SATA Upgrade, PCIE Sata Expansion Card

[Mikeygsxr750]

Most of my research has seen, Most people use an LSI sata/sas with octopus cables to the SATA Drives, with Hardware RAID disabled.

It's my understanding that I should be able to use an IOCrest 4 port sata NON RAID card, so I can simply add 2 more drives to my limted Optiplex 990's 4 sata ports. As long as it's an HBA card, that should work fine...Right?

As always any and all input is welcome, I do realize I can spend another 40-50 dollars for the LSI, and WILL if this card gives me any issue seeing the drives, but wouldn't mind other's opinions. I wont need to expand my pool for a while after this upgrade as well. I will also report my findings when I install this IOCrest 4 port SATA HBA.

Thanks!

 

[Mikeygsxr750]

I believe more research has answered my questions.
Answers found here.

What's all the noise about HBAs, and why can't I use a RAID controller?

1) An HBA is a Host Bus Adapter. This is a controller that allows SAS and SATA devices to be attached to, and communicate directly with, a server. RAID controllers typically aggregate several disks into a Virtual Disk abstraction of some sort...

www.truenas.com

Since there is nothing saying that it WILL NOT work, there just is NOT a gurantee that it will NEVER have issues, I believe I am going to try it. If anything acts screwy in the performance testing, I will go with the LSI HBA, versus the have no idea if it's supported IOCrest 4 port HBA.

For my purposes, I think I'll be fine. Most of my data is backed up else where, as well as hourly snapshots and config and seed files saved daily.

 

[NugentS]

Good luck.
Note that even if it works for a month - thats not enough for us old farts to accept that its working properly. It needs thousands+ of hours working 100% to gain acceptance as safe(ish).
It might work for 3 months and then eat the data - or it might run perfectly. Your risk

 

[Mikeygsxr750]

I'm slowly talking myself into the LSI HBA... I have put work I'll never get back into this Pool. I really WOULD hate to loose data that took Time and precious bandwidth to put together...

Which card would you choose? I can FIND plenty, but as far as a trusted manufacturer, which do you prefer?
I've been looking at the INSPUR 9211-8i... the listing SAYS that it supports IT Mode... but is flashing the firmware a Necessary step?
I believe I read in the documentation that it was a requirement..?
Thanks!

 

[Mikeygsxr750]

This is the card I'm looking at.

INSPUR 9211-8i 6Gbps HBA LSI FW:P20 IT Mode ZFS FreeNAS unRAID+2* SFF-8087 SATA | eBay

We will do our best and help you provide the solution. ※ All faulty due to improper installation or improper use will NOT be covered by the warranty. ETA 3 to 6 Weeks.

www.ebay.com

 

[dak180]

This is the card I'm looking at.

It ships directly from china; there is a very good chance that it is counterfeit. Something like one of these is much more likely to be genuine:

Dell H310 6Gbps SAS HBA w/ LSI 9211-8i P20 IT Mode for ZFS FreeNAS unRAID | eBay

I have fully tested them using all 8 SAS lanes. I've used ZFS for many years. I'm familiar with ZFS on Linux, FreeNAS, and many of the technologies commonly used by other enthusiasts. They have been cross-flashed to Avago / LSI 9211-8i IT (Initiator Target) firmware version P20 (specifically...

www.ebay.com

or

Dell H310 6Gbps SAS HBA LSI 9211-8i P20 IT Mode for ZFS FreeNAS unRAID B-STOCK | eBay

I have fully tested them using all 8 SAS lanes. I've used ZFS for many years. I'm familiar with ZFS on Linux, FreeNAS, and many of the technologies commonly used by other enthusiasts. They have been cross-flashed to Avago / LSI 9211-8i IT (Initiator Target) firmware version P20 (specifically...

www.ebay.com

and

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012BPLYJC

for your cables.

 

[Mikeygsxr750]

I just read a review of a similar card to the INSPUR I mentioned, and it Absolutely called it out as a fake Dell 200 LSI. Plus one of the ports didn't work! Thanks for the heads up to Counterfeit cards... In any other situation not involving possibly loosing data (TIME, Brain Cells), like Fans, or Local Machine things I wouldn't worry.
But I would rather TrueNAS be as happy as possible, since it's been a very nice experience so far with it.

 

[NugentS]

To be safe look up Art of Server on Ebay.
Yes they cost a bit more - but he has done all the required testing and flashing for you already.
92xx - useful for HDD's. Will stuggle to cope with SSD's in any quantity
93xx - useful for SSD's and HDD's
94xx - Trimode cards (I think) - expensive and don't have the hours to be considered safe. Meant to work though

Note that some cards are RAID cards and must not be used. You need an HBA.

Art of Server on Ebay

 

[alex992]

What about LSI 95XX ? Is it safe?

 

[jgreco]

What about LSI 95XX ? Is it safe?

SAS 3508 or 3516 based controllers should be fine as long as they show up under the mpr driver. However, the question here would be why would you want to spend about $500 on something like a 9500-8i when much cheaper options exist?

