Cheap and easy HBA

[iheineman]

Board: S2600GZ
Processor: Intel E5-2602
Raid Controller: RMS25CB080
Sas expander: RES2SV240
Disk: 12 x 2TB SAS
ECC RAM = 32GB

Hello, I am trying to get this system working for a Truenas install. From what I understand my raid controller is not a good solution and need to switch to something else that allows passthrough.

My system currently uses this SAS expander card that goes between my backplane and raid controller.

Not really interested in "recoding a raid controller/crossflash"

I just want something else I can plug into my system and should be good to go with truenas. Maybe bypass the sas expander or is known to be compatible with it.

"Cheaper is a very good thing"

Any suggestions on a good HBA for my system that is known good solution? It is probably apparent I don't know anything about this stuff and I apologize for that, any suggestions would be great. Thank You.

 

[hervon]

A search would likely have revealed this gem:

What's all the noise about HBAs, and why can't I use a RAID controller?

1) An HBA is a Host Bus Adapter. This is a controller that allows SAS and SATA devices to be attached to, and communicate directly with, a server. RAID controllers typically aggregate several disks into a Virtual Disk abstraction of some sort...

www.truenas.com

Bought my it mode flashed cards on ebay from a reputable source. Works great.

 

[rvassar]

LSI 9211-11 8i / Dell H310 flashed to IT mode. Available from multiple vendors on eBay, already flashed to IT mode. 6Gb SAS... Cheap, known to work well...

 

[iheineman]

LSI 9211-11 8i / Dell H310 flashed to IT mode. Available from multiple vendors on eBay, already flashed to IT mode. 6Gb SAS... Cheap, known to work well...

Thanks, do you use this with an sas extender? I don't know much about them and if they generally work with all cards.

 

[iheineman]

Dell H310 6Gbps SAS HBA w/ LSI 9211-8i P20 IT Mode for ZFS FreeNAS unRAID | eBay

I have fully tested them using all 8 SAS lanes. I've used ZFS for many years. I'm familiar with ZFS on Linux, FreeNAS, and many of the technologies commonly used by other enthusiasts. They have been cross-flashed to Avago / LSI 9211-8i IT (Initiator Target) firmware version P20 (specifically...

www.ebay.com

Seems easy enough to buy it :)

 

[rvassar]

Thanks, do you use this with an sas extender? I don't know much about them and if they generally work with all cards.

SAS expander, not extender. No, I do not use an expander in my home-lab config. I'm currently running 10 drives, using an H310 and MB ports. A LSI 9201-16i might be a better choice, and I think it's IT mode only... The question you need to answer is how many drives are you looking to support? Do you even need an expander?

 

[iheineman]

Board: S2600GZ
Processor: Intel E5-2602
Raid Controller: RMS25CB080
Sas expander: RES2SV240
Disk: 12 x 2TB SAS
ECC RAM = 32GB

My system is using an expander currently, thats all I know about it.

 

[jgreco]

If you *have* an expander, just plug in the HBA and go. It's meant to be more-or-less magic. An expander is like an ethernet switch, but for HDD's.

See

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy ... a primer on basic SAS and SATA

With the introduction of SAS 12Gbps, seems like "it's time" to do a braindump on SAS. Work in progress, as usual. History By the late '90's, SCSI and PATA were the dominant technologies to attach disks. Both were parallel bus multiple drop topologies and this kind of sucked. SATA and Serial...

www.truenas.com

 

[iheineman]

Are these HBAs setups pretty much just plug and play or do you have to do some sort of configuration telling the HBA exactly what you want to do with your disks?

 

[jgreco]

exactly what you want to do with your disks?

You're thinking of a RAID controller. An HBA is the SAS version of plain AHCI SATA mainboard ports. There's a tiny little bit of configuration that may be available, but the entire point of an HBA is for it to attach disks directly (or as directly as possible) to the server.

Confused about that LSI card? Join the crowd ...

A recent post prompted me to think, there's a lot of confusion regarding LSI HBA/RAID cards. If you're confused, it is probably understandable... it can be a bit complicated! ZFS users on FreeNAS should avoid using hardware RAID cards. ZFS and FreeNAS work best when the drive is managed...

www.truenas.com

It will show you the minimal configuration options available for an HBA.

You may need to:

1) Decide whether or not you want the HBA BIOS ROM to be flashed. If you don't flash it, there's no possibility of inadvertently booting from the wrong drive, and some people like it because it "boots faster", but on the other hand, it makes it harder to debug outside of the UNIX environment, and I don't really get the "boots faster" thing when you're only rebooting infrequently.

2) Make sure your BIOS is configured to boot from an appropriate boot device.

3) Make sure you've arranged for cooling for the HBA. If you already have a RAID controller, swapping it for an HBA should be no problem.

