Multiple HBAs in FreeNAS

[AgentZero]

I've heard that an onboard SATA controller and a PCI card SATA controller will cause drives to show up differently - for example: da0, da1, for the motherboard controller and ada0, ada1, for the PCI card (or something like that). The problem with this as I understand it is that you cannot add devices from the different controllers to the same zvol - example: I couldn't make a RAIDZ from ada0, ada1, and da0.

I currently have an M1015 HBA and HP SAS Expander, but I've realized I don't need all those ports, and dealing with a full-height card is becoming a pain. That being said, my question is simply - if I get another M1015 HBA and have both on the same system, will the devices show as 'being on the same bus'? Meaning that they're all 'daX' - and I can add them across the two M1015 cards.

Reasoning is the zvols will be in 3 drive RAIDZ zvols, and it doesn't go into 8 (ports on the M1015) evenly.

Thanks

 

[pirateghost]

Where have you heard that you cannot make a zvol from devices connected to different controllers? I have done it before.

 

[TheSmoker]

Works just fine here as well. ;)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[AgentZero]

Well crap...not sure what or why I was doing that it wouldn't work...it was a rocketraid 2100 and onboard sata ports. Ill have to test again...but either way it sounds like 2 M1015 hbas i can get rid of the sas expander and will give me a giant 16 drive zvol if I wanted (I dont).

Thanks everyone

 

[cyberjock]

Well crap...not sure what or why I was doing that it wouldn't work...it was a rocketraid 2100 and onboard sata ports. Ill have to test again...but either way it sounds like 2 M1015 hbas i can get rid of the sas expander and will give me a giant 16 drive zvol if I wanted (I dont).

Thanks everyone

SAS expanders are for SAS only. Just like SATA port multipliers are for SATA only.

SATA ≠ SAS.

 

[AgentZero]

I was looking back at some of my hardware last night - the rocketraid 2200 is a SATA "HBA" so it was being combined with onboard SATA ports. The SAS expander I was speaking of was the HP SAS Expander currently used in conjunction with a single M1015 - which I would like to add a second M1015 and ditch the HP Expander.

I don't think the rocketraid presents the disks as native\jbod - I think vdisks have to be created in the BIOS of the card at boot time...wondering why this was why I was having trouble..?

 

[cyberjock]

RocketRAIDs do weird things. Did you read the sticky I wrote in the same section of the forums you posted in on Highpoint controllers and how they work/don't work?

 

[pirateghost]

That is one reason I abhor RocketRaid cards.