FreeNAS - Compatible SATA Cards??

[Seth Walker]

Hi Everyone,

I currently have a SuperMicro Intel ATOM Motherboard (http://www.supermicro.com/products/m...m?typ=H&IPMI=Y) that has 6 SATA slots on it. I have all SATA slots full of 2 TB Harddrives.

There is a PCI-e 16x slot on there.

Is there a way to add more SATA harddrives to this motherboard that FreeNAS will support?

 

[matthewowen01]

yup, here are 2 options i use and know work great.

4port
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124027

8port
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118100

the second one is a bid card and needs extra cables that don't come with it, miniSAS fanout or something like that
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816151080&cm_re=miniSAS-_-16-151-080-_-Product

i did have to add extra cooling to the second one.

 

[Seth Walker]

And these will automatically work with FreeNAS? Most likely will get the 4 port.

 

[matthewowen01]

as long as you turn the system off first, just plug it in and boot.

 

[Seth Walker]

Awesome. Thanks!!!

 

[kleinejan]

I have the same board Supermicro with Atom 510 and 6 ports. Also needed more Sata ports for my data hungry NAS. I bought a Lycom PCIe card (PE-100N) with a SiI3132 chipset. This works in Freenas 7 & 8. The card is cheap but gives you only one extra internal port. Then I discovered "Port multipliers" also from Lycom (ST-126) with a SiI3726 chipset. Does not work in Freenas 7 but works great in Feenas 8! Because the kernel has support for these chipsets. FN7 doesn't. For under €80,- you have 6 extra ports. That's cheaper then any raid/sata card I could find.
Don't know how much speed loss you get, because of the bandwidth on one PCIe card. Can only say it works good enough for me :)
Before you buy a card check the chipset. I was not planning in using freenas 8, but I had to because of the SiI3726 support. Waiting for the big 8.1 update :)

 

[Seth Walker]

I have the same board Supermicro with Atom 510 and 6 ports. Also needed more Sata ports for my data hungry NAS. I bought a Lycom PCIe card (PE-100N) with a SiI3132 chipset. This works in Freenas 7 & 8. The card is cheap but gives you only one extra internal port. Then I discovered "Port multipliers" also from Lycom (ST-126) with a SiI3726 chipset. Does not work in Freenas 7 but works great in Feenas 8! Because the kernel has support for these chipsets. FN7 doesn't. For under €80,- you have 6 extra ports. That's cheaper then any raid/sata card I could find.
Don't know how much speed loss you get, because of the bandwidth on one PCIe card. Can only say it works good enough for me :)
Before you buy a card check the chipset. I was not planning in using freenas 8, but I had to because of the SiI3726 support. Waiting for the big 8.1 update :)

Awesome thanks!

 

[jafin]

I have 3 of these they work well Supermicro AOC-USAS-L8i http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-USAS-L8i.cfm
Can join with an sas expander to get 122 drives if needed.

 

[survive]

Hi guys,

If you are willing to slum through ebay you can find lots of LSI 1068 based cards for sale for cheap. Look for:

Dell SAS/5 <--- 4 port PCI-e 8X
IBM BR10i <--- 8 port PCI-e 8X

You will probably spend more for cables than you will for the cards!

This guy has a pretty good list of SAS controllers posted:

http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=10

-Will

 

[Tekkie]

Thanks for that posting Will! :)

 

[khelm]

yup, here are 2 options i use and know work great.

4port
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124027

8port
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118100

the second one is a bid card and needs extra cables that don't come with it, miniSAS fanout or something like that
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816151080&cm_re=miniSAS-_-16-151-080-_-Product

i did have to add extra cooling to the second one.

I have a couple of questions on the AOC-USAS-L8i that is recommended.

1. Does it support drive spindown?

2. Does it support 3TB Drives?

3. Does it need flashed with the IT firmware?

Thanks,
Kerry

 

[survive]

Hi khelm,

I took a look at the product page for the AOC-USAS-L8i and it looks like the card is based off the LSI 1068 chip.

I have a similar card (IBM BR10i) and I can get the drives to spindown using a script I found here:

http://forums.freenas.org/showthrea...ATA-drive-spindown&p=5605&viewfull=1#post5605

The 1068 chip will not support 3TB drives. According to the product page the Supermicro card ships with the "IT" firmware.

-Will