Errors with Adaptec-Controller

[AppUser]

Hi @ all,

I hope this is the right sub-forums for my question.

The Backgroundstory:
I am currently evaluating a FreeNAS-Build (Hardware in my signature) as a dedicated Storage System for Windows and Linux-VMs, and Files behind a Windows Standard Server 2016. The plan is to make 2 VDEVs as a RAID-Z2, and then create iSCSI-Targets for my needs, which will be managed over Windows Active Directory.
As far as I have read this will not be optimal (especially for Snapshots), but the best solution I can consider right now.

I installed FreeNAS 11.2-U2 and later upgrade to 11.2-U3 which seems to work good so far.

My first problem was that the drives behind the RAID-Controller in HBA-Mode were not shown and recognized by FreeNAS, so I downloaded the FreeBSD driver for it from here: https://storage.microsemi.com/en-us...i&dn=microsemi+adaptec+smartraid+3154-24i.php
and installed it via shell from an USB-Drive (I am a Windows GUI-User/Admin, so this was already a big deal for me).

After that, I am now able to see the drives inside FreeNAS, but two things/problems occurred, from witch I could only solve the first one so far:

1. FreeNAS showed a notification that drive da06 were making problems, it is a Consumer SSD, which I don't need right now (got two of them left, so I decided to put them in the FreeNAS system, maybe for something useful later). I unplugged them by now, maybe trying to get them to work later onboard and not on the RAID-Controller.

2. After the driver installation and a reboot, the monitor on the FreeNAS system shows some Errors which I don't fully understand, and I am afraid to go further with the FreeNAS configuration right now and put data on it, there are different line which say something like this:

[ERROR]::[3:665:0][0,75,0][CPU_8][os_aio_response_error][443]:SCSI_STATUS_CHECK_COND sense size 18



Should I continue, or should I consider to build my dedicated storage with another OS like Linux, which will work better with the RAID-Controller?

Thx for your help.

 

[sretalla]

Manually installing drivers for storage is way outside the support scope.

You have chosen hardware that will not play well with FreeNAS and will probably get little or no help here because of that (none of us have any experience with trying to make that card work with FreeNAS and probably also have no interest in doing it).

You should get your hands on an LSI card as recommended in the hardware recommendations guide (see the resource section, but here's a link directly to the resource I'm talking about Hardware Recommendations Guide).

 

[Chris Moore]

Should I continue, or should I consider to build my dedicated storage with another OS like Linux, which will work better with the RAID-Controller?

- RAID-Controller: Adaptec SmartRAID 3154-24i in HBA-Mode with Zero-Maintenance Cache Protection

FreeNAS uses Software RAID through the ZFS file system. You need to remove this hardware RAID controller and get a SAS HBA instead. The LSI products are well supported in FreeNAS.
Why are you using a 24 port card? I can make a suggestion for an alternative.

After the driver installation and a reboot, the monitor on the FreeNAS system shows some Errors which I don't fully understand, and I am afraid to go further with the FreeNAS configuration right now and put data on it, there are different line which say something like this:

Probably because you are not supposed to install drivers in FreeNAS and you broke something.

As far as I have read this will not be optimal (especially for Snapshots), but the best solution I can consider right now.

If you want to use snapshots, you probably want to use NFS instead of iSCSI. Why do you think you want iSCSI?

 

[AppUser]

FreeNAS uses Software RAID through the ZFS file system. You need to remove this hardware RAID controller and get a SAS HBA instead. The LSI products are well supported in FreeNAS.
Why are you using a 24 port card? I can make a suggestion for an alternative.

Probably because you are not supposed to install drivers in FreeNAS and you broke something.

If you want to use snapshots, you probably want to use NFS instead of iSCSI. Why do you think you want iSCSI?

We got some recommendations from an IT-Consulting company, who said that we need a dedicated storage and highly recommended to buy a fast RAID-Controller for this.

Instead of buying new expensive hardware, as a startup our budget is fairly tight, we decided to take our old workstation HP Z420 which wasn't in use any more and only buy a few new parts.
They suggest to do it with Fedora Server Edition, but I am only a Linux-Beginner and quite clumsy on the shell.

So, at first, I thought of building the dedicated storage with Windows, but Windows Storage Server is too much crippled in the Workstation Version and too expensive for us in the Standard Version, the same goes to Storage Spaces Direct, which is only available in the Windows Server Datacenter Edition.

I did a little bit internet research and stumbled upon FreeNAS (of which I heard a couple of years ago), ZFS + GUI seemed very nice to me, I was aware of the not ideal (RAID)-Controller for that, but we already bought it, and I thought, when it works in HBA-Mode it could work out in the end.

The 16-Port card wasn't so much cheaper, and we are always trying to look two years ahead (growing fast), we got some 2TB Enterprise HDDs left, so we bought the 24-port instead of the 16-port. What would an alternative cost?

I wasn't sure what to use, so I read quite a lot article about SMBv3/CIFS, NFS, iSCSI and in the end, I felt that iSCSI is the best way to go.
With Windows I thought it would be the easiest way, for Hyper-V, the Backup-Program, and the File Server Resource Manager from Windows Server which we are using right now.

 

[Chris Moore]

but we already bought it,

Sell it and get some money back. IT mode SAS HBA controllers are not very expensive.

and I thought, when it works in HBA-Mode it could work out in the end.

Except that there is no driver support for it in FreeNAS and although FreeNAS is based on BSD, it is not a regular server, it is an appliance that is not intended to be modified by the addition of drivers and even if you do load the driver, as you can see, it still is not going to work properly.

What would an alternative cost?

No point buying more than eight ports, just use a SAS expander to break those ports out to more drives later and SAS expanders are relatively cheap.
I would suggest this controller card:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-H220-6G...0-IT-Mode-for-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID/162862201664
The one I have linked to is already flashed to the IT mode firmware, but you can get a LSI-9207-8i compatible from many vendors. For example:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-SAS-92...us-Adapter-IT-Mode-SAS9207-8i-US/123713611833
You might just need to ensure the firmware is up to date.

With Windows I thought it would be the easiest way, for Hyper-V

I could be wrong, I am not very familiar with using Hyper-V, but I think you can still use NFS to host the virtual drives for your VMs. Hopefully other forum members will add to the discussion.