SOLVED SATA controller JMB582 supported in FreeBSD not working in TrueNAS 12.0-U6.1

[asimov-solensan]

Hello,

I wanted to try a cheap card to use for the boot drive (and free one of the board sata ports), not ZRAID, I'm aware of the risks with these cheap PCIe controllers.

Before buying I wanted to be sure the model was supportedn in freebsd, and it seems support was introduced in 11.4:

FreeBSD 11.4-RELEASE Release Notes

FreeBSD is an operating system used to power modern servers, desktops, and embedded platforms.

www.freebsd.org

But it doesn't work. The board itself works booting ubuntu on the same server. But in truenas it just hangs without any error. Even the installation USB freezes when booting with one of the disks connected to it (see attached).

Maybe I'm misinterpreting something here, but since truenas runs on freebsd 12.2 this chipset should be supported.

The wider question for me here is if "supported by freebsd" == "supported by truenas". Because if that is not true I need to revisit my criteria when getting new hardware.

 

[Samuel Tai]

TrueNAS only supports a subset of FreeBSD drivers, sorry. As for this specific JMicron AHCI controller:

Multiply your problems with SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers

In the last year or two, we've had a resurgence of users asking about SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers. Please, do NOT use port multipliers, and use cheap SATA controllers only after extensive research. SATA controllers and SATA...

www.truenas.com

 

[jgreco]

iXsystems maintains their own version of the OS, so, no, supported by FreeBSD doesn't necessarily translate to supported by FreeNAS.

Even if it were --

Buying hardware for things that are newly supported in FreeBSD is fraught with peril, simply because it may take a release or two for bugs to be worked out. Additionally, cheap PC hardware like the JMB582 controller are frequently the target of Asian knockoff clones, which often don't work QUITE the same way that the legit hardware does. So this creates an entertaining situation because the driver developer might have had a legit part, or a knockoff part, and so might have written code that doesn't actually work for the other case.

There's some additional discussion at

Multiply your problems with SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers

In the last year or two, we've had a resurgence of users asking about SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers. Please, do NOT use port multipliers, and use cheap SATA controllers only after extensive research. SATA controllers and SATA...

www.truenas.com

and I think the suggestion here would be to go with something like a brand name card based on an Asmedia ASM1061 based controller, make sure you get one with only two ports and not a port multiplier.

 

[asimov-solensan]

Yes I understand all this. And I followed step by step the hardware guide when building my server a few years ago.

But in order to have just one additional port for the boot device without zraid. I find the SAS controllers too complex, only available second hand in ebay, then I need to find the correct SAS cable and find everything just too complex.

@jgreco

Thanks, indeed that ASM1061 seems to be the best solution for my particular use case.

Regards.

 

[NugentS]

SAS is the way to go although yes you do need to get the correct cable - some of which look the same as others but aren't
A cheap LSI SAS Card (or equivalent), flashed to IT Mode with a SAS to SATA breakout cable would work well.

 

[asimov-solensan]

I'm going to mark the thread as solved because the real question was about FreeBSD vs TrueNAS support. And clearly it is not the same.

Thanks everyone for the help.