HBA question

[Barmaley]

Hello,
I am building NAS server based on latest FreeNAS and I am planning to configure RAID6 (allowed two disk failures) with eight 10T WD hard drives. Even it is a home running server (hosting movies, hosting some VMs, keep backups and pictures), so load would not be high, I would like to do not loose data, so I prefer RAID6 rather than RAID5. Server is based on Lenovo TS430 (having eight hot swappable trays).

The question is what raid card I should choose for this configuration. I read, that " ... ZFS users on FreeNAS should avoid using the hardware RAID features of a RAID card. ZFS and FreeNAS work best when the drive is managed directly by FreeNAS, including having SMART data available from the drive. .... " and that " .... LSI makes a lot of hardware. They make HBA ("Host Bus Adapter") and RAID cards ... ".
In general, a HBA is probably a better choice than a RAID card ... ". My question is what LSI SAS HBA (or other brand with similar functionality) would you recommend me to use. Server TS430 comes with LSI 9240-8i SAS card, that does not support RAID6.
Thanks.

p.s. if something in this idea does not work, please make your suggestions and speak up. Critical things are duplicated on multiple single hard drives and kept at work and/or other places.

 

[Constantin]

You don’t want or need RAID hardware for FreeNAS systems. The whole point of FreeNAS is to take over all that functionality in software and to do a better job than the RAID hardware could.

What you’re apparently looking for is a Z2 pool. That will allow two drives to fail before the pool is at risk of complete loss.

If you need a SAS HBA, the folk here recommend flashing it to IT mode, which disables RAID.

 

[danb35]

The question is what raid card I should choose for this configuration.

None; you need a HBA instead, and I'm pretty sure the hardware recommendations guide (which you initially responded to) tells you which ones--any LSI/Broadcom/Avago SAS2008/2308/3008-based SAS HBA. There are lots of them available--the LSI-branded cards are the 9211/9207-8i, there's the IBM M1015, the Dell H200, and I'm pretty sure Supermicro has one of their own. All of them should be flashed to the latest version of the IT mode firmware.

 

[kappclark]

None; you need a HBA instead, and I'm pretty sure the hardware recommendations guide (which you initially responded to) tells you which ones--any LSI/Broadcom/Avago SAS2008/2308/3008-based SAS HBA. There are lots of them available--the LSI-branded cards are the 9211/9207-8i, there's the IBM M1015, the Dell H200, and I'm pretty sure Supermicro has one of their own. All of them should be flashed to the latest version of the IT mode firmware.

?? Are there any HBA cards which do not require flashing to IT mode ?? IOW - are there any freenas compatible hba cards which are in IT mode off the shelf ? Perhaps a vendor that has already made the flashing to the stock LSI cards ?

I am out of sata ports, and would like to add 2 more HD -- any plm just using a cheap card like this ??

 

[danb35]

Are there any HBA cards which do not require flashing to IT mode

I believe they're all in IR mode by default. Why is flashing a problem? It takes less than five minutes, and can be done from within FreeNAS.

 

[Redcoat]

Alternatively yhou can look on eday for items like this https://www.ebay.com/itm/Genuine-LS...:USPSPriorityMailSmallFlatRateBox!44105!US!-1

Art of the Server has good rep here. I have one such card from him.

 

[Yorick]

Server TS430 comes with LSI 9240-8i SAS card

Then use that one. You can flash it to IT mode and it'll work fine. Discussion of that over there: https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/lsi-9240-8i-firmware.26530/

 

[kappclark]

I believe they're all in IR mode by default. Why is flashing a problem? It takes less than five minutes, and can be done from within FreeNAS.

Was not cleae cld be done w/in freenas -- OK --- No problem ... reached out also to Art of Server as well...
THX as always for replies..