HBA card is it really needed?

[phier]

Hello,
i am running truenas via ESXi and local SATA ports from mainboard are "passthrought" to the truenas virtual.

I was told it might be "safer" to use HBA card, but did some reading here ... https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/sata-hba-recommendation.105052/
and it seems that HBA card is another 10-15W consumption.

Is it really needed to use HBA if i have enough SATA ports on mainboard, or HBA is only in case i want to get additional SATA ports?

Thanks

 

[Etorix]

The requirement for safe virtualisation is to pass the SATA/SAS controller rather than individual disks.
The most common way to do that is by passing a dedicated HBA, but if you boot from NVMe and are able to pass the SATA controller from the chipset that should be fine as well.

Resource - "Absolutely must virtualize TrueNAS!" ... a guide to not completely losing your data.

[---- 2024/01/16: Still relevant. Virtualization really doesn't change much. Updates made as appropriate. ----] [---- 2018/02/27: This is still as relevant as ever. As PCIe-Passthru has matured, fewer problems are reported. I've updated some...

www.truenas.com

 

[phier]

@Etorix
Sorry, u are correct I pass the whole sata controller from supermicro board bc I boot from nvme.

So In that case there is no point to have hba only in case I need more data ports that board comes with?

also trying to open link you provided i got
The requested thread could not be found.
Thanks

 

[Etorix]

Updated link above. It seems that The Crazy Forum Administrator stroke again and moved "…/thread/…" to "…/resource/…". (This might have occurred around the time of creating this "Community Contributions" section for which no one has found a purpose yet.)

 

[phier]

I will check the article,
But back to the original question in my scenario in case I dont need additional satas I don't need it? Thanks

 

[Etorix]

Yes, your setup is fine.

 

[mpriney]

Thanks for this thread. I've been looking for "why do I need an HBA?" and this answered it in an easy to understand way