I've been curious about FreeNAS for a long time, but I am severely hampered by money. I recently received a Dell PowerEdge T310 server that IT was going to throw away.
I'd like to upgrade the server and install FreeNAS so I can play with it and decide if FreeNAS is something that I want to pursue.
I am not an IT specialist... or even a programmer. I'm just a guy who likes to tinker from time to time.
I have specific questions about my build. Should I include them all in this thread? Or should I start a separate thread for each question?
My first question is about the HBA. The server came with a "Dell SAS 6iR, internal RAID adapter, PCI-express". As I understand it, this adapter card can only recognize drives up to 2 TB in size, can only handle (2) drives at a time, and cannot be flashed to IT mode. It is RAID only.
I purchased a "Dell H310 6Gbps SAS HBA w/ LSI 9211-8i P20 IT Mode for ZFS FreeNAS unRAID" on eBay, but it did not come with any cables. The SAS 6iR connects to a back-plane which the hot-swappable hard-drives plug in to. I don't know what this back-plane is called. The label on the card says "SAS 6G BP".
I can provide pictures if it would help.
1. Should the H310 be able to work with that back-plane? Or will I need to purchase a new back-plane also?
2. If it should work, then what kind of cable should I buy? (I not asking for a part number... just the right words that I need to use in a search engine. Searching for 'that back-plane thingy' isn't turning up many results.)
3. There are (4) slots for hot-swappable drives. If I add more than (4) drives, can I plug them directly into the motherboard? Or do they need to connect directly to the H310?
Cheers,
Final Build:
I'd like to upgrade the server and install FreeNAS so I can play with it and decide if FreeNAS is something that I want to pursue.
I am not an IT specialist... or even a programmer. I'm just a guy who likes to tinker from time to time.
I have specific questions about my build. Should I include them all in this thread? Or should I start a separate thread for each question?
My first question is about the HBA. The server came with a "Dell SAS 6iR, internal RAID adapter, PCI-express". As I understand it, this adapter card can only recognize drives up to 2 TB in size, can only handle (2) drives at a time, and cannot be flashed to IT mode. It is RAID only.
I purchased a "Dell H310 6Gbps SAS HBA w/ LSI 9211-8i P20 IT Mode for ZFS FreeNAS unRAID" on eBay, but it did not come with any cables. The SAS 6iR connects to a back-plane which the hot-swappable hard-drives plug in to. I don't know what this back-plane is called. The label on the card says "SAS 6G BP".
I can provide pictures if it would help.
1. Should the H310 be able to work with that back-plane? Or will I need to purchase a new back-plane also?
2. If it should work, then what kind of cable should I buy? (I not asking for a part number... just the right words that I need to use in a search engine. Searching for 'that back-plane thingy' isn't turning up many results.)
3. There are (4) slots for hot-swappable drives. If I add more than (4) drives, can I plug them directly into the motherboard? Or do they need to connect directly to the H310?
Cheers,
Final Build:
Code:
Dell T310 ------------ CPU Xeon X3450 / 2.66 Ghz, 8M Cache, Turbo, HT Socket LGA1156 Chipset Type Intel 3420 RAM 4x 8GB DDR3-1066 (PC3-8500) Pin ECC Registered DIMM SAS Dell H310, 6 Gbps SAS HBA w/ LSI 9211-8i P20 IT Mode Power Supply Dell, non-redundant 375W Hard Drives 5x WD Red Pro WB4003FFBX 4TB 7200 RPM, RAID-Z2 System Disk 2x Crucial, 120 GB, BX500 SATA III 2.5" Internal SSD UPS none
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