Do Supermicro X9SCL/X9SCM built in controllers have constraints on SATA HDD Size?

Alex_K

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Sep 4, 2016
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Greetings

I write you to solve a possible confusion between us and a provider.

To grow usable size in one of running FreeNAS servers, I asked a provider if it is possible to replace 4TB drives with 8TB ones.
They expressed doubts about built in controller support of 8TB drives. And offering to build a new server instead.

But I found no supporting evidence of either existence or absence of such limitation.

The system is based on Supermicro X9SCL/X9SCM.

Could someone tell from experience, if X9SCL/X9SCM built-in SATA would work with 8TB, 10TB, + drives?

P.S. To be absolutely clear, C202/204 RAID capability is on no way not used.
 
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jgreco

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Intel AHCI controllers have no particular limitations and certainly work with 8TB HDD's. Ask them to cite a source of authority for this limitation, and post it here. They won't be able to, but we will be happy to mock them if they try.

My main concern with an X9SC* board would be the 32GB RAM limit. If you start adding in 16TB HDD's, 4x16TB=64TB and that might be a bit tight with only 32GB RAM if you consider the classic recommendation of 1GB per TB of disk.
 

jgreco

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Random fact 'cuz I couldn't remember the actual answer.

LBA's LBA48 addressing supports a 48-bit LBA value (six octets) so at a 512 byte sector size, that would be 128PiB. Please make sure to limit the HDD's to no more than 128PiB. :smile:
 

Alex_K

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Sep 4, 2016
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Thank you!

The system is used purely for backup purposes (as a zfs send target) so RAM limitation should not be an issue.
 

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