Unsupported controller card - but have driver

[travalon]

Ok, strike 2. I rushed ahead and picked up a pci raid card to expand capacity. Didn't check the compatibility list and guess what. NOT supported. MY build is as follows:

Old Dell mid tower
GIGABYTE GA-G41MT-S2PT LGA 775 Intel G41 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
C2D E6400
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory
Rosewill RC-209-EX PCI 2.3, 32bit, 33/66Mhz SATA Controller Card (4 sata 3gb ports)
CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 430W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply
2x Western Digital Red WD20EFRX 2TB IntelliPower SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
2x Seagate Momentus XT ST95005620AS 500GB 7200 RPM 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s with NCQ Solid State Hybrid Drive -Bare Drive = 1Tb
2x 250gb ide notebook drive with sata adapters = 500gb

I went into the bios of the card to make sure it was set up as JBOD and as near as I can tell it is since there are no raids setup. The card does see the 2 250 GB HDDs but of course Freenas can't. I do have a Linux driver for the card.
The Card is as above a Rosewill RC-209-EX PCI 32 bit. Is there a way I can install the driver into freenas and get the card working?
I know poor planning on my part doesn't constitute an emergency on your part.
I really appreciate everyone's help.

 

[cyberjock]

Ok, strike 2. I rushed ahead and picked up a pci raid card to expand capacity. Didn't check the compatibility list and guess what. NOT supported. MY build is as follows:

Old Dell mid tower
GIGABYTE GA-G41MT-S2PT LGA 775 Intel G41 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
C2D E6400
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory
Rosewill RC-209-EX PCI 2.3, 32bit, 33/66Mhz SATA Controller Card (4 sata 3gb ports)
CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 430W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply
2x Western Digital Red WD20EFRX 2TB IntelliPower SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
2x Seagate Momentus XT ST95005620AS 500GB 7200 RPM 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s with NCQ Solid State Hybrid Drive -Bare Drive = 1Tb
2x 250gb ide notebook drive with sata adapters = 500gb

I went into the bios of the card to make sure it was set up as JBOD and as near as I can tell it is since there are no raids setup. The card does see the 2 250 GB HDDs but of course Freenas can't. I do have a Linux driver for the card.
The Card is as above a Rosewill RC-209-EX PCI 32 bit. Is there a way I can install the driver into freenas and get the card working?
I know poor planning on my part doesn't constitute an emergency on your part.
I really appreciate everyone's help.

Thoughts on what I just read..

-PCI card for a file server.. not the best idea in the world. PCI is extremely limiting(that's why it's virtually dead).
-Permanently using SATA to IDE adapters.. not the smartest choice from my experience. They're built by the lowest bidder and always seem to take out your data when they go bad.
-You didn't say much about your configuration, but your onboard SATA ports will probably work fine if you're okay with using only 4 SATA drives.

To answer your questions now:
- 99% of the hardware out there that is supported on FreeBSD is in FreeNAS already. Since it didn't work out of the box I wouldn't expect it will work with FreeBSD at all. I'd expect that only brand new shiny controllers that are just being released might not be added yet since 8.3 is a few months old, but you card is definitely not in this category.

If you want a controller that does work, you should send back the card you bought and look at the FreeBSD compatibility list and get one of those. The one most commonly recommended and used is the IBM M1015. It's $80-100 for 8 SATA ports.

 

[travalon]

Xyberjock you said it. I didnt realize freeBSD wasn't linux. (Feel free to shake your head in bewilderment) I really did read the manual too. I just didn't get as much out of it as I should have. I'll not make excuses just humbly thank you for your time and expertise and go read the manual again.

As for configuration everything's just mirrored. Thanks for the heads up on the sata adapters.

 

[Stephens]

There are probably cards much cheaper than the IBM M1015 since the motherboard already has 4 ports and you only have 6 drives. Basically, you just need a 2-port SATA controller. I'd look around to see what other cards are known to work well with FreeNAS (FreeBSD).

But more importantly, what are you trying to build? You have a potpourri of drives in all kinds of sizes, form factors, and performance levels. What do you see your pool(s) looking like when you're done? If you haven't already, read cyberjock's guide (linked to in his signature).

 

[cyberjock]

Xyberjock you said it. I didnt realize freeBSD wasn't linux. (Feel free to shake your head in bewilderment) I really did read the manual too. I just didn't get as much out of it as I should have. I'll not make excuses just humbly thank you for your time and expertise and go read the manual again.

As for configuration everything's just mirrored. Thanks for the heads up on the sata adapters.

I mentioned the other day to someone that got upset that I told them to read the manual that it says "FreeBSD" on the cover. It's just par for the course I guess. I also found out that some of my IT veteran friends don't even know that FreeBSD isn't a flavor of Linux! So I guess I shouldn't be so surprised when others make that mistake. I thought it was common knowledge, but apparently its not.

 

[travalon]

Looked at cyberjocks guide again I wish I had the money to just build what I want. But I instead will use what I have at hand until I can get more parts.

For something hiding under the bed I figure it doesn't need to be pretty. Taking terminology from Noob's guide I am shooting for 3 Vdevs and NO Zpools. I have the mirrored WD 2Tb drives for my movies, Music, and any series I think I'd like to keep for a while. The 2 500 GB also mirrored are for Myth TV recordings. Watch then delete. The 2 250 IDE (mirrored) drives are for Documents. @ the moment I'm having trouble getting the IDE drives to show up in freenas, (They show in the post of the boot sequence though) I will also be adding a Vdev ,mirrored for pictures in the future as well as someplace for Jail.

The motherboard,ram and 1 WD were X-Mas gifts and I had to buy the 2nd WD the rest I had laying around. (oh and that damnd card)
So Stephens, I guess you could call it a FrankinNAS or possibly a PackratNAS either way it is just for fun, learning and re-purposing parts. if it works I'll link it to my HTPC and never pay for crappy tv again. 6 months w/o a sat bill will justify the cost of both machines. The only thing I might need to add is a zil if my maxed 8GB ram can't handle mostly read and some writes to differend Vdevs. we'll see.

I also have 2 perfectly good 2.5" 80GB IDE drives that just fell into my lap I thought they could be Jail with a 44 to 40 pin adapter to sata adapter.
Now that would be a feat if it works

 

[cyberjock]

Uhh.. zpools have vdevs, vdevs have hard drives, and drives store your data. So with no zpools you have no place to store your data :P

What I think you mean to say is 1 vdev each in 3 different zpools :P

I know one of my motherboards' IDE controllers doesn't work with FreeBSD 8.

Adding a ZIL with only 8GB of RAM will hurt your performance. The ZIL doesn't work like you think it does ;). It only works for very small writes. Any write bigger than 64k(I think that's what it was) is NOT committed to a ZIL but instead written directly. So pretty much any file you try to copy to a server that is bigger than 64k won't go in the ZIL. I've thought about putting together a guide for L2ARC and ZIL because its horribly misunderstood.

If you're only using 8GB of RAM I wouldn't recommend using a jail until you figure out if you are happy with the performance if the system.

 

[travalon]

So when I used the volume manager I made a vdev of 2 disks
and it was saved as a zpool automatically. However, it was saved as a volume?
Discs - vdev, vdevs - zpool (volume?) , can multiple zpools go into a volume?

I guess I'll print out the freenas users manual for reference.

Thank you cyberjock for your patience and input.
Feel free to laugh at my expence. I know where you are coming from.

 

[cyberjock]

zpools are volumes. If you have a zpool you have a volume. If you don't have a volume you don't have a zpool.

 

[travalon]

Thx for that. I thought that was the case. Soon I'll be able to use the proper terminology in the right contex.