Hey guys, I'm going through the motions of figuring out a stable build of FreeNAS for an organization. It's an HP shop, so sticking to the brand has some meta-advantages that I won't get into. We're also avoiding the repurposing of old hardware for longevity reasons. Due to these factors, the build that I'm piloting ends up being this:
HP Gen9 DL380 Server with 12 Large Form Factor Drive Bays. 16 GB ECC RAM, 1 loaded CPU socket (intel). OS installed to USB Flash media. The SKU came pre-loaded with an HP Smart Array P840 RAID card. Initial deployment will be with 4 TB Western Digital RE (SAS) drives, total of 8 with an intent to increase to 12 drives as needed. I'm using FreeNAS 9.3 STABLE.
Now, I don't need the primer on not using hardware RAID. I read the 4-part build guide on the website and looked over the forums. My intention is to do this right. That said, here's where my build is breaking...
The P840 card (which currently returns zero search results on the forum) has an HBA mode option, which I promptly turned on before even starting the install. However, FreeNAS isn't picking anything up. I used the console and checked inside /dev/ and didn't see any devices there either.
So my assumption is that my issue is probably FreeBSD not knowing how to interface with this card, even in HBA mode...based on my build plan, and the 8x (12x preferred) 4TB drive support factor, and needing to be able to plug into whatever cable "standard" this HP frontplane is spitting out to the back of the server...what can the community recommend?
I'm sure that ideally the OS will catch up to the hardware in time, but that doesn't help me for the moment. I'm fine ordering an alternative HBA capable card and swapping it...it just has to support 4TB drives, 12 drives total, and be able to plug into these cables from the front plane. I would feel better hearing some of you guys agree with my assessment of what the actual problem is, though.
(edit) I'd also like to mention that the riser card supports two PCI 8x v3 cards...so If I need to buy two cards to reach 12 drive support, that's viable.
HP Gen9 DL380 Server with 12 Large Form Factor Drive Bays. 16 GB ECC RAM, 1 loaded CPU socket (intel). OS installed to USB Flash media. The SKU came pre-loaded with an HP Smart Array P840 RAID card. Initial deployment will be with 4 TB Western Digital RE (SAS) drives, total of 8 with an intent to increase to 12 drives as needed. I'm using FreeNAS 9.3 STABLE.
Now, I don't need the primer on not using hardware RAID. I read the 4-part build guide on the website and looked over the forums. My intention is to do this right. That said, here's where my build is breaking...
The P840 card (which currently returns zero search results on the forum) has an HBA mode option, which I promptly turned on before even starting the install. However, FreeNAS isn't picking anything up. I used the console and checked inside /dev/ and didn't see any devices there either.
So my assumption is that my issue is probably FreeBSD not knowing how to interface with this card, even in HBA mode...based on my build plan, and the 8x (12x preferred) 4TB drive support factor, and needing to be able to plug into whatever cable "standard" this HP frontplane is spitting out to the back of the server...what can the community recommend?
I'm sure that ideally the OS will catch up to the hardware in time, but that doesn't help me for the moment. I'm fine ordering an alternative HBA capable card and swapping it...it just has to support 4TB drives, 12 drives total, and be able to plug into these cables from the front plane. I would feel better hearing some of you guys agree with my assessment of what the actual problem is, though.
(edit) I'd also like to mention that the riser card supports two PCI 8x v3 cards...so If I need to buy two cards to reach 12 drive support, that's viable.
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