable the "Administrator" account and login under that account, to get MSM to install without errors, and working just fine
  on Windows 7, disable UAC, reboot, then MSM installs without errors, and works just fine
• another user found that on Windows 7, another untested approach to get around possibly Java related errors on install is about installing to a custom location without spaces in the filename:
  TinkerTry.com/lsi-9265-8i-firmware-update/#comment-487630545
• the new Firmware - Support for CacheCade Pro 2.0 with the 9265-8i; 9266-4i; 9266-8i; 9285-8e; 9285CV-8e Version: 23.4.1-0028 was made available since 3/30/2012
• I backed up everything, and I've flashed my 9265-8i successfully to 23.4.1-0028 using MSM, so I'm as ready as I can be, for the day my LSI00293 software key arrives, to activate the CacheCade Pro function (currently not clickable, seen in the video)
  youtu.be/kB85zjOuZmQ?hd=1

There's also a great dialogue going on over at Storage Review's Forums, found here.