sas2 vs sata MBD-X10SL7-F-O

[wrath]

Hi everyone. My first post here. I have been reading lots. I have 6 x WD40EFRX (wd red 4tb) in raidZ2 and my board SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SL7-F-O has 8x sas2 ports and 6 sata (2x sata3 and 4xsata2) ports. Should I use sas or sata to hook em up? I know for these drives 6gbps vs 3 gbps makes little difference except in case of ssds. I also read that I can flash the sas on my mobo to IT mode

 

[Noctris]

I don't think it really matters. The sas controller is pretty well supported so that might have a bit of an advantage. What Case are you using ?

 

[Ericloewe]

There's no reason not to start with the 6Gb/s ports, Intel or LSI. The difference is negligible and you'll never see it, in all likelihood - but so is the cost of using the 6Gb/s ports first.

 

[wrath]

I don't think it really matters. The sas controller is pretty well supported so that might have a bit of an advantage. What Case are you using ?

I got the fractal design r4, it was on sale. I will monitor the temps and see if I need more than 2 fans it comes with. I can hook up to 10 3.5"hdd + 2ssds(on the other side or just stick it somewhere with duct tape) in this case. For my needs I don't see need for more than 16tb (6x4tb in raidz2) in the near future.

 

[Noctris]

Yeah.. i wouldn't do the duck tape thing.. you'll macgyver your way into an overheating SSD ;-)

I was mainly asking to see of it was one that had sas connectors in which case the onboard sas would make more sense.

 

[wrath]

Too bad we don't have liquid cooled duct tape.

I am a little concerned about ram I need. I know for 24 tb, 32gb of ram is recomended (8gb base + 1gb/tb or 24gb).
Can I start off with 16gb (8gbx2) ram and then add more another 8gbx2 if i need more?
I feel like 16gb might be fine to start out with and then upgreade to 32gb as my needs grow.

 

[Noctris]

Sure. No worries. It also depends on what you plan on running and what performance you need/want. Jails you plan on setting up etc. I got about the same amount of storage ( multiple pools and vdev setups) and run it with 16gb in a vm wich funny enough seems to perform snappier then on thr bare metal with 32gb this is my home system and i run just about every jail including a custom freebsd with mysql. I easily saturate both gb nics ( one cifs, 1 iscsi)

Sent from my portable microwave

 

[wrath]

To flash sas into IT mode, I got V16 firmware to match V16 drivers on freenas 9.3 (even though V19 driver for bsd seems to be available on ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/driver/SAS/LSI/2308/ ). firmware v16 direct link: ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/driver/SAS/LSI/2308/Firmware/IT/Previous%20Releases/PH16.0.1-IT.zip

I also got IPMIView utility installed. Can I flash new sas controller firmware in IPMI? I also got IPMI firmware and bios update. I hope I can update these as well. I feel like I can plug in USB with firmware files and just flash it in bios but I don't think the bios is uefi(or has ability to update via uefi bios)
Edit:
I can just plug in the monitor and flash the old fashioned way in dos boot USB.

 

[cyberjock]

I always flash via IPMI. Totally safe and works fine. :)

Just don't try to do flashing over wifi or something. That could have problems if the connection flakes out for a second. ;)

 

[wrath]

I always flash via IPMI. Totally safe and works fine. :)

Just don't try to do flashing over wifi or something. That could have problems if the connection flakes out for a second. ;)

Thanks. It worked. I also updated IPMI firmware with web-gui. For bios update to v3 (from v2) I would need a serial number in web gui. I am guessing that is not free. I can get dos bootable but not sure how well it will work in IPMI.

 

[Ericloewe]

I can get dos bootable but not sure how well it will work in IPMI.

It works.

 

[wrath]

It works.

Thanks ipmi is amazing.

 

[wrath]

So its stuck on:

Code:

ME Entire Image update success!!
"Warning: system must power-off  to have the changes take effect"
_

should I reboot or wait for it to say C:\> again?

edit:
i rebooted anyway i thought it was going to be bricked as it kept initalizing system and rebooting 4 times but then it worked!