New build - controller card recomendations

[Ericloewe]

You don't need an expander backplane, there's a passive backplane that uses SFF-8087 instead of the individual connectors.

 

[danb35]

is it really that ugly on the backplane side?

On an 846, definitely. Even on an 826 (a 2U chassis) it's pretty bad, but workable. But I wouldn't care to try it on an 846.

 

[Mugiwara]

Ok. Thanks for the input both of you. I think, then, finally, I will go with something like this.

It states it has a BPN-SAS-846A backplane, but after going through various supermicro pages , all of them seem to indicate supporting sas2/sata3 drives, so I think I should be good from a bandwidth perspective (if I look at components on the bottom, the description for the BPN-SAS-846A is "24-port 4U SAS 6Gbps direct-attached backplane, support up to 24x 3.5-inch SAS2/SATA3 HDD/SSD"). And my two HBAs should be able to drive 16 of the drives while leaving 2 ports empty.

 

[danb35]

It states it has a BPN-SAS-846A backplane

Much better. That will require six SAS cables to fully populate the backplane, rather than 24 SATA cables. Big improvement. Still not as convenient as a SAS expander backplane, but no doubt considerably less expensive.

 

[Mugiwara]

Well, after a rough build with plenty of dremeling and hacking fo the case to make it quiet, I finally have it up and running. I did decide to go with an ESXI / passthrough build, just because thats what I am familiar with and have been running with for the past several years. After running Spearfoot's great burn in script for 9(!!) full days, I am confident with all the drives and my hardware. Thanks everyone for the help and guidance thus far.

As I was going through initial provisioning, I am looking for some recommendations on the best way to set up my voles. Originally, I was planning on creating a single volume with a ZFS2 configuration, but it sounds like there are mixed opinions on whether I should put in 16 disks into a single volume. Would it be better to do 2 volumes with 8 disks each in a ZFS2 configurtion? It that riskier than 16 disks in a ZFS2? I don't really want to do 2 volumes with 8 disks in ZFS2, but if that is the best trade-off for safety vs capacity, I guess I would be willing to lose two more drives. Please let me know if there's a good current doc source I should research, or if anyone has any tip. Thanks!

 

[Stux]

I would do 2 x 8 way RaidZ2.

 

[Mugiwara]

I would do 2 x 8 way RaidZ2.

Ok, thanks for the tip. I am running into a snag though. I created the single Volume with 8 disks in RaidZ2. I then went to expand that volume again, with 8 disks in RaidZ2, but am getting this error. I am trying to add 8 additional disks, so I am not sure where this is coming from. Any ideas?

Version: FreeNAS-11.0-RELEASE (a2dc21583)

 

[Ericloewe]

You're adding two 4-drive RAIDZ2 vdevs, not one 8-drive RAIDZ2 vdev. Choose just one line.

 

[Mugiwara]

AH, ok, cool, thanks. I think there may be a graphical bug in the addon. I selected the top 4, gave me the error again and the bottom row disappeared. I then clicked and dragged the small little selector to the right, and the 4 missing drives suddenly appeared on the same row, and it let me add it. Anyway, looks like Im off to the races, Ill start my migrations. Thanks all :D