controller card sata

[Grohotnius]

Hi all.

i have an regular consumer motherboard
M5A78L-M PLUS/USB3
, and 6 sata ports. i have populated all of the sata ports on the mbo. and now i find myself looking for an sata controller cart with at least 6 sata ports that work with freenas. What would you guys recommend ??

thanks

 

[JohnK]

Hi all.

i have an regular consumer motherboard
M5A78L-M PLUS/USB3
, and 6 sata ports. i have populated all of the sata ports on the mbo. and now i find myself looking for an sata controller cart with at least 6 sata ports that work with freenas. What would you guys recommend ??

thanks

Something like
IBM ServeRaid M1015 46M0861 SAS/SATA PCI-e RAID Controller LSI SAS9220-8i

 

[Chris Moore]

IBM ServeRaid M1015

That is actually a supported option, but it is an older card that takes more power. A newer option that works very well is this:

Drive Controller: SAS PCI-E 3.0 HBA LSI 9207-8i P20 IT Mode for ZFS FreeNAS unRAID - - US $69.55
https://www.ebay.com/itm/162862201664

Drive Cables: Mini SAS to 4-SATA SFF-8087 Multi-Lane Forward Breakout Internal Cable - - US $12.99
https://www.ebay.com/itm/371681252206

 

[Grohotnius]

https://www.ebay.ie/itm/LSI-SAS-921...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

i ordered this one now. So we will see how it goes...

 

[Chris Moore]

ok

Did you figure out the PCIe slot issue?

 

[Chris Moore]

i have an regular consumer motherboard

You will probably want to go to a better board in the future. Please be sure to review the hardware recommendations before making your selection:

Updated Forum Rules 4/11/17
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/updated-forum-rules-4-11-17.45124/

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Terminology and Abbreviations Primer
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/terminology-and-abbreviations-primer.28174/

Why not to use RAID-5 or RAIDz1
https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-2009/

FreeNAS® Quick Hardware Guide
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/freenas®-quick-hardware-guide.7/

Hardware Recommendations Guide Rev 1e) 2017-05-06
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/

 

[Grohotnius]

yes , use the one for the graphic card.... so simple hahahahah

 

[Grohotnius]

Hi. I just got the lsi sas 9210-8i controler card. Its installed and working. Freenas recognised my drives and i can make make a raid array.

My plan is to put 8 2tb drives into the array. With one or two drives as redundancy.

The nas is gonna be used for my media colection, the read and write speed are not that important to me.

Now from what i was reading the best option would be to flash the bios on the controller card to IT mode so its not in software mode. Apparently free nas does like software raid from what i read on the forum.

Now how do get the driver for my controler card and if somone knows how to flash it, i know i have to use dos with console commands.

Or for my needs i should leave it software mod maybee there where some freenas updates that fixed the problem with freenas software raid?

Thanks a milion.

 

[Chris Moore]

My plan is to put 8 2tb drives into the array. With one or two drives as redundancy.

That would be what ZFS calls RAIDz2 or RAID-Z2 depending on who you are talking to.

Apparently free nas does like software raid from what i read on the forum.

FreeNAS uses the ZFS filesystem, which implements redundancy as a function of the file system, so there is no need for a hardware RAID controller and having one can interfere with the ability of ZFS to manage the drives.

ow how do get the driver for my controler card

The driver is built-in to FreeNAS. You need the firmware update / cross-flash to convert the firmware.
look here:

Detailed newcomers' guide to crossflashing LSI 9211 HBA and variants
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...o-crossflashing-lsi-9211-hba-and-variants.54/

Or for my needs i should leave it software mod maybee there where some freenas updates that fixed the problem with freenas software raid?

No, it isn't a FreeNAS problem. It is not something that will be fixed. The SAS controller needs to be a 'plain HBA' which means IT mode. It is possible, that your card might already be in IT mode. Some are. You should check.

 

[Chris Moore]

PS. You should take some time to review the information under the "useful links" button in my signature. There is quite a lot of great info there.

 

[Grohotnius]

Wow you are fast.......

I'll check it out.

Just a quick question how can check if the card is in IT mode.?

The card is second hand bought.

Thanks

 

[jgreco]

That is actually a supported option, but it is an older card that takes more power.

That's a queer claim to make. Your 9207 takes 9.8 watts per LSI spec. The 9220 takes right around 10 as measured in the shop here. Do you have something specific to back that up?

 

[Chris Moore]

Very close to the same. So sorry. I made the mistake of thinking that the amount of heat observed was relative to the power consumption. In my system, one is cooler than the other.

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