DellT630 and bricked cards - replace with inspur

[peanutbutter]

Might be a blessing in disguise bricking two perc cards in one swoop... perccli doesn't detect either card (H730 [accidentally flashed] and H330 [probably incorrectly flashed]. Learn from me - don't flash a card without disconnecting the other first :)

I've learned that H730s aren't real HBAs, so even if I can unbrick it, I want something that will work. I have 18x3.5" drives (SAS and SATA) and also 4x2.5" SAS SSDs.
The 18 drives take 2 connections themselves (currently from the H730) from a SAS backplane inside the tower
The 4x2.5" were connected to the H330
I'm looking at Inspur LSI 3008 cards. My concerns are:

• any issue with running SAS and Sata drives on these cards? The mixture will be part of a zpool
• can these cards passthrough to a TrueNAS scale VM
• anything that'll keep this build from working as expected

I'm running proxmox and the intent is to (hopefully) pass both cards to TrueNAS for managing the hard drives for a ZFS configuration
I found a couple hardware guides here and servethehome - LSI 3008s seem to be at a good price point for 12Gb setup.

 

[firesyde424]

Get a Dell HBA330 PCIE card. If your T630 had been so configured when it was purchased, it could have come with one from the factory. They are true HBA cards based on the LSI 9300 and work out of the box with TrueNAS Core and Scale, no cross flashing needed. They also have the advantage of working natively with your T630's IDRAC. Dell used this model of HBA in 3+ generations of servers and they can be found all over the place for under $50.

 

[peanutbutter]

Get a Dell HBA330 PCIE card. If your T630 had been so configured when it was purchased, it could have come with one from the factory. They are true HBA cards based on the LSI 9300 and work out of the box with TrueNAS Core and Scale, no cross flashing needed. They also have the advantage of working natively with your T630's IDRAC. Dell used this model of HBA in 3+ generations of servers and they can be found all over the place for under $50.

This is great news, thank you. I really like this tower; knowing that I can get something that'll work perfectly (no sacrifices) made my day.

 

[peanutbutter]

After an eternity, two HBA330s arrived yesterday. I'm happy to report that both are in working condition, were passed through to my TrueNAS VM, and have been working great. The second HBA is used for the 4x2.5ssd cage I picked up from Newegg. The clearance for the trays is high enough to accomodate SAS sSSDs.
Off to build my new TrueNAS system!

 

[firesyde424]

After an eternity, two HBA330s arrived yesterday. I'm happy to report that both are in working condition, were passed through to my TrueNAS VM, and have been working great. The second HBA is used for the 4x2.5ssd cage I picked up from Newegg. The clearance for the trays is high enough to accomodate SAS sSSDs.
Off to build my new TrueNAS system!

Congrats! If only everything Dell made worked this well in TrueNAS.