I think more-shunned are storage devices over USB drivers. Picking the PCIe SATA controller that sucks the least is probably preferable over USB. For me, the goal is to not only have more-reliable SSD chips, but access them via a more reliable means as well. Plus I'd rather not have stuff...

Your USB-SATA controller is starting to die. This is a usual consequence of running USB drives with heavy IO on FreeNAS. It's probably a Marvell chip. The data on the drive is safe, but you should consider finding a more reliable way to connect it.

I think the more appropriate question is "SSD mirrored or USB mirrored". Then of course that is an easy answer, the SSD is always a better option. Some on here might even argue that a single SSD is more reliable than mirrored USB but that is more a matter of opinion. I wouldn't mind so much...

So just connecting one USB drive would cause a crash? In my case the external drive would not be a part of any pool but a independent disk to backup the most important files. Would then a cloud backup be the only, most reliable option if USB is not reliable and a backup pool can't be inside the...

No. This can never work correctly because the USB interface can only write to one disk at a time, not all disks at the same time. It will never be reliable and may not be able to work at all. The problem was less of a problem before USB-3 when the data-rate was lower. The faster data-rate...

I would just plug into the internal USB that my thumb drive is occupying and connect via a USB to SATA cable .. I found some old threads on my particular Promise card and it seemed people had trouble with it in FreeBSD .. I'll play around and see what works I guess. :p

Interesting! I will definitely find a better way. Thank you for your help!

This forum. https://www.ixsystems.com/community/search/408583/?q=usb+controller+reliable&o=relevance Don't know... If the NIC attached via USB is Intel, there's a decent chance it could "work".

The boot rom is not necessary and can cause problems in the SAS HBA. I suggest you do not use it. If you are booting the system from USB or SATA, you don't need to be able to boot to the SAS controller. I found this to be faster and more reliable than using it the other way. Sent from my...

Either upgrade to an X11SSL-CF to get an on-board LSI SAS 3008 controller or get a separate LSI SAS 2008, 2308 or 3008-based card.

Yes. Mobo ports are good and can be mixed with controller ports. The main thing is you want to be able to give ports to FreeNAS without raid functionality getting in the way If you don't have spare ports for a boot disk you can use USB flash drives instead, but they can be less reliable, so is...

Hi, I would like to build a new NAS and would like to ask what the community thinks about the compnents. Will I have troubles, how the performance will be? How to make up the best possible set up with ZFS? In the moment i have 4 SATA discs which are quite slow (now working in my FreeNASBOX...

Thanks for letting me know I could for instance mix mobo ports with a controller, like the LSI SAS9211-8I.

You could drop down to a single SSD as they are much more reliable than USB Flash drives, but that is up to you.

You're going to hear that USB drives are not reliable and should be avoided from a bunch of folks here... not me, but you should expect it. It may be worthwhile looking into your options to update the USB controller (buy a new external enclosure) and replace the USB cable (I recently had a bad...

If you are adding a PCIe card, why not add a SAS controller with external port(s)? Ideally you would add an external SAS disk chassis, but you could add in a simple, and cheap eSATA enclosure. Just use the shortest SAS to eSATA cable you can find. For example, this enclosure has both eSATA and...

That is exactly the whole idea. For what I have learn about FreeNAS, is that it is no only for enterprise but also for home and SOHO> I shouldn't have to go and spend on FFA220 or a FAS2240 since those are full feature enterprise level storage with full OC or copper redundant ARRAY access and...

Virtualize FreeNAS using a type 1 hypervisor like ESXi and then you can run anything you want. FreeNAS is a alpha virtualization platform and jails are not a substitute for containers or VMs. By using a hypervisor you can then use the right OS for the task, and yet still use one box. ESXi...

Don't take it the wrong way, I like the implementation made in Freenas. It's, under my point of view, a very good way to protect the life os a USB thumbdrive by keeping the writes to a minimum. My issue is with the reliability of the thumbdrive itself. A cheap USB doesn't have any kind of...

