Confirm Compatibility LSI SAS 9211-4i & LSI SAS 9207-8i PCIe

[DeWebDude]

Hello All,

I looked at a comparability list https://www.freebsd.org/relnotes/CURRENT/hardware/support.html#disk
but I'm not seeing these controllers there.
I do see on the forum people using them, so I wanted to confirm 3 things.

1. Will FreeNAS work with either of these?
2. Will FreeNAS have an issue since this HBA can communicate with 256 devices and we are connecting 12 to the 1 port? ( I do understand not optimal for performance but we have to work with the existing backplane )
3. Do I need to do anything special for this to work with FreeNAS ( change firmware etc )?

Thanks!!!!

 

[Ericloewe]

1. Will FreeNAS work with either of these?

Yes.

Will FreeNAS have an issue since this HBA can communicate with 256 devices and we are connecting 12 to the 1 port?

No.

3. Do I need to do anything special for this to work with FreeNAS ( change firmware etc )?

Flash the cards to P20 IT mode.

 

[DeWebDude]

Thanks for the FAST!!!!!! Response!

 

[DeWebDude]

Just to confirm, I will use the installer for P20 for FreeBSD to prepare the card?

Thanks!

 

[Ericloewe]

Just to confirm, I will use the installer for P20 for FreeBSD to prepare the card?

Thanks!

Download the package from LSI's website and use the P20 firmware image (and, optionally, your choice of either BIOS or UEFI extension ROM image, for booting or basic troubleshooting).

You can then use those files with your choice of the FreeBSD flashing tool (less compatible, may be unsafe on a running system, but it's included in FreeNAS) or the UEFI flashing tool (requires an EFI shell and is the safest option, most likely).

 

[DeWebDude]

Just to confirm for others looking at this solution, flashed the controller, worked like a charm seeing all the drives!

 

[Dan Grodzuik]

Just to confirm for others looking at this solution, flashed the controller, worked like a charm seeing all the drives!

How is the 9211 setup? Does it support JBOD so Freenas sees the drives as directly connected drives or are you using some RAID level?

 

[DeWebDude]

It works as expected, the drives are seen as jbod basically. You can use RAID on the FreeNAS side and that worked as well, but had a bigger project we had to work on so I haven't been able to do too much benchmark testing of the FreeNAS raid vs HP410i Raid, but I was able to do Raid 1, 5, 6 without error.