Is my Hardware Compatable

[vetting]

Hi.

I am no computer wizard so I need some help with the hardware compatability. I plan to build a NAS for my Home Cinema, with a lot of HD and with the possibility to add HD's in the future.

Yes, I have seen the Hardware Compatability List, but it is greek to me as I cannot find the exact name of the motherboard, processors etc...

Can these hardwares be used in a Freenas server?

Motherboard: GIGABYTE Mod SoAM3+ GBT GA-990FXA-UD3 (990FX/ ATX)

Processor: AMD Athlon II X2 250 Dual Core, 3.0Ghz, AM3, 2MB, 65W, Boxed

HD controller: INTEL SASUC81 RAID SAS Controller PCIe

RAM: KINGSTON HyperX 4GB DDR3 1600MHz DIMM

Graphics card: SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 5450 512MB GDDR3 PCI-E

If my english is bad, sorry :)

 

[Digidoc]

Although that board would work it's complete overkill. The Intel RAID controller isn't needed either since you'd want to use ZFS instead, and it needs direct access to the hard drives.

Instead, consider getting something like this:

(GIGABYTE GA-880GMA-USB3) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128490

It has six SATA 6GB ports on it, plus integrated video so you won't need to purchase a separate video card (which will go unused after the initial install). It's also $50 less than the 990FXA board you're looking at (and will perform virtually identically for this).

The X2 250 CPU is fine.

I wouldn't recommend only 4GB of DDR3-1600 RAM. It'd be better to spend a little extra and get 8GB of DDR3-1333 RAM instead of getting 4GB of DDR-1600 RAM. The faster RAM will not give you any noticeable speed increase. Having the extra RAM for pre-caching will give you a noticeable speed increase though. RAM is cheap these days; I've been able to buy two 4GB sticks of DDR3-1333 RAM for as little as $34USD.

 

[vetting]

ZFS is a filsystem? Why can't I use it with the controller, which is not a RAID controller but a Hard Drive controller?

The reason for choosing the 990FX is because of all PCI-E tracks with "clean" bandwith. The server is for a home cinema, so I need alot of storage. I plan to use 10 hard drives with the possibility to expand later on.

I might use a video card I have lying around if I can take it out after I have installed Freenas. Can I do that?

More RAM is no problem.

 

[Digidoc]

Here's more info on ZFS, and why it doesn't work with hardware RAID controllers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zfs#Data_Integrity

The actual hardware WILL work, it's just that you have to set the controller to JBOD mode; at that point you're just better off buying a "vanilla" SATA card for use with FreeNAS.

Regarding the 990FX; the 990FX is nothing more than a re-badged 890FX chipset:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/AMD-990FX-Prepping-for-Bulldozer/1315/3

As for the video card, yes you can remove it after the install. The installer doesn't need a fancy graphics card to run; it works in text mode. Once the install is completed you can remove it and the keyboard (make sure you set the system BIOS to "Halt on no errors").

ZFS is a filsystem? Why can't I use it with the controller, which is not a RAID controller but a Hard Drive controller?

The reason for choosing the 990FX is because of all PCI-E tracks with "clean" bandwith. The server is for a home cinema, so I need alot of storage. I plan to use 10 hard drives with the possibility to expand later on.

I might use a video card I have lying around if I can take it out after I have installed Freenas. Can I do that?

More RAM is no problem.

 

[vetting]

It is not a RAID controller... It is a Hard Drive controller without RAID. So I will let the software take care of the raid. That was the plan. Can't see why this wont work...

The GIGABYTE GA-880GMA-USB3 just have one PCI-E x 16 slot, so I cant expand withe more hardrives later on, which is important to me. Also, in Norway the 990FX is about $36 more, so not a big hit to the wallet...

 

[Digidoc]

It is not a RAID controller... It is a Hard Drive controller without RAID. So I will let the software take care of the raid. That was the plan. Can't see why this wont work...

The GIGABYTE GA-880GMA-USB3 just have one PCI-E x 16 slot, so I cant expand withe more hardrives later on, which is important to me. Also, in Norway the 990FX is about $36 more, so not a big hit to the wallet...

HD controller: INTEL SASUC81 RAID SAS Controller PCIe

It's actually is a RAID card, but it only does RAID0,1,1E/10E. :)

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/servers/raid/raid-controller-sasuc8i.html

You'd basically be configuring it in JBOD mode. It's based on an LSI SAS1068E chip. I looked at the HCL for FreeNAS and it's not listed:

http://www.freebsd.org/releases/8.2R/hardware.html#DISK

However, the SAS1068 chip is listed and works with the MPT4 driver. I found a thread regarding FreeNAS 7.2 and users have said that it worked:

http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/freenas/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=5808

In short; it *should* work with FreeNAS8. Here in the States it's going for about $160, which is pretty good for an 8 port SAS card (most four port SATA cards are in the $40-$60USD range).

The reason I was suggesting the 880G chipset board was that I got the initial impression from the 4GB of RAM and the X2 CPU that you were trying to do a budget build. I see that was a mistake on my part. :) If having the ability to add the maximum number of hard drives to the system is critical, have you considered going to the Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5 instead? It's got 8 SATA ports on it instead of the six the UD3 version has, and it's about $30USD more. Combined with the Intel RAID card you'd have 16 ports from the start.

Hopefully someone else can chime in here, but the only thing I can potentially see being the problem with either the UD3 (or the UD5) board is the USB3.0 controller. I *THINK* they added support for it in the latest build of FreeNAS8, but I'm not 100% sure. Worst case you may have to disable it in the BIOS.

