Mixing HBA + USB Drives ?

[Neko77025]

So , I am planning on Using TureNAS but want to make sure this will work. Right now , I have 3x 4TB in A windows storage space (RAID 5), Threw A HBA with 4 sata ports. I want add 2 more drives (5 total) , however All my MB sata ports are in use. I was thinking about the 5th Drive as USB. All drives will be the same Just 4 from HBA and one will be USB. (their will also be A SSD cache drive, threw MB Sata)


I dont think this will cause issues .. but want to check.

(Side notes, Their is no PCIe slots or lanes left for A bigger HBA. All Motherboard Sata (4) slots are in use, and Both NVMe M.2 are in use). Only thing I have left is USB.
(home server, that Runs my Plex, VMs, Unifi, Server hosting for games)

 

[jgreco]

All the LSI 4-port HBA's are available in an 8 port version in the same form factor. Replace the HBA.

 

[Neko77025]

All the LSI 4-port HBA's are available in an 8 port version in the same form factor. Replace the HBA.

Cant, the PCIe slot is PCIe X4. Also , I have no more PCIe Lanes to spare , All are in use, so I cant make use of the HBAs with 2x SFF 8087.

 

[jgreco]

Ah, WHAT? I think you have some very quaint and misinformed ideas about SAS and HBA here.

As one of the people who has written most extensively on LSI, HBA, and RAID cards over the years, trust me when I say what you said is unequivocally untrue.

As long as your PCIe slot is X1, an LSI HBA will work. You can put a -16i card in an X1 slot and it will work just fine. Drive accesses might be slow, admittedly.

The PCIe interface moves data between the host CPU in your server, and the little CPU on the HBA. It doesn't really matter if this is X1, X4, X8, or X16. That just dictates the speed at which data peaks out, not the number of drives.

The HBA CPU connects out to SAS devices using a local SAS initiator. An SFF-8087 contains four native 6Gbps channels, but can connect downstream to an SAS expander, which can potentially have HUNDREDS of HDD's attached to it.

An HBA is conventionally an X8 PCIe device just because of the way Intel has traditionally targeted PCIe lanes per CPU family, and the types of mainboards handy to server manufacturers. You do not need an X8 slot to power a 9211-8i. The -8i has nothing to do with the PCIe; it's the number of SAS lanes.

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy ... a primer on basic SAS and SATA

With the introduction of SAS 12Gbps, seems like "it's time" to do a braindump on SAS. Work in progress, as usual. History By the late '90's, SCSI and PATA were the dominant technologies to attach disks. Both were parallel bus multiple drop topologies and this kind of sucked. SATA and Serial...

www.truenas.com

So, just to be very clear, YES YOU CAN replace the HBA with a -8i. This is by FAR the best solution to your problem, FAR better than USB.

 

[Neko77025]

Ah, WHAT? I think you have some very quaint and misinformed ideas about SAS and HBA here.

As one of the people who has written most extensively on LSI, HBA, and RAID cards over the years, trust me when I say what you said is unequivocally untrue.

As long as your PCIe slot is X1, an LSI HBA will work. You can put a -16i card in an X1 slot and it will work just fine. Drive accesses might be slow, admittedly.

The PCIe interface moves data between the host CPU in your server, and the little CPU on the HBA. It doesn't really matter if this is X1, X4, X8, or X16. That just dictates the speed at which data peaks out, not the number of drives.

The HBA CPU connects out to SAS devices using a local SAS initiator. An SFF-8087 contains four native 6Gbps channels, but can connect downstream to an SAS expander, which can potentially have HUNDREDS of HDD's attached to it.

An HBA is conventionally an X8 PCIe device just because of the way Intel has traditionally targeted PCIe lanes per CPU family, and the types of mainboards handy to server manufacturers. You do not need an X8 slot to power a 9211-8i. The -8i has nothing to do with the PCIe; it's the number of SAS lanes.

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy ... a primer on basic SAS and SATA

With the introduction of SAS 12Gbps, seems like "it's time" to do a braindump on SAS. Work in progress, as usual. History By the late '90's, SCSI and PATA were the dominant technologies to attach disks. Both were parallel bus multiple drop topologies and this kind of sucked. SATA and Serial...

www.truenas.com

So, just to be very clear, YES YOU CAN replace the HBA with a -8i. This is by FAR the best solution to your problem, FAR better than USB.

The card I am using is A LSI 9211-4i, the board is ASrock H570M , The x4 Slot is physcially x4 (with no overhang allowed) .... I would have to take a drimmel and cut out some plastic to fit A x8 card.

 

[jgreco]

Looks like I stand corrected. The 9211-8i and 9240-8i are the same card. The 9240-4i is also an x8 card. Apparently there actually is a 9211-4i card that is a PCIe x4, but even the 9240-4i cards are super-rare (I have one, from iXsystems even!) and I don't think I've EVER seen a 9211-4i. Real obscure kit.

Either way, the USB thing is not particularly advisable.

You could always go with an SAS expander. It just adds more SAS lanes to your existing HBA.

You could also chop the extra pins off an -8i card. This is more Dremel-able.

 

[Neko77025]

Looks like I stand corrected. The 9211-8i and 9240-8i are the same card. The 9240-4i is also an x8 card. Apparently there actually is a 9211-4i card that is a PCIe x4, but even the 9240-4i cards are super-rare (I have one, from iXsystems even!) and I don't think I've EVER seen a 9211-4i. Real obscure kit.

Either way, the USB thing is not particularly advisable.

You could always go with an SAS expander. It just adds more SAS lanes to your existing HBA.

You could also chop the extra pins off an -8i card. This is more Dremel-able.

really dont want to do ether of them ... What about this. I have Another motherbaord that has A Thunderbolt card... dont really want to use that.. But I could get A 5 bay thunderbolt bay ... would also make it easyer to deal with the drives.

Would freenass be ok .. if all 5 drvies were in A thunderbolt enclosure

 

[jgreco]

I don't know that that's ever been done.

The SAS expander option is the common fix for needing more SAS connectivity. It's discussed in the SAS Primer.

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy ... a primer on basic SAS and SATA

With the introduction of SAS 12Gbps, seems like "it's time" to do a braindump on SAS. Work in progress, as usual. History By the late '90's, SCSI and PATA were the dominant technologies to attach disks. Both were parallel bus multiple drop topologies and this kind of sucked. SATA and Serial...

www.truenas.com

 

[pschatz100]

The ASRock website shows two H570M motherboards, and both of them have a PCI-e x16 slot.

To the OP: how about providing a complete system description, and an overview of your performance needs? Perhaps there is another way to accomplish what you want.