Picking out a HBA and expander, and...

[Lucien]

...and I have some questions.

Some background - I'm building a FreeNAS box for only storage (no transcoding, etc, ect), and so far have gotten an X11SSM-F, G4560 and 16 GB of ECC RAM. I'm targeting 6x 4TB in RAIDZ2 for now, though am considering 8x, and would like to leave options open for future expansion. Next item on my list is to pick up a HBA.

1) Does it matter if I pick up a LSI 9211 or 9207 based one? I came across this vendor on eBay, and the price difference between the two seems minor. (Also I'm wondering if all the M1015 cards on the bay are actually genuine.)

2) Is P20 still the recommended firmware for FreeNAS 11.1? I think it is, but want to be sure.

3) I came across this thread and the replies by Chris. I'd like to keep the HBA BIOS for spin up delay, and given I wanted to leave the option open for future expansion, was thinking I would just get a second HBA down the road. After reading that thread, I think what I'll have to do is a HBA + SAS expander. And if I'm going do do that, I'd rather do that now on a system I'm testing out rather than a live system later on. I've come across the Intel RES2SV240 SAS expander and the PMC Sierra PM8005 based HP SAS expanders, but not much more info about the two. Does anyone have any experiences with these? Suggestions for alternatives? And can I just plug this into the system and not think about it?

Thanks!

 

[Johnnie Black]

1) Does it matter if I pick up a LSI 9211 or 9207 based one?

If you're going to use an expander depends on the number of disks you intent to use, assuming your board is PCIe 3.0, if not it won't make a difference.

2) Is P20 still the recommended firmware for FreeNAS 11.1?

Yes, P20.00.07

I've come across the Intel RES2SV240 SAS expander and the PMC Sierra PM8005 based HP SAS expanders, but not much more info about the two. Does anyone have any experiences with these?

I have both, either will work, Intel uses an LSI chipset and supports SATA3, fewer ports though, HP is SATA2 only, this can make difference (also depending on the number of disks used) since it will limit the link speed to the HBA.

 

[Ericloewe]

The SAS 9207 probably runs slightly cooler, but they're otherwise equivalent from most users' perspectives.

 

[Johnnie Black]

The SAS 9207 probably runs slightly cooler

My experience is the opposite, since it's clocked higher it uses a little more power and so more heat.

 

[Lucien]

I'll probably put a fan on the HBA either way. I'm in the tropic and ambient temperatures are about 30 C. :/

Sounds like want is to couple a 9207 with the RES2SV240? My board is a X11SSM-F, so it does have PCIe 3.0. I wouldn't need the extra ports the HP expander offers, especially not at this stage. 4 ports to the HBA and 8 ports to 8x HD still leaves me with plenty of room to spare.

Does the RES2SV240 have/need updateable firmware like the HP does? And I did a bit more reading - there was a counter-arguement that adding an expander between the HBA and HD when using SATA disks is asking for trouble. (Something to do with the different physical signalling levels between SAS and SATA?) Any comments on that?

 

[Johnnie Black]

Does the RES2SV240 have/need updateable firmware like the HP does?

Both I bought came with the latest one, I believe it fixes a few issues but nothing serious, though it should be easy to update if needed.

And I did a bit more reading - there was a counter-arguement that adding an expander between the HBA and HD when using SATA disks is asking for trouble.

All I've read is that you should avoid mixing SATA and SAS devices on the same expander, I'm using about 6 expanders in total, all with SATA disks, and never had any issues.