If you have enough space you shouln't cut your options by using Mini-ITX. Mini-ITX mainboards are mostly very limited. You could use a Node 804 or even a R5 to use a Micro-ATX mainboard, which gives you a lot more options. With such a Micro-ATX mainboard you could get a HBA card or you could...

The X10SL7-F already has an LSI SAS controller. Unless you're planning on using more than 14 drives, drop the HBA. As for the boot device, it your choice: USB flash drives are cheap (and thus easy to mirror) but can be unreliable SATA DOMs are expensive, but should be more reliable than USB...

That's an odd choice. It should work, but it's not validated and nobody around here is familiar with it. Consider CT2KIT102472BD160B instead. The CPU is probably overkill. Are you planning to transcode? If not, an i3-4330 would probably be plenty. If you're okay with limiting yourself to six...

My thoughts... Have you considered used? FreeNAS does not really need current hardware and you could save some money there to "invest" in other parts of the system. USB thumb drives - SSDs like the Kingston AS400s are about the same cost as a good USB thumb drive (about $20-25/each). While...

keep a couple of spare USB thumbdrives, make config backups regularly, and if anything bad happens you can be up and running in about 15 minutes...to me, the extra SAS port and slot in the server is more valuable than a couple of thumbdrives or worrying about their longevity. i have plenty of...

Well, when you can get Sandisk 140G SSD brandnew for $59 for *2*, why wouldn't you mirror them? I just plugged all the SSD drives into the unused 6 port SATA motherboard controller And yes, USB sticks wear out quickly. One of mine died in less than 2 weeks

I've found the Mobius 5 series of DAS' to be a pretty good starting point. Reliable hardware controller RAID (up to RAID6), many interfaces (eSATA, USB 3, FW800), 5 drive tool-less hot swap, and attractive price. They make a good backup platform for my FreeNAS server. Are they as reliable...

This isn't a change, it's an addition. I've used this on about a dozen R510's; the units get a PERC H310 in IT mode to replace the H700 in the internal controller slot, and then a PERC H200 in IR mode along with the Addonics card, wired together with a SFF-8087 breakout cable. You are allowed...

Sure, bigger case and motherboard can be beneficial. But in my case I don't have much room for big device.

I agree with @Patrick M. Hausen, their is no reliable work around or solution. TrueNAS was simple not designed to work with every piece of available hardware. The issue is that multi-disk USB enclosures likely return the same serial number for each disk. TrueNAS SCALE, (and Core), want to use...

I see. Would using each drive separately (not pooling) make the incompatibilities less problematic, or would I be out of luck until I purchase additional hardware?

I use USB3 drives for backups and data transfer between machines. To be clear, I do not stripe data across multiple USB drives - as @Chris Moore has commented, this is a bad idea. FreeNAS is built upon FreeBSD operating system, which does not support as many devices and controller chipsets as...

The SAS controller isn't a bad choice, but it will need to be flashed with the IT mode firmware. There is a link to the guide for that in my signature. It's more reliable to use a single, small SSD as the boot drive than two USB sticks. The USB drive failure rate is too high. The only reason...

Ok, so I got a few minuets and I tore open my case and went to the SuperMicro website. I don't need the dang RAID card, my board has on-board SAS 6.0! Could someone please tell me what the process is called and what do I have to do, to make the on-board controller work, or run it in IT mode...

I humbly bow my head and thank you for your kind compliment and the 'likes' I have received from all you guys :). Oh, and BTW; If you're looking for a very reliable industrial grade USB flash drive, go for a SwissBit device, but expect to pay accordingly, $133 for an 8GB version and only $166...

Which system drive? The FreeNAS one? Nothing bad happens - you install FreeNAS on a new usb stick, boot up, restore config (you have made a backup of the config of course) and you are back in business again. If you haven't backed up your config, you will need to import your zfs volume and...

