C600/X97 Intel SATA Controller on HP DL380e Gen8

[Nightcat]

Hi there,

I have a quick question about my setup that I want to start using.
Have done a lot of reading already and didnt find any info using the search function.

My current hardware setup:
HP DL380e Gen 8
Xeon(R) CPU E5-2430L v2
48GB ECC RAM (HP)
IBM ServeRaid M1015 (flashed to IT Mode) HBA
8x 8TB WD Red Plus for Storage
2x Crucial MX 500 SSD for Proxmox Install

As the build in HP Raid Controllers are bad to use I went and purchased the always used M1015 HBA already flashed to IT Firmware to connect my 8 Hard Disks for Storage. Those 8 disks will be configured as a RAIDZ2 pool.

Now my question is about the boot drives. I would like to have TrueNas installed on those two Crucial SSDs using a ZFS Mirror.
There is a SAS Connector on the Mainboard of the server which I think belongs to the Intel SATA Controller (C600/X97 Intel SATA Controller).
But there seems to also be another HP "Smart Raid Controller" on the mainboard somewhere. Thats called "B120i"

See attached Pictures from the boot menu of the HP Server and the BIOS. I switched the SATA Controller to be "SATA AHCI" and I hope that this will be good to use?
There is still a HP P822 Raid Controller listed in the pictures, that will be taken out and NOT USED!

If there is any more detailed info needed please let me know.
I will install the whole system for intial tests and burn in next week and then I will also try if I can successfully run a full SMART Test and what the output of camcontrol devlist is gonna be.

Thanks for any feedback!

 

[Ericloewe]

But there seems to also be another HP "Smart Raid Controller" on the mainboard somewhere. Thats called "B120i"

Nah, that's lipstick on the pig that is Intel FakeRAID, which I call FakeRAID because there's no RAID hardware and absolutely minimal RAID firmware. It's really just the PCH SATA controller with a tiny bit of firmware and a software RAID driver for Windows.
Keep the setting at AHCI and don't worry about it.

 

[Nightcat]

Nah, that's lipstick on the pig that is Intel FakeRAID, which I call FakeRAID because there's no RAID hardware and absolutely minimal RAID firmware. It's really just the PCH SATA controller with a tiny bit of firmware and a software RAID driver for Windows.
Keep the setting at AHCI and don't worry about it.

So the SATA controller in AHCI mode should be fine to use with ZFS for a mirror to boot TrueNas from? That sounds good.

I was wondering why it shows me three different controllers when I boot the server (as shown in one of my pictures).
It shows two SATA controllers (with what looks to be different software versions) and the HP P822 Raid controller. The P822 will go out of the system before TrueNas install and will be replaced by the IBM ServeRaid M1015.

But those others... are that actually two different controllers? Maybe one really beeing that Intel C600/X97 and the other one beeing that HP B120i ?

 

[Ericloewe]

Hard to say without knowing what exactly HPE did there, but generally speaking it sounds like some weird RAID firmware drivers that shouldn't affect you.