R710 Home Lab

[4xTroy]

Ok, I'm tired of searching and reading. 8 cores, 32GB, H310, 6x4TB WD RED in RaidZ2, Intel X520-DA2. Might toss in a couple PCIe SSDs later for iSCSI, but that's another discussion.

In my research, it looks like the H200 controller has to be flashed to get JBOD and will no longer work in the storage slot. The H310 appears to do JBOD with the Dell firmware, but people flash it anyways?

I'd really like to keep the PCIe slots open for SSDs and/or an external controller. Can anyone verify that the H310 will work without flashing to LSI firmware?

Also, I keep seeing references to FreeNAS having issues with USB drives. I was thinking a pair of 32GB Sandisk, but now I'm wondering about a DVD/SSD adapter or a SATA DOM, but without a mirror...

Insights or suggestions? Thanks!

 

[Merlijn]

Ok, I'm tired of searching and reading. 8 cores, 32GB, H310, 6x4TB WD RED in RaidZ2, Intel X520-DA2. Might toss in a couple PCIe SSDs later for iSCSI, but that's another discussion.

In my research, it looks like the H200 controller has to be flashed to get JBOD and will no longer work in the storage slot.

I know for a fact that the H200 needs to be flashed to IT mode, but I have no experience with the H310. As far as I know, the H200 can be used in any PCI-e slot on the motherboard. I use a couple of them in an old modded R710, but never had any issues in different PCI-e slots.

The H310 appears to do JBOD with the Dell firmware, but people flash it anyways? I'd really like to keep the PCIe slots open for SSDs and/or an external controller. Can anyone verify that the H310 will work without flashing to LSI firmware?

Why not just test it? You can install FreeNAS on a spare USB drive/ssd/hdd and test whether the H310 gives the disks to FreeNAS.

Also, I keep seeing references to FreeNAS having issues with USB drives. I was thinking a pair of 32GB Sandisk, but now I'm wondering about a DVD/SSD adapter or a SATA DOM, but without a mirror...

Yes, this is a serious problem with FreeNAS. About half of my USB drives won't work or won't work as they should when running FreeNAS. Especially Sandisk drives are giving headaches. After my third dead USB-stick I went a different route: putting a cheap SSD in all my FreeNAS servers. Since then (about a year now) I have never had any issues whatsoever, so it's worth the SATA port for me.