FreeNAS on Dell R320 and Dell R230 sharing my impressions

[Mr. Slumber]

Hello,

been reading this forum for quiet some time and now I thought it's time to give a little back to the community, so I wanted to share my impressions with the Dell servers mentioned above so that anyone who's got some questionmarks about building his/hers FreeNAS on these kind of machines maybe gets some little pieces of information. And ok, these are just my experiences so maybe someone else with much deeper IT wisdom may experienced something completely different... ;)

Dell R320 config:
Intel Xeon E5-2430L 2 GHz 6 cores, 32GB registered ECC DDR3 RAM (2x 16GB DIMM), Dell PERC H310 Mini Mono SAS Raid controller, IDRAC 7 Enterprise, Dell 350 Watt Hot swap power supply, 4x 10TB Seagate Exos X10 ST 100000NM0086, 2x Sandisk Cruzer Fit 32GB USB 2.0 as boot device,

impression: ok, it worked in a way but because of the PERC H310 Mini Mono which I did not risk to flash to IT mode there was no chance of getting the SMART data out of the machine/HDDs which (for me) was too risky so I stopped using the R320 as a FreeNAS machine. I did manage to attach every single HDD to the PERC H310 Mini Mono in "non-raid mode" but as far as I understood this, to get everything to work 100% the HDDs should have been attached in "HBA mode" and this is (to my knowledge) only possible when you flash the PERC H 310 Mini Mono to "IT mode". I haven't heard of anyone who successfully managed this with the "Mini Mono" but maybe it's possible EDIT: NO, it'll brick your Mini Mono! But afterwards surely the Dell R320 will complain that the PERC H 310 Mini is missing and will not fully boot, so: don't try to flash the PERC H310 Mini Mono to IT mode!
Just my 2 cents.

Dell R230 config:
Intel Xeon E3-1220v5, 24GB ECC RAM, Dell PERC H330, IDRAC 8 express, 4x 10TB Seagate Exos X10 ST 100000NM0086, 2x Sandisk Cruzer Fit 32GB USB 2.0 as boot device,

impression: works just great, loving it! The PERC H330 is capable of being switched to "HBA mode" (deep down in the config menu of the PERC H330) and that really did the trick for me. Running Freenas 11.1 on it and it survived a lot of (load-) testing including unplugging it randomly on purpose (don't try this @home you have been warned!)

Hope this is helping in a way if you've been searching for some info on these Dell machines.

Best regards

 

[Chris Moore]

it worked in a way but because of the PERC H310 Mini Mono which I did not risk to flash to IT mode

The mini cards are bricked by flashing IT firmware. That has been documented on the forum many times. I know I have said it at least three times in different threads where it has come up. On this chassis, you must use a regular SAS HBA in one of the PCI-E slots and discard the mini card.

The PERC H330 is capable of being switched to "HBA mode" (deep down in the config menu of the PERC H330)

Does it pass the SMART data from the drives to the FreeNAS so FreeNAS can monitor health? Do the drives show up as their correct model number in the list of available drives?

 

[Mr. Slumber]

The mini cards are bricked by flashing IT firmware. That has been documented on the forum many times. I know I have said it at least three times in different threads where it has come up.

Yes, thank you for pointing that out it saved me from "oh come on let's just try it out what can possibly go wrong" and afterwards just looking at my bricked Perc H310 Mini Mono :)

 

[Mr. Slumber]

Does it pass the SMART data from the drives to the FreeNAS so FreeNAS can monitor health? Do the drives show up as their correct model number in the list of available drives?

Yes. Before I switched the PERC H 330 to "HBA mode" I connected every single HDD as "RAID 0 with just one disk each" to the controller, so I had 4x "RAID 0 with a single disk" (yeah I know, stupid ) and that didn't worked out. So after some research in the Dell forums I found the HBA mode and I switched the PERC H 330 to "HBA mode", set every single HDD to "non-raid" (the disk and every data on it will be entirely deleted by that operation so don't try this with data you would like to keep on the HDD!) via the controller menu, reinstalled FreeNAS and bingo, SMART data and model number showed up.

 

[Mr. Slumber]

when you flash the PERC H 310 Mini Mono to "IT mode". I haven't heard of anyone who successfully managed this with the "Mini Mono" but maybe it's possible EDIT: NO, it'll brick your Mini Mono! But afterwards surely the Dell R320 will complain that the PERC H 310 Mini is missing and will not fully boot

Update: this dude seems to have found a way to successfully flash PERC H310 Mini Mono to IT mode :p Video

(I recently bought some HBA cards via his shop and was/am really happy with them. Also all questions that I had were answered very fast. 5 out of 5 stars!)

 

[rliver73]

Hi, Just wanted to add my experience as a newbie and FreeNAS. Having successfully configured a Dell T110ii with FreeNAS I impulse purchased a Dell R320 to play with. Noted after the event that the Perc H310 Mini Mono was reportedly problematic with FreeNAS (doh moment). At about the same time noted like from previous posts that the H310 MM was in fact IT Mode flashable afterall. I bought a preflashed IT Mode one from a popular UK auction site, swapped the cards and FreeNAS sees all the SMART data etc. Very pleased.

Other learning:

• I didn't bother with USB drives since the ones I had were extremely slow and since a Crucial 120GB SSD was only £20 I used this as the install / boot device in the R320 SATA_E port (formerly the ODD with the SDD in a ODD /2.5" HDD caddie so it fitted in without any hassle). Installed mega quick....
• 4x 3.5" 1TB HDD sit in the HDD caddies and these SAS cable from the backplane to the R320 SAS_A connector (standard and no modification)
• Trying to change settings on running Jails and VM and these changes not sticking even though the interface reported the changes. Don't do that.
• Leaving Berkeley Packet Filtering on when I set static IPs in Jails and then not being able to ping in or out.

In a Jail I have Unifi Controller
In second Jail I have Plex
In one Ubuntu 18.04 VM I have PiHole + CUPS
In second Ubuntu 18.04 VM I have Unifi Video

FreeNAS love it...

Dell R320, 48GB, E5-2450L, 4x 1TB HDD + 120GB SSD boot drive.

i might try following the ESXi guide and attempt to pass though the HBA card next.

 

[Mr. Slumber]

@rliver73 : Thanks for sharing! :)