Is my Hardware Compatable

[vetting]

The first link is to a guy who have only sold 220 items on ebay. I always worry about a scam with sellers with that low soldcount. Did you buy from a low-count seller? Did you buy new or used?

 

[vetting]

Edit: Doublepost

 

[vetting]

The first link is to a guy who have only sold 220 items on ebay. I always worry about a scam with sellers with that low soldcount. Did you buy from a low-count seller? Did you buy new or used?

 

[BobCochran]

Great Thread, Thanks

I have read this thread with great interest. I am using an MSI 890GXM-G65 motherboard with FreeNAS 8.0.3-p1 (x64) and my attempts to do Time Machine backups of my MacBook Pro (which is now running OS X 10.7.3) often fail on network problems. I think I need to check the network cables, I found some with split outer cable sheathes and that can easily explain dropped connections. Even so I am not sure if my motherboard needs to be replaced.

The discussion of the M1015 controller is extremely interesting because I have a bunch of Dell PERC 5/i controllers which I bought used on Ebay. These use the LSI SAS1068 chipsets. I have not flashed these with the latest Dell update for them, and I have to use the "scotch tape" trick on the PCIe connector pins 4 and 5 to get my MSI motherboard to boot at all. The SAS controller does not seem to work well, it reports errors on my 1 Tb Western Digital hard drives. Maybe I should try the M1015...or perhaps I need a better motherboard.

Maybe it would be better to use a server-class motherboard like the SuperMicro boards? One problem is that the SuperMicro boards that can run Opteron processors with an ATX form factor don't have a lot of PCIe slots. They have too many PCI slots.

Oh, to respond to the question about the Ebay seller with only 220 sells...that is a large number and probably this seller has repeat purchasers too. Look at the seller's feedback score. If it is above 99% positive I have no problem. Also, Ebay the company will usually guarantee the sale under their Buyer Protection Program.

I have only had one bad experience buying on Ebay with an item from a seller in Ohio that did not arrive fast. It turned out to be the post office's fault. When I complained about not getting the item, the seller did not respond to me quickly but he did refund my money. Then to my surprise, the item arrived in the mail days later. The envelope was scuffed and very dirty and obviously it must have fallen under some post office machine in a mail sorting facility and was only recently discovered. I mailed the item back to the seller and sent him an Ebay message explaining what happened.

Overall I'm very happy buying from Ebay sellers. I have been very well treated.

Thanks



Bob Cochran

 

[vetting]

I just bought the controller. Is this the right cabal to buy?

New Mini SAS 36pin (SFF-8087) to 4XSATA 7pin cable

 

[bsalinux]

Hi,

Has anyone else tried this procedure? I'm just trying to collect datapoints to gather courage to do it on mine.

Thanks.

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]

Will this cabel work with the controller?

New Mini SAS 36pin (SFF-8087) to 4XSATA 7pin Reverse data cable