@HoneyBadger Thanks a lot for your help! Next time I'm in the box I'll see if I have a port available on the SATA controller, if so I'll add a new SSD and do a 'replace' on the bad ada0 SSD. I think I remember reflashing the M1015 way back when when I installed it, so I might be good. When I...

Hello, First time with everything FreeBSD/FreeNAS etc - I'm a Microsoft-based architect and consultant, so I'm pretty good with everything Windows and Hyper-V, but I need a new reliable storage system at home and REFS is just too immature at this point, while FreeNAS seems to have come along in...

I'm betting there some kind of FakeRAID in play like the Dell "S110" or similar. Check your BIOS, I believe under "SATA settings" -> "Embedded SATA" and make sure they're set to "AHCI" and not "RAID" - also check "Integrated Devices" for an "Integrated RAID Controller" and disable it. Lots of...

I just rechecked the CPUs. Is there any reason against using the Intel Pentium G3260 instead of the G3220? Its the same price but offers a bit more performance. Also is there a mayor differance between the Supermicro X10SLL+-F and the X10SLL-F (without +)? The model without + is 30 bucks less...

I had a Rocketraid 4320 and I couldn't get it to work either. I got the same useless(to me anyway) error "Exec format error". I assumed it was because the 4320 isn't supported by FreeBSD 8.0. Someone did mention somewhere on another device issue to install FreeBSD 8.2(since that's what...

Agreed, I stand corrected, it would be a host controller interface (HCI), or in my case an xHCI. However... (and at risk of highjacking this thread...) I'm referring to a constrained use case. A mechanism to attach a hotspare as a drive of last resort when all the real HBA ports are all...

Good point. I've been doing a lot of 12-bay R510 conversions here lately and they actually disable the onboard SATA ports in the BIOS, and this sucks, as you don't really want to waste the two valuable 2.5" bays on boot (better as SLOG). They do have some internal USB options behind the riser...

I was kinda curious here why you wouldn't pass the SATA ports through to FreeNAS and use a RAID controller for ESXi datastores. Then I realized that a lot of people here probably have nonredundant datastores for their ESXi. If your mainboard has sufficient SATA/SAS for your NAS deployment, a...

Another "To be fair", it's a bit of combination of the SATA controller AND the associated SATA multiplier. Meaning one might work okay, with a different partner. But, FreeNAS is about data availability and high reliability. Thus, too much risk to use any SATA multipliers, and too much risk with...

To me, a USB stick vs. SATADOM could be compared to a external hard drive vs. a bare internal. The external drive has no forced convection, and is in a tight plastic enclosure with minimal heat transfer. The internal SATADOM is bare and hence can enjoy the benefits of forced convection. The...

1. I wouldn't be horrified if you used internal RAID as the FreeNAS boot device. I'm in the minority but I think RAID is at least as reliable as a USB thumb drive. We backup our FreeNAS configuration daily and consider the boot device (USB or whatever) disposable. It is the component most apt to...

OK, the new Dutch guy's post, on USB thumb drive NAND flash engineering, has my vote for Best Post for October 2015(edit from 2016), and the month is young.

Yes, ZFS has some unique requirements, but it goes to using Datacenter-level software on consumer-grade hardware. Some USB stuff is hacked together in China (no offense intended, however I know for fact many things are chabuduo) and both the hardware and firmware are dubious at best--though...

There have been some failures of USB sticks because some of them just are not well made. I had two fail on me in a single year. For this reason I am now using a pair of the smallest capacity laptop style HDD I could buy new in a mirrored pair. At the time I setup my current build, that was...

That's what I expected. The other 4 SATA ports are from a Marvell controller. I had a system with a Marvell Yukon network controller and it made me not want to get anything Marvell ever again! Seriously, that NIC would lock up so bad that power cycling wouldn't fix it. I had to make a DOS...