 

[Mikeygsxr750]

To be safe look up Art of Server on Ebay.
Yes they cost a bit more - but he has done all the required testing and flashing for you already.
92xx - useful for HDD's. Will stuggle to cope with SSD's in any quantity
93xx - useful for SSD's and HDD's
94xx - Trimode cards (I think) - expensive and don't have the hours to be considered safe. Meant to work though

Note that some cards are RAID cards and must not be used. You need an HBA.

Art of Server on Ebay

Thanks Nugent, I'll keep them in mind. I haven't seen a need to control SSD's just yet.
HDD speeds and mostly price, have kept me happy this far.
Glad to know the model scheme though, so I don't use buy something useless to me. I did read the Docs about not wanting anything BUT TrueNAS to be able to communicate with the drives, RAID controllers could cause conflict and what not. So Host Bus Adapter NON RAID is the only way to go.

I think I have decided to just use my b450M and 3200g with an M.2 Boot Disk. Since the b450m HAS 4 sata ports, I think it will be better suited to do what I need. Since I'll have all 4 ports populated, I have been worrying about not being able to export a pool, other than USB 3.0...
Hopefully I never have to worry about that, I should be able to upgrade the 4 X 4TB drives when the time comes to 4 X 8TB, pretty easily.

 

[NugentS]

What about LSI 95XX ? Is it safe?

Expensive
Also I was wrong about the trimode's - those seem to be 95xx with 94xx being NVMe - but as I don't have any I wasn't certain.

 

[LarsR]

Keep in mind that it could be that your m.2 slot shares the same pcie lanes as one of the onboard sata ports and therefore the sata port could be disabled when you use the ssd for boot. i would check your mainboard manual to be safe.

Edit: I meant sata and not pcie

 

[Mikeygsxr750]

Dang... I haven't thought about that...

"The 3200G includes 20 PCIe lanes - 16 for a discrete graphics processor and 4 for storage (NVMe or 2 ports SATA Express).Sep 8, 2021"

This could actually be an issue...
I Believe everything I have read on my
ASRock b450m hdv 4.0 and 3200g, SHOULD have 20 lanes... and it's an APU so no need for a discreet GPU. Each drive takes 2 of those lanes, so 4 times 2, for the vdev, and 2 for the M.2, so 10 total...I believe...

If my information is right I SHOULD be ok...

 

[Mikeygsxr750]

Nevermind.... I think I'm screwed...

"Slots
AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Vermeer, Matisse, Cezanne, Renoir, Summit Ridge and Pinnacle Ridge)
- 1 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slot (PCIE2: x16 mode)*
- 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 Slot (PCIE3: x4 mode)
AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Picasso, Raven Ridge)
- 1 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slot (PCIE2: x8 mode)*
- 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 Slot (PCIE3: x4 mode)
AMD Athlon series CPUs
- 1 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slot (PCIE2: x4 mode)*
- 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 Slot (PCIE3: x4 mode)

- 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 Slot
- Supports AMD Quad CrossFireX??and CrossFireX??

*Supports NVMe SSD as boot disks
Storage
- 4 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s Connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 10), NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug*
- 1 x Ultra M.2 Socket (M2_1), supports M Key type 2242/2260/2280 M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen3 x4 (32 Gb/s) (with Vermeer, Matisse, Cezanne, Renoir, Picasso, Summit Ridge, Raven Ridge and Pinnacle Ridge) or Gen3 x2 (16 Gb/s) (with Athlon series APU)**
- 1 x M.2 Socket (M2_2), supports M Key type 2230/2242/2260/2280 M.2 SATA3 6.0 Gb/s module

*M2_2 and SATA3_3 share lanes. If either one of them is in use, the other one will be disabled.

**Supports NVMe SSD as boot disks
Supports ASRock U.2 Kit"

 

[NugentS]

You can use the 16 lane slot for the LSI Card as you don't have a eGPU. You only need a x8 slot
Of course then you have to figure out where to put all those disks

 

[Mikeygsxr750]

Welp plan B is no longer viable. Seems like I'll be getting an LSI-HBA...
I will try the 4 Port IOCrest HBA, and test on blank disks,
just for the Knowledge of how TrueNAS treats the card,
But I don't think I want to trust my Data to it.

 

[Mikeygsxr750]

I have been looking for another Full Tower ATX case with at least 4 bays.
I would like to find a Dell Power Edge T series case, or I've found a few Sun Micro server cases that would look cool.
I do have an older Cooler Master Full ATX if all else fails though.

 

[Mikeygsxr750]

Just for discussion... and Curiosty... Could I use an M.2 Expansion card to house the boot drive? on an 8x or 16x?
I wonder if that would play nice with with TrueNAS...
No big deal if I loose a boot drive, since I back up the config regularly and the .db file....

 

[NugentS]

You could stick an expansion card into the x4 slot, plug an M.2 into that but some older boards won't boot from M.2 - so YMMV
If the board supports bifurcation then you could stick 4 M.2 into the x16, 2 into a x8 or 1 into a x4 without using a PCIe switch chip. But bifurcation seems to be more of an enterprise thing, I haven't heard of many consumer boards supporting it.

Or

Get an M.2 for boot purposes and a USB to M.2 adapter and use that to boot from - that would free up a SATA slot