9211-8i card posting problems

[H0mersimps0n]

Trying to repurpose a GA-73PVM-S2H Mobo/setup.

Got an avango/LSI 9211-8i

SAS to 4 SATA drives cable X 2

6 Hitachi 3tb drives

Computer boots, 9211 boots when nothing plugged in.

If I plug in either one or the other or both SAS to SATA cables (one cable has 4 drives the other has 2 drives on it) then the computer posts, 9211 card loads, bios lists all drives but hangs the PC after saying "loaded successfully"

Updated firmware to IT version

Disabled all features possible in BIOS, boot order correct

SAS cables unplugged all works

Any SAS cable/drive plugged in won't finish bios post

Thoughts?

 

[joeschmuck]

Got an avango/LSI 9211-8i

Please be specific. Exact Make/Model. A lot of companys make LSI 9211-8i boards. And was the board used or new?

Trying to repurpose a GA-73PVM-S2H Mobo/setup.

As I understand it, this MB only accepts up to 4GB RAM. FreeNAS "Requires" 8GB RAM minimum to run or your system will likely hang or act buggy. There should be a warning message letting you know this.

 

[H0mersimps0n]

LSI 9211-8I - STORAGE CONTROLLER - DISK ARRAY (RAID);HARD DRIVE;TAPE DRIVE - SERIAL9211-8I - STORAGE CONTROLLER - DISK ARRAY (RAID);HARD DRIVE;TAPE DRIVE - SERIALATTACHED SCSI; SERIAL ATA-300 - 6 GBPS - RAID 0;RAID 1;RAID 10;RAID 1E Manufacturer : LSI UPC : 830343006717

From Amazon, new

Please be specific. Exact Make/Model. A lot of companys make LSI 9211-8i boards. And was the board used or new?

As I understand it, this MB only accepts up to 4GB RAM. FreeNAS "Requires" 8GB RAM minimum to run or your system will likely hang or act buggy. There should be a warning message letting you know this.

 

[joeschmuck]

The UPC code helped out. It's a true LSI brand board which is a good thing.

The only thing I can think of is a compatibility issue with the BIOS and it does not like hard drive capacities above 2TB. You are trying to use a very old motherboard. You can try to connect a hard drive directly to the motherboard and try to boo the system to see if that is the issue. But you are wasting your time trying to get FreeNAS operational if you do not have at least 8GB RAM.

 

[H0mersimps0n]

um. crap, any super budget mobo recommendations?

The UPC code helped out. It's a true LSI brand board which is a good thing.

The only thing I can think of is a compatibility issue with the BIOS and it does not like hard drive capacities above 2TB. You are trying to use a very old motherboard. You can try to connect a hard drive directly to the motherboard and try to boo the system to see if that is the issue. But you are wasting your time trying to get FreeNAS operational if you do not have at least 8GB RAM.

 

[joeschmuck]

um. crap, any super budget mobo recommendations?

We all ask that question and there is never a great answer.

The first thing you need to do before building a FreeNAS system is understand what you expect out of it for at least 5 years. I myself have planned for at least 10 years for the hardware but hard drives will die and need to be replaced, and they are the largest expense. Once you figure out what you want the system to do, then visit the Hardware Recommendation page and see what components we recommend.

 

[H0mersimps0n]

Thanks for all the help Joe!!

Should I post a hardware setup I put together based on the hardware recommendation threat?

would this setup be ok with a 430W PSU?

Crucial 8GB Single DDR3L 1600MT/s PC3-12800 DR x8 ECC UDIMM 240-Pin Server Memory CT102472BD160B by Crucial

Intel Xeon 1220 V3 3.1 4 (BX80646E31220V3) by Intel

Supermicro Motherboard Micro ATX DDR3 1600 LGA 1150 Motherboards X10SLL-F-O by Supermicro

looking for 5-10 years of mostly plex server use and file storage. on the spectrum of performance vs "critical data protection" I'm probably right in the middle. Plex sever is on a separate i7 box, would just access this FREENAS from that for streaming 5-10 users max at a time full 1080HD uncompressed (transcoded) movies.

 

[joeschmuck]

I would create a new posting on Will It FreeNAS and list your components and exactly what you intend to do with your system, this way you will get some relevant advice. Ensure that you basically cut and paste your last entry here. The one thing you should also list are the hard drives and the RAIDZ or RAIDZ2 you plan to use.

Lets touch on that topic quickly as well... If you haven't done so then you need to read up on ZFS and how to increase the capacity of a ZFS pool. IF you think it's as easy as adding a single drive to increase the capacity then you have some learning to do. You are best off by building the capacity up to the size you desire for the next 3 years and this advice is financially driven.

Right now you have six 3TB drives and a motherboard which only accepts six SATA drives. In this configuration using a RAIDZ2 you would have ~10.5TB of maximum storage minus 20% (healthy fast storage) = 8TB. You could go with a RAIDZ1 configuration since you are using 3TB hard drives and end up with ~11TB. Now 8TB is a lot of storage for movies if you rip them down to ~2GB each. I generally rip DVD formatted movies down to 1.5GB files and they look fine, and BlueRay get ripped down to ~3GB. These are just the main movie, no extras.

So what if you wanted more capacity? You could add a few more 3TB hard drives up front and either buy a motherboard which support 8 or more SATA ports (the better option) or buy an add-on SATA port card (tends to be more expensive) and if you add tw more drives then you would add ~6TB more for storage. If you ever plan to use 4TB or larger hard drives we heavily recommend that you use a RAIDZ2 format because it takes a long time to replace and rebuild a hard drive of that capacity and your system would be at risk of data death if you had a second drive fail before the new drive finished resilvering.

So you are asking if there is another option and the answer is yes. If you are not comfortable with the way ZFS works then you could look at NAS4Free and build a system without ZFS formatted drives.

would this setup be ok with a 430W PSU?

Yes, it would be if it's a good quality PSU. If it's a cheap unit then it could introduce electrical noise when it's straining to power the system. If you end up with 8 hard drives then I'd increase the power supply to 550 Watts.

 

[Jailer]

Trying to repurpose a GA-73PVM-S2H Mobo/setup.

This is a recipe for failure. Besides being old and constricted by a FSB, the board has an nvidia chipset. This will not end well with anything FreeBSD based.

 

[H0mersimps0n]

This is a recipe for failure. Besides being old and constricted by a FSB, the board has an nvidia chipset. This will not end well with anything FreeBSD based.

Purchased the supermicro board above. The gigabyte board I was trying to repurpose is in the trash.

Once the hardware all arrives will report back with what I'm sure will be a pile of problems and questions.

Thanks!