Revodrive 3 X2 or other PCIe SSD Card Support

[Matt Hook]

I have a RevoDrive 3 X2 available and thought I would try using this as a ZFS L2ARC cache.
This is still a cheaper solution than maxing the RAM.

Unfortunately, FreeNAS 8.04 is not seeing it, it needs a driver for which there isn't one available (yet).
There is a driver available for Linux though so there could be some hope of producing a driver for FreeBSD.

Has anyone got a PCIe SSD Card working under FreeNAS. Which brand/model is working, supported?

I am going this route for both performance and space constrained reasons in a 1U NAS.

 

[louisk]

If you don't have enough RAM, using an SSD for L2ARC won't solve the problem.

What are the system specs and what problems are you having?

 

[Matt Hook]

Well, I can tell you this is not a NAS for general business so throw out any pre-conceived ideas. It's going to be a 1U formfactor NAS.

The PCIe cards have fantastic performance, so which ones work with freenas out of the box, or where the supplier supplies drivers that work for freebsd?

If you don't have enough RAM, using an SSD for L2ARC won't solve the problem.

What are the system specs and what problems are you having?

 

[Matt Hook]

Oh and I forgot to mention, ram will not be in short supply at 64GB or possibly 128GB. The only specific problem is making things fit into a limited space.

Well, I can tell you this is not a NAS for general business so throw out any pre-conceived ideas. It's going to be a 1U formfactor NAS.

The PCIe cards have fantastic performance, so which ones work with freenas out of the box, or where the supplier supplies drivers that work for freebsd?

 

[louisk]

You still haven't detailed what your actual problem is.

Getting a 1U with 128G of RAM is not an issue these days. You will likely be limited to 2.5" drives, perhaps 6-8.

 

[Matt Hook]

That's because there is actually no real problem. I'll ask the question again and word it slightly differently.

Are there any PCIe SSD drives like the OCZ Revodrive or IOdrive known to work with FreeNAS 8+?

You still haven't detailed what your actual problem is.

Getting a 1U with 128G of RAM is not an issue these days. You will likely be limited to 2.5" drives, perhaps 6-8.

 

[survive]

Hi Matt,

TrueNAS, the paid-for version of FreeNAS supports the Fusion I/O cards.

The problem with those ssd-on-a-PCIe card devices is that they need a driver (as you know) since there's no proper drive controller between the SSD & the system....

Why don't you just get a nice big SSD and connect it to a SATA 3 port & be done with it?

-Will

 

[PWoodson]

I know this is an old post but I have a couple Fusion-IO cards and want to clarify, do the 8.3.1-Release-P2 or 9.1.0 RC1 versions of FreeNAS supports them or only the paid TrueNAS version?

If the FreeNAS version(s) don't support them, is it just a matter of the driver? The Fusion-IO download site has both FreeBSD 8 and 9 drivers listed. Would they be sufficient or is the TrueNAS version using some specialized driver?

Thanks.

 

[cyberjock]

/drool

If you have one I'd say try it and see if it works and report back :D

 

[PWoodson]

Yes, if no one can confirm I will do that. They were installed in VM hosts to front end read caching for a poor performing SAN but that SAN has been replaced and they are no longer really needed for that purpose. The VM hosts are at our data center and in production so it might be a little while before I can pull them and test. When I do I'll leave feedback on this post with the results. Thanks for responding.

 

[cyberjock]

Sweet! I'll be waiting! :D