New Server Build - plan with questions

[Napalm]

I'm new to most of this in general so I will probably ask the wrong thing.

I bought a HP Z420 workstation box with the E5-2590 processor and 16GB of ECC ram. Plan to put 32 in it next. I have 2 SSD, both samsung. 128 gb and 256 gb I plan to use one as my OS and app/jail drive.

I've orded a LSI 9265-8i off the internet but I'm a bit worried about what it actually is since the posting also says (new DELL in box). So it's either a Dell controller or a LSI controller that was to be sold though dell. not sure won't know till I have hands on it.

But even without the card - This intel board and setup has a number of SATA ports. 2 6b/s, and what seems to be 4 and 4 - 3GB/s. other 4 being an intel raid controller - that I assume at the moment I can turn off.

Drives - planning on getting 4, HGST 3tb Ultrastor devices that are 7200 RPM sata III. Goal is to put them in Z1 configuration but I'm also reading on putting them as 2 stripped - mirrors as opposed to the Z1 config. And I will have a 5th drive as a ready backup.

Any obvious holes that I've over looked. Or major issues - I've been doing some searches and it seems some people have trouble with the Z420 box - and others used them easily.

 

[Spearfoot]

I've orded a LSI 9265-8i off the internet but I'm a bit worried about what it actually is since the posting also says (new DELL in box). So it's either a Dell controller or a LSI controller that was to be sold though dell. not sure won't know till I have hands on it.

Yes, you should be worried about that card, because it's a RAID controller; what you want for TrueNAS/ZFS is a Host Bus Adapter (HBA), gory details here:

What's all the noise about HBA's, and why can't I use a RAID controller?

This is relevant to FreeNAS and TrueNAS CORE. Some parts of it might also be relevant to Scale, but I don't really know how reliable the Linux drivers are. 1) An HBA is a Host Bus Adapter. This is a controller that allows SAS and SATA devices to be attached to, and communicate directly with...

www.truenas.com

Hopefully you can return it and get a true HBA, based on the LSI 2008, 2308, or 3008 chipsets. Flashed to IT mode with the correct firmware, these will serve you well. You can study the exhaustive list of LSI cards here:

LSI RAID Controller and HBA Complete Listing Plus OEM Models

Below is a list of all known LSI SAS devices from the SAS1068 chipset to the very latest not yet publicly available SAS3xxx series. Devices with links have been released and official website technical info/support. Quite a few devices with no links are devices that may have been going to be...

forums.servethehome.com

But the key point to remember is: you want an HBA, not a RAID card.

Good luck with your project!

 

[Napalm]

Can't any LSI based 2208 card be flashed to IT mode? I thought that was needed for nearly all of them.

 

[Spearfoot]

Can't any LSI based 2208 card be flashed to IT mode? I thought that was needed for nearly all of them.

Correct; you want an HBA running in IT mode for TrueNAS, and my understanding is that you can flash a 9265 with 2308 firmware. But why put yourself through the trouble? The 9265 has a RAM cache and battery backup, neither of which you need -- but are probably paying extra for. Why not just buy a 9210/9211 (based on the 2008 chipset) or 9217 (based on the 2308) to begin with? Just my 2 cent's...

 

[Napalm]

oh the main reason was timing and cost. Getting a 9210 or 9211 that wasn't shipped from China, and wasn't over 130 dollars was neigh impossible. I could get a 9211 for something like 60 dollars also off ebay from a place shipping from china. I didn't really want to do that with return nightmare if it didn't work or something.

So my thought here was flashing the device sounds relatively easy and people seem to do it all the time. and I get the device with both supports (normal and short) and it's shipped from US to me directly with a return policy. We will see how it works if it doesn't back to the drawing board.

 

[ChrisRJ]

It is indeed shocking how also prices for used enterprise gear on eBay have gone up. About a year ago I saw an IBM 1015 from China for about GBP 20. And from a reputable seller in Germany it was EUR 50.

 

[rvassar]

It is indeed shocking how also prices for used enterprise gear on eBay have gone up. About a year ago I saw an IBM 1015 from China for about GBP 20. And from a reputable seller in Germany it was EUR 50.

Keep in mind the global chip shortage is rippling through all manner of supply chains. It's not just the auto manufacturers that can't obtain what used to be trivial three generation old Fab production components. It's impacting everyone. As a result I expect operations to stockpile parts to enable extended service lives. Cheap H310's and 10GbE NIC's may be scarce for a while...

 

[Napalm]

Ok so I ended up doing a trial run - 4 drives I had laying around - one SSD for the boot.

Plugged to onboard intel controller non-raid. installed SCALE, setup created a 4 drive ZFS raid 1 pool.

It works. I got truecharts repositiory setup with more apps. And I'm having fits getting permissions and whatever drive/folder I can use with Jellyfin.

But so far so good

final build will end up with the 4 - 3tb drives I mention above. But you know for a set of non-performance drives, with onboard sata controller it runs better than I expected. Easily getting 90-110 mb/s file up loads from wired laptop and even my mobile on wifi. Figure it will be a little faster with the other stuff.

now to figure out the other stuff.

 

[NugentS]

Glad its worked for you