Of the original list you posted in your first post, the only thing I would suggest is going with the maximum amount of memory you can afford (minimum being 8, preferably 16GB or more), and skipping buying a video card if you already have one you can use for the install. Other than that everything should work fine. :)

 

[Digidoc]

BTW, here's the thread about USB3.0 compatibility:

http://forums.freenas.org/showthread.php?467-USB-3.0-Support-in-FreeNAS-8

I had read in another thread somewhere that on an earlier build some people were experiencing some weirdness like the system not booting right. Don't ask me to find that thread though. :D From the thread I linked though, it appears that USB3.0 has been working since FreeNAS8.0.1 Beta3, so if you use the latest release version you should be good to go.

 

[vetting]

Youre absolutly right. I was thinking of another 4p controller I was considering before.

So I configure the controller to JBOD mode, that way the ZFS can take care of the RAID?

Thanks for the input on the motherboard

Well, it is kind of a budget server, but I want to do it right the first time. So I will invest more to get the server that I want. It is important for me with alot of storage space, and the abillity to add HDD later on. A big moviecollection (which are growing) needs alot of space.

I will also add more RAM.

Can I use both the SATAports on the motherboard and the controller in the same RAID?

 

[Digidoc]

Yes, you can combine drives on both the motherboard's SATA ports and the SATA card ports. FreeNAS sees them as stand alone drives and lets you combine them into a single storage pool.

Something else to consider is the power supply. I started out with a 585w PSU in my FreeNAS box (that has seven 2tb hdds in it and I noticed that when I started adding cooling fans it was barely enough to run it all (especially at start-up). I've got an HEC 800w/1000 peak watt PSU in it now and it runs fine.

 

[Digidoc]

oh yeah... yes, just let the raid controller pick up the drives as individual drives and you should be OK.

 

[vetting]

Sounds great.

Can I use different brands and sizes of HDD within a RAID? And can I use different Brand and types of controllers within a RAID?

Do you know if this controller works with FREENAS?
IBM m1015

The reason for choosing this one is that it supports 3TB HDD.

 

[Digidoc]

You can use different brands of drives, but if you use different sizes it'll be limited by the smallest of the drives used. Someone feel free to correct me if I'm incorrect here, but if you were to say use three 2TB HDD's and one 1TB HDD, it would treat the 2TB HDD's as 1TB HDD's (so you'd lose 3TB of potential space).

I don't believe that the M1015 will work. It's based on an LSI SAS 2008 chip, and there's no direct driver support in FreeNAS for it. :(

 

[vetting]

Ok, same size HDD will be used.

I found this thread:

http://forums.freenas.org/showthread.php?3528-IBM-M1015-Freenas-8.0-Easiest-way-to-install-drivers

Is this a difficult procedure?

 

[Digidoc]

It looks pretty straight-forward.

Ok, same size HDD will be used.

I found this thread:

http://forums.freenas.org/showthread.php?3528-IBM-M1015-Freenas-8.0-Easiest-way-to-install-drivers

Is this a difficult procedure?

 

[Digidoc]

BTW, just wanted to say thanks for pointing out the IBM controller. I had been looking for a low-cost multiport SATA card for my own system, and after digging around I was able to get one of those cards for $70 shipped (and I found the cables from monoprice.com for $8.80USD each too: http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10254&cs_id=1025406&p_id=8187&seq=1&format=2 ). Pretty much every other controller I found only had four ports and cost almost the same and were only SATA II. An 8-port SATA-III card for a total of $89.92 (w/cables) is an absolute steal!

 

[Digidoc]

I got the IBM M1015 controller and two SAS to SATA forward fanout cables today. I'll be doing the cross-flash later. I'll let you know if it works or not with the latest release of FreeNAS 8. :)

 

[Digidoc]

IT WORKS! At first I tried the adapter without cross-flashing it to see if it'd work. No surprise; it didn't. FreeNAS didn't pick it up at all.

I followed the instructions here:

http://forums.freenas.org/showthrea...-install-drivers&p=14184&viewfull=1#post14184

It's pretty easy to create the bootable DOS flash drive. Just install the HP DOS flash disk creation utility and extract the Win98 boot disk from here:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/46707-ms-dos-bootable-flash-drive-create.html

Copy the m1015 flash tools from the first thread and extract them to the root of the USB drive.

If you want, you can automate the whole thing by creating two batch files. In the first one, put in the three commands listed that you need to run before restarting your system. In the second one, put in the last two (including putting in the SAS address from the sticker on the back of the card).

About the SAS address... when you look at the sticker, you'll see that it begins with "500605b". After those numbers and the letter "b", you'll see a hexadecimal address with hyphens ( - ) in it. Append it to the last command line without the hyphens.

Reboot your system (or shut it down and install the card into your FreeNAS box), fire up FreeNAS, and voila! The attached drives show up without any fuss.

Thanks again for pointing out this card to me. I've been looking for a while for an 8-port HBA but haven't been able to find a single one (other than 4-port cards).

 

[vetting]

No problem :) I havent buyed mine yet. Where did you get it for $70 shipped?

 

[Digidoc]

I found mine on eBay. The seller was located in New Hampshire (USA). I haven't checked in about a month, but last time I checked, most were in the $80-$120 range. I got really lucky with my purchase!

No problem :) I havent buyed mine yet. Where did you get it for $70 shipped?

 

[Digidoc]

Here's one that's $80 + shipping:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-ServeRA..._EN_Networking_Components&hash=item256b210f74

Here's one for $70 w/free shipping, but it doesn't include the bracket:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-ServeRA..._EN_Networking_Components&hash=item2c61e6a7fc