1st storage server - FreeNAS!

[Sir SSV]

Hey guys, brief hiatus due to work and general life commitments but I am now able to continue my server build!

Ordered all parts required and everything has finally arrived! Very excited yet daunted at the amount of components lol

Here's a brief pic of majority of parts. I didn't include things like the IBM 1015 card, memory and Supermicro 920SQ power supply replacements (for the 1200w currently in the case).

Looking at installing motherboard, cpu, coolers, memory and power supplies tomorrow and start mem testing.

 

[nightshade00013]

Yeah it can look like a ton of stuff but most of the boxes are tons of empty space and once they start going together it won't seem like you had as much as you thought.

 

[Stux]

FWIW, I run 8-way Raidz2 vdevs in my similar system

 

[Sir SSV]

Going to have an update in the next few days but in the meantime does anyone have a direct download link for the P16 firmware to flash to the 1015 card? I've searched everywhere including the Broadcom site and it is not listed anymore...

I'm wanting to run FreeNAS 9.10

Edit: I'm going to run FreeNAS 9.3 with the p20 firmware. Just need to find a download link, if anyone has one would be good :)

 

[CraigD]

I'm going to run FreeNAS 9.3 with the p20 firmware. Just need to find a download link, if anyone has one would be good :)

Is this what you are looking? link: ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/driver/SAS/LSI/

Have Fun

 

[Sir SSV]

Is this what you are looking? link: ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/driver/SAS/LSI/

Have Fun

I'm looking for the P20 firmware to IT flash to my 1015 card. Unfortunately the Broadcom website doesn't list the 9211-8i anymore in the drop down box under downloads

Edit: is this the correct firmware to flash?
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...i-sas-adapters-found.27445/page-2#post-301617

 

[CraigD]

The M1015 uses the LSI2008 chip...

 

[Sir SSV]

Checking the Broadcom website, considering the 9210-8i uses the same LSI2008 chip, would it be safe to say the firmware would be identical for cross flashing to the M1015? I'm thinking it will be fine

 

[Stux]

There's a M1015 crossflashing fileset somewhere on this forum. Posted by @Spearfoot

 

[nightshade00013]

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...o-crossflashing-lsi-9211-hba-and-variants.54/

 

[Sir SSV]

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...o-crossflashing-lsi-9211-hba-and-variants.54/

Awesome! Thanks for finding this :)
Actually I came across this last night but neglected to scroll to the bottom of the page :(

 

[Johnnie Black]

I'm looking for the P20 firmware to IT flash to my 1015 card. Unfortunately the Broadcom website doesn't list the 9211-8i anymore in the drop down box under downloads

It's still there under legacy.

 

[Sir SSV]

It's still there under legacy.

Oh wow, I totally didn't think that would be the case. Thanks for the heads up :)

 

[Sir SSV]

Just got finished cross flashing M1015 to P20 in IT mode. I collated various information from this great forum and put it all together and it worked first time :) Note: this worked with my setup however on different mainboards YMMV

• Download LSI2008 drivers from here (thanks nightshade00013 for the link)
• Create a FreeDOS boot drive using Rufus

1. Insert USB stick
2. Under "Partition scheme and target system type" select MBR partition scheme for BIOS or UEFI computers
3. File system select FAT32
4. Next to the cdrom symbol select FreeDOS
5. Click start

• Place the following files on to your freshly created FreeDOS usb

1. MegaRec.exe
2. dos4gw.exe
3. sbrempty.bin
4. 2118it.bin
5. mptsas2.rom
6. sas2flash.efi
7. shellx64.efi

• Insert USB stick into server and power on
  
• Once server initialises, press DEL to go into bios. Press right arrow to go to boot and select first boot device as USB drive
• Press F4 (save & exit) and let server restart and initialise. Will go straight into FreeDOS menu

Now its time to wipe the card

Run the following commands:

• megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
• megarec -cleanflash 0

Restart server (alt+ctrl+del) and wait for server to initalise. When boot screen appears, press F11 and select UEFI: Built in EFI Shell

Now to flash the card

Run the following commands:

• sas2flash.efi -o -f 2118it.bin
• sas2flash.efi -o -sasadd 500605bxxxxxx (where x are the last digits on your M1015 card after 500605b)

To check the flash was successful, run the following command:

• sas2flash.efi -list

In the list there will be a Firmware Product ID that ends with IT and above that the new Firmware Version

Hope this helps :)

 

[Sir SSV]

I need to decide on a suitable UPS for my application. I am wanting to future proof a little and have been looking at the following

APC SMX2200RMHV2U - http://www.apc.com/shop/au/en/produ...200VA-Rack-Tower-LCD-200-240V/P-SMX2200RMHV2U

Would this be suitable for my server build? I will also be running a pfsense box, Netgear 10g switch and potentially another server later down the track. Am I going too overkill? Any feedback would be great

 

[nightshade00013]

Well it will run a long time. However that is for two phase power or 208/230V I don't know where you are at but if you are in the US you will likely have to have a new breaker installed and a line ran to where the servers will be housed. On top of that all of the PSU's will need to be 208/230V compatible and that will be another point of contention. Most switches will not work with it especially if they were sold in the US and have a wall wart or power brick. So you will have to find something that is compatible and make it work.

If everything you have is already setup for 208/230V then it's no problem. If you are using 110V power then something like http://www.apc.com/shop/us/en/products/APC-Smart-UPS-2200VA-LCD-120V/P-SMT2200 or this http://www.apc.com/shop/us/en/products/APC-Smart-UPS-3000VA-LCD-RM-2U-120V/P-SMT3000RM2U would be a better option.

 

[Sir SSV]

I live in Australia and our voltage is 220-240v

 

[Stux]

The VA rating is basically (sort of) how many watts of power the UPS can support, and has not that much to do with runtime, thus if you're pulling 500W that might be 25% of its capacity. And that'd increase the run time by 4 fold vs 100% of capacity.

It looks like a great UPS. I use an old 5000VA SmartUPS in my rack and it runs an entire office (Printers, workstations, monitors etc). We're at about 40-60% utilization.

If you're interested, you can get APC UPSs quite cheap second hand off eBay.

 

[Sir SSV]

The VA rating is basically (sort of) how many watts of power the UPS can support, and has not that much to do with runtime, thus if you're pulling 500W that might be 25% of its capacity. And that'd increase the run time by 4 fold vs 100% of capacity.

It looks like a great UPS. I use an old 5000VA SmartUPS in my rack and it runs an entire office (Printers, workstations, monitors etc). We're at about 40-60% utilization.

If you're interested, you can get APC UPSs quite cheap second hand off eBay.

That makes sense with the VA rating. I'm thinking with what I will be connecting to it, it should be nowhere near maximum utilisation.

Would something like this work fine here in Australia considering it reads 230V? http://www.apc.com/shop/au/en/products/APC-Smart-UPS-2200VA-LCD-RM-2U-230V/P-SMT2200RMI2U

Random question, I was looking to download FreeNAS 9.3.1 last night and noticed a heap of versions(?) in the stable download page. I ended up downloading from this one which was the last one in the list. Is this correct or should I look at one of the other download links? https://download.freenas.org/9.3.1/STABLE/201605170422/

Edit: Argh, just found there is FreeNAS 9.10.2-U5. Is this the most current and stable release before FreeNAS 11?

 

[SweetAndLow]

If you're building a new system you should go with freenas 11.

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