HP Proliant DL360 Gen 7 w/ FreeNAS?

[jlficken]

I'll start off by saying that I am new to enterprise hardware but have used FreeNAS before.

Will I have success in running FreeNAS on the above hardware? How about if down the road I want to attach a D2600 to the server with a P812 controller?

I've only ever set up FreeNAS where it has direct access to all disks but I don't think that's possible with the DL360 in stock form is it?

Any links or other information would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Elliot Dierksen]

I used to run my FreeNAS on a DL380 G7 with a P822. I received heaps of scorn for using a P822 RAID card. You MIGHT be able to get the P812 into HBA mode, but it doesn't play all that well with FreeNAS because of the ciss driver that it used. You would be better off getting an LSI 9207-8e. I have that card in one of my servers (Cisco, not HP now) running both a D2600 and a D2700.

 

[jlficken]

Thanks for the info!

I didn't realize that the P410i won't work for FreeNAS....should have done more reading it appears.

I guess now I'm wondering how I'd install FreeNAS at all on this machine without adding something like the LSI card you mentioned for the D2600.

How would I use the drives that are in the DL360 chassis? Would I need another card to handle just those drives?

ETA: Something like this for the internal HBA?

 

[Elliot Dierksen]

I didn't realize that the P410i won't work for FreeNAS....should have done more reading it appears.

For the boot media, you can use an internal USB thumb drive or SD card. You do need to make sure you move the system dataset to a different pool, or it will wear out you USB drives quickly. If you are going to use the internal drives bays too, you could also install an LSI 9207-8i to handle that. You might be able to beat on the P410i or P812 and get it to do HBA mode, but it isn't well supported. Since the LSI cards aren't very expensive, I wouldn't do it that way.

How would I use the drives that are in the DL360 chassis? Would I need another card to handle just those drives?

If you are going to have internal drives for a pool, you would probably be better off using that as your boot media. You COULD build a RAID1 on the P410i and use that as your boot media. Just prepare to get chided every time you mention that in your config. ZFS is the RAID, so you don't want/need HW RAID. I think it would work though, even if it isn't the preferred config. Defintely DON'T use HW RAID for the external drive units.

ETA: Something like this for the internal HBA?

It probably doesn't matter that much because of the speed (or lack thereof for HDD's), but that one is PCIe 2.0. The 9207's are PCIe 3.0. If you shop around, you can usually find those on eBay in the ~=$50 range. Beware of Chinese knockoff cards!

 

[jlficken]

Thanks again!

I'm new to all of this so still learning...albeit slowly.

 

[Elliot Dierksen]

ETA: Something like this for the internal HBA?

FYI, the query I used to find the 8e cards on eBay is

Code:

("h3-25427","9207-8e","lsi00300")

 

[jlficken]

I'll do some looking. Thanks!