A few questions before a new install

[freenasquestionsuser]

Hello everyone,
I'm very happy to be joining the FreeNas community! I have some quick questions which I wanted to clarify before continuing with my first install:

My HBA is: LSI SAS 9207-8i LSI00301
Do I need to do firmware updates to the LSI card? I have read about "IT mode" firmware, but don't quite understand it. Where would I find the firmware if I should check for updates? How do I check if it is in IT mode?

I am looking forward to TrueNAS v12 and see that the encryption will switch from the GELI encryption to native openZFS 2.0 encryption. If I encrypt the drives now with GELI, can I switch that to the native openZFS 2.0 encryption one drive at a time later on or do I have to leave the disks unencrypted for now and encrypt when openZFS 2.0 arrives?

Is there anything I forgot that I need to pay attention to before I create my first zpool?

Many thanks!

 

[sretalla]

If I encrypt the drives now with GELI, can I switch that to the native openZFS 2.0

I wouldn't count on it. Expect to need to re-work the pool in order to change encryption types. Better to live without encryption if you can for now.

Encryption is a create-time operation if you want to do it in the GUI, so you will need to re-create your pool to get there.