4) Things get complicated when using an SAS expander. If you ever need to replace a drive, you may find it convenient/helpful to have marked the drive serial numbers on the drive trays.

 

[napalmd]

Board: S2600GZ
Processor: Intel E5-2602
Raid Controller: RMS25CB080
Sas expander: RES2SV240
Disk: 12 x 2TB SAS
ECC RAM = 32GB

Hello, I am trying to get this system working for a Truenas install. From what I understand my raid controller is not a good solution and need to switch to something else that allows passthrough.

My system currently uses this SAS expander card that goes between my backplane and raid controller.

Not really interested in "recoding a raid controller/crossflash"

I just want something else I can plug into my system and should be good to go with truenas. Maybe bypass the sas expander or is known to be compatible with it.

"Cheaper is a very good thing"

Any suggestions on a good HBA for my system that is known good solution? It is probably apparent I don't know anything about this stuff and I apologize for that, any suggestions would be great. Thank You.

Sorry to hijack the thread but I have important information to add and some doubts.
I recently bought a server with the same hardware, and in fact I was able to enable JBOD mode in the intel raid controller RMS25CB080.
You have to do this command in the bios preboot CLI AdpSetProp EnableJBOD 1 -aALL
Drives are identified correclty in truenas and smart can be read.
Now my doubt is if this is good enough or it is better to get an hba?
is there a way to see if this jbod mod is good for truenas? some commands we can run?

 

[jgreco]

intel raid controller RMS25CB080.

Still a RAID controller. Please see the article

What's all the noise about HBAs, and why can't I use a RAID controller?

1) An HBA is a Host Bus Adapter. This is a controller that allows SAS and SATA devices to be attached to, and communicate directly with, a server. RAID controllers typically aggregate several disks into a Virtual Disk abstraction of some sort...

www.truenas.com

We'd be pushing Intel RAID controllers in JBOD mode if they were known to work well. Lots of us including me hate LSI, it's just that they're less bad than everything else.

jbod mod is good for truenas? some commands we can run?

There is no command that will put out the string "Okay to use this controller" or "Okay to use this virtualization strategy" or any of the other things that we've carefully collected and curated answers for over the years. The reason for the carefully collected and curated answers is because these are the best available resources for the topics in question. You are expected to understand them as the work product of hundreds of desperate people working to discover what works and what doesn't over the dozen years that we've been collecting answers in this forum. You're welcome to ignore this work, but you do so at your own risk.

 

[napalmd]

Still a RAID controller. Please see the article

What's all the noise about HBAs, and why can't I use a RAID controller?

1) An HBA is a Host Bus Adapter. This is a controller that allows SAS and SATA devices to be attached to, and communicate directly with, a server. RAID controllers typically aggregate several disks into a Virtual Disk abstraction of some sort...

www.truenas.com

We'd be pushing Intel RAID controllers in JBOD mode if they were known to work well. Lots of us including me hate LSI, it's just that they're less bad than everything else.



There is no command that will put out the string "Okay to use this controller" or "Okay to use this virtualization strategy" or any of the other things that we've carefully collected and curated answers for over the years. The reason for the carefully collected and curated answers is because these are the best available resources for the topics in question. You are expected to understand them as the work product of hundreds of desperate people working to discover what works and what doesn't over the dozen years that we've been collecting answers in this forum. You're welcome to ignore this work, but you do so at your own risk.

ok thanks. I understand.
I have a dell h200 flashed in it mode, but the sas cables do not reach riser slot 1. I have to install another cpu(only have one) so I can use the riser slot 2 where the sas cables reach
Other option is try to crossflash the RMS25CB080 wich has a lsi 2208 to a lsi 2308 it firmware, I've seen some forum posts and blogs where it was possible and have instructions for it... but not for this boarc specifically...
Or I try to sell the raid card, and with the money buy a pair of cpu's, I've checked and they are cheap but I'll have to buy memory too if I want to have quad channel on both cpu's...
I still don't know what to do... I'll think about it.
thank you.

 

[rvassar]

I have a dell h200 flashed in it mode, but the sas cables do not reach riser slot 1.

Are those not SFF8087 SAS cables? Can't you just buy longer cables? SAS spec should support up to 10 meters, but you have to use SAS drives. If you use SATA, I think you're limited to 1 meter, which is still quite a long distance...

 

[napalmd]

Are those not SFF8087 SAS cables? Can't you just buy longer cables? SAS spec should support up to 10 meters, but you have to use SAS drives. If you use SATA, I think you're limited to 1 meter, which is still quite a long distance...

Yes but for the price of the cables, I decided to buy a pair of 10 core low power cpu's for $30 I think it is a better investment.
I tried to crossflash the card. it worked, sort of... The only issues were the continuous beeper, and if I connected the sas expander, it hangs on boot.
I reflashed it back to original and will try to sell it.