SOLVED Installation of FreeNAS OS on hardware RAID1

[Gordon Thagard]

I have a Dell PowerEdge 520 with six HDD slots. It has 2x500gb and 4x12tb. The RAID controller is a PERC 310 which supports pass-through mode. My question is, "Is it a problem to use hardware raid 1 on those 2x500gb HDDs and use that for the OS drive?"

 

[Elliot Dierksen]

"Is it a problem to use hardware raid 1 on those 2x500gb HDDs and use that for the OS drive?"

It is possible, but certainly not the recommended way. FreeNAS uses ZFS for all of the RAID functions, and it could do the mirroring of the boot drives. If you do it via ZFS, you can almost certainly move the drives to a different system with a different drive controller without an issue. That is not the case with a RAID card formatted drive. If you are going to go FreeNAS, go all the way and take the ZFS plunge!

 

[danb35]

"Is it a problem to use hardware raid 1 on those 2x500gb HDDs and use that for the OS drive?"

Possible, yes. A good idea, no. Why would you want to? If you want mirrored boot devices (which isn't a bad idea at all), the installer will do that for you.

 

[Gordon Thagard]

Thank you both for taking the time. I will break the hardware RAID 1, set the PERC to pass-through mode for everything, and build using ZFS. Cheers!

 

[HoneyBadger]

Thank you both for taking the time. I will break the hardware RAID 1, set the PERC to pass-through mode for everything, and build using ZFS. Cheers!

You'll want to perform a cross-flash to put LSI IT firmware on that PERC H310. The default Dell H310 firmware, while technically having a "pass-through" mode, has an astonishingly poor max queue depth of 25 - and yes, that's for the whole controller.

The LSI IT firmware should raise that limit to a much higher value - most LSI SAS2008 cards go to 600.

 

[Chris Moore]

If it is the mini card that has a custom socket, flashing it will brick the card.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[HoneyBadger]

If it is the mini card that has a custom socket, flashing it will brick the card.

Yes, an important note there as well. The "mini" or "integrated" cards are different enough to not be compatible with the LSI firmware.

Although I'd argue that for any ZFS install beyond a simple "home media server" you'll want to install a flashable HBA, otherwise you'll experience performance issues from the low queue.