FreeNAS N00b Help Required!

[robm82]

Hello everyone!

I have what is probably a very stupid question, but I have no idea on hardware compatibility of FreeNAS. What I am wanting to do is create a JBOD storage array using FreeNAS. The JBOD storage array will then be connected to two Servers running Windows Server 2012 using external Mini-SAS connectors (SFF-8088's). My questions are:

• Does the FreeNAS software support a SAS cabled JBOD?
• Is there any particular PCI RAID or SAS Controller that I need to use in order for it to be compatible with FreeNAS?

Many thanks in advance for any advice anyone can give me.

 

[babaroga]

I believe that you have to check with FreeBSD support on which hardware is supported.

In my case, HP Microserver has SFF-8087 internally to 4 SAS disk bays inside the box, and it just works out of the box.

I believe that any decent LSI card should work. Now, if you are talking on "fanout" cable from one port to 16 drives, I cannot advise, unfortunately.

On the other hand, I am running eSATA on port multiplier external HD case and it works like a charm. The controller card I'm using is Startech PEXSATA24E and that works on 3 external boxes with port multipliers.

 

[robm82]

Thanks for the response babaroga. I will be wanting to use SFF-8087 cables internally to connect to some SAS disks internally - I want to then use some SFF-8088 cables externally to connect the JBOD to my Server 2012 Servers. If anyone has any hardware advice on what PCI Raid Cards I can use in the JBOD with FreeNAS? I was hoping to use something like this: http://www.xcase.co.uk/product-p/expander -ck22803.htm.

 

[babaroga]

I have been toying with this solution really HighPoint RR2711 + ej240 which is equivalent of SATA Port Multiplier, but since I had three external HD enclosures with port multiplier solution, that Startech card was cheapest solution. My system is only used for home movie and music streaming.

Another good place to look is hardware cards is www.span.com and those folk are very knowledgeable about various configurations and operating systems.

According to HighPoint, FreeBSD supports rr2700 cards, however, they are not saying, if that is FreeBSD 8.3 or 9.1. I could not find any information on Chenbro website regarding FreeBSD support for their card.

My idea was to cut down number of cables to the minimum possible level.

BTW, what external case do you have?

 

[babaroga]

Just to mention, that you can also have Highpoint RocketRaid 2722 with 2 x EJ240, so you can support up to 32 HDs. Not sure about performance issues with usage of SAS Extenders.

 

[robm82]

I was hoping to have two Server 2012 HV Servers that are Dell R710's connected to a custom built JBOD chassis built on Chenbro: http://www.chenbro.eu/corporatesite/products_detail.php?sku=189. Which SAS cards I should be using here I am not too sure in order to get everything connected and working...

 

[Joe Gainey]

Just to mention, that you can also have Highpoint RocketRaid 2722 with 2 x EJ240, so you can support up to 32 HDs. Not sure about performance issues with usage of SAS Extenders.

i'm very interested in hearing what experience if any people have with this particular setup or even similarly with using the "Highpoint Rocket 2722" (this is different somehow than the RR2722) in conjunction with the Rocket EJ340. I'm using this configuration currently with freenas 9.1.0 and now that i've got everything set up and configured properly, it is working within my expectations of throughput.

The bad news, in my experience with the hpt27xx driver, is that the driver does not properly configure if all the devices are physically attached and running. I'm guessing it's a timing issue but not had time to investigate. I am able to see all of the devices *ONLY IF* I leave the devices powered off and then turn them on one at a time while running camcontrol rescan each time the driver reports each disk available. It was alot of effort, it was cumbersome, and it was prone to user and hardware error. I gave up on the hpt27xx driver.

The good news, is that I first tried this combo out in windows proving that the Rocket 2722 and the Rocket EJ340 work well together. After reading what little info I had on the Rocket 2722 and the RocketRAID 2722, I decided to try the rr272x_1x driver for freebsd 9 that was on the HighPoint website. Much to my surprise, it did work for the Rocket2722+EJ340 combo and showed all the devices the first time. Then I installed hptsvr-https-2.1.4 that I downloaded from their website. Again I was very pleased to find out that I could see more than I expected to see including smart, logical and physical device characteristics like serial number and other less useful things like "Beeper Mute".

Now, i'm guessing that there are probably both some major changes and minor tweaks in hpt27xx driver that would make it work just as well as the rr272x_1x driver. I have not tried the rr272x_1x driver with 9.2 yet. I've not actually been able to find a source version of it. IT would be my guess that sooner or later my luck will run out and this driver will be incompatible with future upgrades.

 

[cyberjock]

To be honest, I've tested multiple highpoint cards with FreeNAS. The results have been less than spectacular. In short, FreeNAS really doesn't work well with them at all. I used to swear by them for years(that's why I was able to test so many cards). They worked great for home servers. But, their time has come and gone.

To boot, as far as I know you can't use FreeNAS' builtin SMART features with Highpoint controllers. So you've just lost the 2 main methods to identify failing disks... SMART monitoring and SMART diagnostics. That's just a recipe for disaster. The problem is that with most of Highpoint's cards you have to specify special parameters for the highpoint controllers to work with smartctl. FreeNAS' GUI doesn't let you use those parameters nor does it assume you have a highpoint controller.

I strongly recommend you get a dumb HBA just like the manual recommends(woohoo for M1015!) and use that for proper detection of failing hardware. You don't want to be the guy that has multiple drives fail and had no clue because your RAID controller was lying to you for weeks or months.