Repurposing HP Proliant DL160 for FreeNAS?

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Ken Schannen

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I have access to a 1u HP Proliant DL160 Gen 6

Specs:

2 x hex core 2.66 ghz (12mb) Xeon X5650 procs
64 GB RAM
Smart Array P410 1GB FBWC 0-60 controller
I'd put 15K disks in it.

Anyone see any problems using this for FreeNAS? Is the controller OK?

I'd use it as storage for a home lab ESXi and HyperV environment. (A combo of Dell 1950 hosts and HP DL380 hosts.) I want good performance, but this is still just home lab stuff. Not production.

Thanks.
 

Ken Schannen

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OK, thanks. From what I'm reading the only way to set that controller up for FreeNAS would be to set each disk up as Raid0, and that doesn't sound like what I want to do.
 

Mirfster

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OK, thanks. From what I'm reading the only way to set that controller up for FreeNAS would be to set each disk up as Raid0, and that doesn't sound like what I want to do.
Yeah, avoid doing that at all costs... FreeNAS needs direct access to the disks. :)
 

MtK

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Search the forum, there should be a relatively old thread about replacing the p410.


On a non-freenas system I do have an HP dl380 running ZFS with the nit so nice raid0 and it's been running OK for more than 2 years now...
 

TiberioG

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You can typically find a HBA for about $45 on ebay that will work perfectly for your config. Here are a couple examples: Dell PERC H200 or Dell PERC H310

Edit: Just a reminder, if you get a HBA to flash it to IT mode with P20 firmware.

Hi there,
I'm also going to buy a HP DL160 G6 server and it would be my first FreeNAS Build, I know is not recommended using hardware RAID with ZFS so I'm looking for an HBA card for that server. This server has a B110i on-board SATA controller and I'm wondering if it will work. Since I have never flashed a card is it possible to buy a card which works out of the box?
On this post
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/hp-proliant-dl160-g6-for-freenas.16134/
I have read that HP DL160 could not work with FreeNAS, is it true? I don't want to spend more then 400€ to get a server which doesn't work.
Thank you in advance,
Tiberio
 
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Mlovelace

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I don't think the B110i is going to be compatible, you'll want to attach the drives through a Host Bus Adapter (HBA). There are several described in the hardware sticky to choose from.
 
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