Dell r720xd H310 mini and SATA

[nojstevens]

Hello,

I have a gap in my understanding but i am not a complete newb to this. I have already built and run perfectly a FreeNAS AIO in ESXi on a Supermicro Xeon-D.

My question, however, relates to a Dell r720xd that i purchased from eBay, and the H310 mini card that i purchased pre-flashed to LSI 9211-8i P20 IT mode.

I have ESXi installed on the Dell, and have passed the card (that shows as an LSI 9211) through using vt-D. I have installed FreeNAS on an iSCSI datastore on a different device.

I have installed 2 x WD RED NAS SATA drives in two of the bays in the 720.

FreeNAS can see a Samsung 860 SD that is in the rear SAS expander, but it is not seeing either of the 2 RED SATA drives in the front.

My guess is that this is something to do with the differrence between SAS and SATA? Am i correct? If so, what do i need to do to have my 12 Bays able to contain SATA drives and show up in FreeNAS as an AIO with ESXi?

I feel i should know the answer to this, or at least know what to google... but im missing something - or I am searching in the wrong place

Jon

 

[nojstevens]

A bit more on this....

The server i purchased had a H710p/1GB Raid Card when it arrived. I pulled that out and put in a H310 Mini mono from eBay that had been pre-flashed to IT mode. I did not change any cables, i left the cables that were connecting the backplace and the H710p. Could this be why i am having an issue, i.e. do i need different cables now i changed to H310 mini?

 

[dir_d]

I have a 720xd as well. I am running ESXi and have the H710p Raid card connected to the Rear Expansion for ESXi Storage and Guest VMs. I use 2x 1TB SSDs in a RAID 1. I then have the Front 12x Sata/Sas ports connected to a LSI 9207-8i, which is passed through to my Freenas VM.

You need to pass through the mini to your VM. The cables are different than regular SFF-8087 cables for the mini though. Mini should have two SFF-8087 on the end that plus into the 2 ports on the black plane. Then a skinny long connector that goes into the H310 mini.

 

[veldthui]

I have just normal 720 with the H710 card. There is no need to flash it into IT mode and it can pass the drives through or use them as RAID.
I have Freenas installed onto the bare metal machine rather than through ESXi and with the drives in Non-Raid mode it sees all the drives fine.
Maybe try putting the H710 back in and set the drives to Non-Raid. Then pass the H710 controller through to the VM.

 

[jgreco]

It is not a good idea to use an H710 with FreeNAS.

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

This is relevant to FreeNAS and TrueNAS CORE. Some parts of it might also be relevant to Scale, but I don't really know how reliable the Linux drivers are. 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...

www.ixsystems.com

 

[nojstevens]

Hello all, thank you for your replies. I have solved this. The drives were not pushing all the way in in their caddies. I tried last night and i was sure they were properly installed, but today i took the drive and pushed it all the way without the caddy then added the caddy after that. Low and behold, the drives started spinning and are now seen in Freenas. doh!