Help with installing TrueNAS Scale on HPE ML350 GEN9 server with Smart Array P440ar

[scotrod]

Hey All,

As the title suggests, I am looking for help to install TrueNAS Scale on VM hosted on VMWARE ESXI on top of HPE ML350 GEN9 server which is currently equipped with Smart Array P440ar RAID controller.

Yes, I have read the mandatory "What's all the noise about HBA's, and why can't I use a RAID controller?" topic. Yes, I know that ZFS does not tolerate hardware RAID controllers and expects direct access to the drives.

My question is, can I simply pass through SOME of my drives (or I have to pass through them all?) to the ESXI, so they can be passed to my TrueNAS VM? Or should I replace my hardware RAID controller with HBA? Or should I just configure it as HBA card? Will the RAID really act as a HBA or just imitate one? If I have to purchase one HBA card, I have to remove my RAID controller from the motherboard, right? Can I connect my SFF drive cage to the HBA card? And if yes, what HBA card should I get (that will also work with the rest of my HPE system)?

Now, pardon me for the avalanche of questions, but this will be my second TrueNAS installation ever, and my first ESXI. I got the server for cheap, and I am trying to spin up my first homelab. As you can see (incase you didn't tired yourself from my questions) I'm still in the middle of nowhere and wondering were could I start from.

Thank you for taking your time to read my post!

 

[bzb-rs]

As long as the drives can be passed through as-is, this should work. I am not familiar with specific model however i have worked on DL380's and had no issues and well, never encountered issues as feared.

I understand the newer HP raid card allows the disks to be passed as JBOD so should be fine here.

Take my reply with a lot of salt and would let experts do the talking.

 

[danb35]

currently equipped with Smart Array P440ar RAID controller.

Un-equip it with the RAID controller, install a proper HBA, pass that HBA through to the VM. The HBA thread should tell you what to use as a HBA (anything based on the LSI/Broadcom/Avago 2008/2308/3008 chips); here's how to virtualize with some degree of safety:

"Absolutely must virtualize FreeNAS!" ... a guide to not completely losing your data.

[---- 2018/02/27: This is still as relevant as ever. As PCIe-Passthru has matured, fewer problems are reported. I've updated some specific things known to be problematic ----] [---- 2014/12/24: Note, there is another post discussing how to deploy a small FreeNAS VM instance for basic file...

www.truenas.com

 

[scotrod]

Un-equip it with the RAID controller, install a proper HBA, pass that HBA through to the VM. The HBA thread should tell you what to use as a HBA (anything based on the LSI/Broadcom/Avago 2008/2308/3008 chips); here's how to virtualize with some degree of safety:

"Absolutely must virtualize FreeNAS!" ... a guide to not completely losing your data.

[---- 2018/02/27: This is still as relevant as ever. As PCIe-Passthru has matured, fewer problems are reported. I've updated some specific things known to be problematic ----] [---- 2014/12/24: Note, there is another post discussing how to deploy a small FreeNAS VM instance for basic file...

www.truenas.com

Thank you. Is there a possibility to keep the RAID controller (so ESXI can use the disks which are passed through it) AND add a separate PCIE HBA, which will be passed through from the ESXI to the TrueNAS VM?

 

[HoneyBadger]

Thank you. Is there a possibility to keep the RAID controller (so ESXI can use the disks which are passed through it) AND add a separate PCIE HBA, which will be passed through from the ESXI to the TrueNAS VM?

Yes, this would be my recommendation. You'll need to re-wire your HDD bays though, so that your "pass-through" drives are cabled to the additional PCIe LSI HBA, while the others remain on your P440ar. I believe your SFF drive backplane should have two SAS connectors and no expander chip, so you can simply move one cable and split it as two sets of four drives. Hopefully that works with your intended design.

 

[Scharbag]

I have recently used the 440a card (testing for now) as an HBA. It seems to pass all of the physical information through to TruNAS (not virtualized).

Code:

root@truenas[/mnt/testpool/home]# smartctl -a /dev/da0
smartctl 7.2 2021-09-14 r5236 [FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p7 amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-20, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Vendor:               HP
Product:              EG0300FCSPH
Revision:             HPD2
Compliance:           SPC-3
User Capacity:        300,000,000,000 bytes [300 GB]
Logical block size:   512 bytes
Rotation Rate:        10000 rpm
Form Factor:          2.5 inches
Logical Unit id:      0x5000039648300fac
Serial number:        55S0A0I4FTM91522
Device type:          disk
Transport protocol:   SAS (SPL-3)
Local Time is:        Fri Sep 29 14:10:25 2023 PDT
SMART support is:     Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is:     Enabled
Temperature Warning:  Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Health Status: OK

Current Drive Temperature:     38 C
Drive Trip Temperature:        65 C

Accumulated power on time, hours:minutes 66785:56
Manufactured in week 22 of year 2015
Specified cycle count over device lifetime:  50000
Accumulated start-stop cycles:  38
Specified load-unload count over device lifetime:  200000
Accumulated load-unload cycles:  0
Elements in grown defect list: 0

Error counter log:
           Errors Corrected by           Total   Correction     Gigabytes    Total
               ECC          rereads/    errors   algorithm      processed    uncorrected
           fast | delayed   rewrites  corrected  invocations   [10^9 bytes]  errors
read:          0        2         0         0          0    1070369.232           0
write:         0        0         0         0          0      66120.830           0

Non-medium error count:      216

No Self-tests have been logged

Not really going to use this long term as I am getting a middle drive cage for the DL380 G9. For that cage I will use my LSI 9211-8i and stuff all my 2.5" swarf in there. I would like to keep using the 440a for boot purposes so that I can take advantage of the free HP SAS disks from work.

Am I asking for future pain? Or given the 440a in HBA mode seems to pass through fine, will it be a good long term boot option?

Cheers,