Apollo 4200 G9 - HBA Card?

[something_amusing]

We have an unused HPE Apollo 4200 G9 in our data center. Loaded up with about 100TB of SAS drives. The controller is a P840ar. I put it in HBA mode and I've been able to install TrueNas and set up a storage pool without issue. But the S.M.A.R.T. tests fail to start and shows an error about smartctl requiring option -d cciss.N. From the command line, I can use "--all --device=sat,auto" and pull the data without issue. But I started having trouble trying to put those options in the TrueNas GUI. It tells me -a and -d (I tried leaving out --all) are invalid extra smart options.

Trying to figure that out, I came across this post that says "Not to Be Fixed". The general consensus in that thread seems to be that I should just get an HBA card. I'm fine with that, but I'm looking for any guidance on what card would work well. Hoping to find somebody that has done that swap on an Apollo 4200.

 

[artlessknave]

did you try the list of recommended hardware?

What's all the noise about HBA's, and why can't I use a RAID controller?

This is relevant to FreeNAS and TrueNAS CORE. Some parts of it might also be relevant to Scale, but I don't really know how reliable the Linux drivers are. 1) An HBA is a Host Bus Adapter. This is a controller that allows SAS and SATA devices to be attached to, and communicate directly with...

www.truenas.com

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy ... a primer on basic SAS and SATA

With the introduction of SAS 12Gbps, seems like "it's time" to do a braindump on SAS. Work in progress, as usual. History By the late '90's, SCSI and PATA were the dominant technologies to attach disks. Both were parallel bus multiple drop...

www.truenas.com

Hardware Recommendations Guide

This is the latest edition of the FreeNAS Community hardware recommendations guide. The current major version is R2, dated January 2021, with the last minor update on 2021-01-24. The format has moved away from the forum post form factor, to...

www.truenas.com

as long as it's a standard SAS connection any of the LSI cards should work just fine. they all work well, which is why they are recommended.

 

[something_amusing]

did you try the list of recommended hardware?

What's all the noise about HBA's, and why can't I use a RAID controller?

This is relevant to FreeNAS and TrueNAS CORE. Some parts of it might also be relevant to Scale, but I don't really know how reliable the Linux drivers are. 1) An HBA is a Host Bus Adapter. This is a controller that allows SAS and SATA devices to be attached to, and communicate directly with...

www.truenas.com

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy ... a primer on basic SAS and SATA

With the introduction of SAS 12Gbps, seems like "it's time" to do a braindump on SAS. Work in progress, as usual. History By the late '90's, SCSI and PATA were the dominant technologies to attach disks. Both were parallel bus multiple drop...

www.truenas.com

Hardware Recommendations Guide

This is the latest edition of the FreeNAS Community hardware recommendations guide. The current major version is R2, dated January 2021, with the last minor update on 2021-01-24. The format has moved away from the forum post form factor, to...

www.truenas.com

as long as it's a standard SAS connection any of the LSI cards should work just fine. they all work well, which is why they are recommended.

I did see those. I'm hoping to find someone that has installed one in this particular chassis. It is an odd form factor. Two bays of 12 3.5" drives in the front, one behind the other. Plus 4 bays on the back. So the connections are weird. Looking for any recommendations on physical installs with this particular platform.

 

[artlessknave]

Looking for any recommendations on physical installs with this particular platform.

this appears to be pretty niche hardware, and thus very unlikely to find anyone else with one, but also standard SAS; SAS and SAS is generally always compatible. the only physical recommendation you should need is to get an LSI HBA (from a reputable source) and of course cables that mate to what is on the backplanes. if this works like other HP servers, you should just need to go from the PCIe HBA to the embeded expander ports, which are likely on the mobo.
supermicro has a JBOD chassis with a similar concept.

 

[HoneyBadger]

I did see those. I'm hoping to find someone that has installed one in this particular chassis. It is an odd form factor. Two bays of 12 3.5" drives in the front, one behind the other. Plus 4 bays on the back. So the connections are weird. Looking for any recommendations on physical installs with this particular platform.

HP's docs aren't being particularly forthcoming with cabling diagrams, but it seems as if this server uses a proprietary form factor for its RAID controller, as well as the less-common 68-pin "wide SAS" connector. In order to cable up both front 12-bay trays as well as the rear bays, you'll either need to use a 16-port HBA like the 9300-16i, or an 8-port like the 9300-8i and a separate SAS expander card.

I don't have an Apollo system in front of me to confirm this, of course - you may need to open up yours and trace the cables from the drive backplanes back to the HBA itself (or, if you're lucky, an expander card that's already in place)

 

[artlessknave]

HP's docs aren't being particularly forthcoming

oh? what a surprise!

 

[something_amusing]

HP's docs aren't being particularly forthcoming with cabling diagrams, but it seems as if this server uses a proprietary form factor for its RAID controller, as well as the less-common 68-pin "wide SAS" connector. In order to cable up both front 12-bay trays as well as the rear bays, you'll either need to use a 16-port HBA like the 9300-16i, or an 8-port like the 9300-8i and a separate SAS expander card.

I don't have an Apollo system in front of me to confirm this, of course - you may need to open up yours and trace the cables from the drive backplanes back to the HBA itself (or, if you're lucky, an expander card that's already in place)

Much appreciated. Still playing with some other stuff to learn the overall setup (AD integration, etc) and then I'm going to replace that hardware and rebuild from scratch.

 

[something_amusing]

Is there a particular reason the SMART extra options won't let me use the --device or -d options?