Installer does not see E208i SAS controller

[2twisty]

I have a new HP DL385 Gen 10+ server equipped with 2 EPYC CPUs, 256GB RAM. Also has an E208i SAS controller installed

No matter what I do, I cannot get the FreeNAS installer to see the drives attached to the SAS controller.

If I install to a USB drive, FreeNAS boots, and it sees all the drives attached to the controller. It's almost like the smartpqi kernel driver is not compiled into the kernel used by the installer, but IS compiled into the one used to actually run FreeNAS.

I have 2 SATA SSDs connected to the array that I would like to install to as a mirrored set, but nothing I do allows me to see DA0 and DA1 (or any other drive connected to the SAS controller). I can see my add-in NVME cards, but those are not for boot, but for Tier1 storage.

Another issue that might be related: When I install to USB and try to update to TrueNAS 12 Core (beta) the update fails and it will no longer boot.

 

[Newfoundland.Republic]

Maybe this post will help: https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/hp-proliant-dl380-gen-10-installing-problem.72515/

That said, a reminder that you should have the controller flashed to IT mode (e.g., do not use the RAID firmware). ZFS wants to have direct access to the drives and not go through any RAID firmware.

HTH

 

[2twisty]

I'll look for a firmware for that sas card. When I ordered the server I told them explicitly that the sas interface had to be direct with no raid.

I guess they figured hybrid would be fine, despite the fact that I told them I was using freenas and that it must be a direct hba.

If I can't get a fw for it, I'll see if they will let me return just the sas card and ill buy an LSI 8i, like the ones I have in my personal servers


Grrrrr.

 

[Yorick]

SR is SmartRAID, it's not LSI. MR would be the LSI chipsets. It's quite likely that FreeBSD just doesn't have a driver for this chipset, though I haven't found any reference as to which chipset SR uses exactly, just that it's "not LSI".

 

[2twisty]

FreeBSD Does have a driver; smartpqi.

If I install to a USB drive and boot, FreeNAS sees the disks and I can build pools. It just doesn't see them during the install phase, so I can't install to a drive connected to it.

I am talking with my vendor about it. We will likely be replacing the E208i with a P408i, but only if they can confirm that it can be set to pure HBA mode with full passthrough of all drives. If not, I'll RMA it and go buy an LSI card.

 

[Newfoundland.Republic]

I tend to be cautious with my storage. I'd RMA it and get an LSI card....

 

[jgreco]

I have a new HP DL385 Gen 10+ server equipped with 2 EPYC CPUs, 256GB RAM. Also has an E208i SAS controller installed

No matter what I do, I cannot get the FreeNAS installer to see the drives attached to the SAS controller.

Yup. Don't try it. Using random not-well-supported controllers is risky and potentially harmful to your data.

This article is written for people in your situation.

https://www.ixsystems.com/community...s-and-why-cant-i-use-a-raid-controller.81931/

For purposes of this discussion, the E208i is a RAID controller. I'm not interested in debating this (people seem to like to debate this kind of thing - oblivious to the fact that it doesn't change things). It just is what it is. If there's a way to get an LSI HBA in there, you are much better off and much safer in the long run.

 

[HoneyBadger]

@2twisty I would join the voices in suggesting an LSI HBA, specifically because of point #2 from @jgreco's link:

2) FreeBSD has incredibly robust support for the LSI HBA's.

FreeBSD's LSI HBA (mps/mpr) drivers are authored by LSI and carefully designed to work with their HBA firmware. The FreeNAS userbase has installed many thousands of these cards which have, in aggregate, BILLIONS of problem-free run-hours. Not only are they known to work very well during normal operations, but they're also known to work correctly during ABNORMAL operations, such as when a disk times out or throws an error. SMART is properly supported. Forum members are incredibly familiar with all the variations on these and can provide useful assistance. Cards such as the LSI 9240-8i, IBM ServeRAID M1015, Dell PERC H200 and H310, and others are readily available on the used market and can be converted to LSI 9211-8i equivalents.

Billions of run-hours is not a joke or an understatement; it's also the chipset of choice for the Isilon scale-out NAS platform so add another few billions of run-hours and exabytes of data protected on that platform also being a "FreeBSD+LSI" combination.

 

[Herr_Merlin]

Boot up the HP storage iso. There this an option to flash and set nearly every HP RAID card to HBA mode and there you go.
If you just bought that system with service level than buying a LSI card is no option and voids the SLA.. HP has RAID cards and HBA (where most of are configured and shipped with an soft RAID mode and you have to boot up the HP storage toolkit to change the mode) also make sure to select max performance when changing to HBA otherwise the card is out in a power safe mode.
You might want to check if your card is on the HCL for windows storage spaces.. if so it has to have an pure HBA mode, which would work for FreeNAS as well.