Time to really build it.

[Evertb1]

Hm, so in virtualization case, does it mean I absolutely must buy extra controller card? The board I chose is not capable of this?

Your motherboard has only one SATA controller integrated (Intel C246 controller ) I am pretty sure that it will show up in the list of devices that can be enabled for pass through to a VM. But that is of course not advisable as your other (non FreeNAS storage) drives are also connected to this controller. So yes, if you are serious about virtualization you need an HBA. But it does not need to break the bank. You can find cheap ones on ebay. Though I do not know how easy it is in your part of europe to buy from e-bay or from other second hand sites. There are lists around with recommanded types. I have bought 2 Dell Perc H310 SAS controllers a couple of months ago for 35 euro each. One of the most popular ones that has been proven to be an excellent choise for FreeNAS is the IBM M1015 SAS/SATA controller. When flashed to IT mode (needed for FreeNAS) it is a good HBA. Like this one.

 

[Octopuss]

Allrighty then. I'll check those out as well.
Meanwhile I found this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-03X...h=item4681985cf5:g:JkAAAOSwKBVbXFiv:rk:1:pf:1
Does it look legit to you?

 

[Evertb1]

Allrighty then. I'll check those out as well.
Meanwhile I found this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-03X...h=item4681985cf5:g:JkAAAOSwKBVbXFiv:rk:1:pf:1
Does it look legit to you?

Yes it does. But you must be able to find something a bit cheaper. By the way: You will also need a couple of breakout cables Mini SAS 36pin(SFF 8087) to 4 x SATA. To utilize for 8 drives you need 2 cables like this.

 

[Octopuss]

I will only be using three disks. I am not that much of a hoarder :)
This card is not terribly expensive and seems to be pretty future-proof too.

 

[giveyouup]

I'm currently using E-2134 with 8GB ram and its more than enough for me. You'll be all set in future

 

[Evertb1]

I'm currently using E-2134 with 8GB ram and its more than enough for me. You'll be all set in future

Nice for you that your FreeNAS is running fine with 8 GB. But fact is that 8 GB is the recommanded minimum for running FreeNAS on bare metal. Running FreeNAS virtualized on EXSi or any other bare metal hypervisor is a complete different story. And in that case 16 GB is not exactly overdone. I run ESXi with a FreeNAS VM and some other VM's on 32 GB but would not mind at all if it was possible to put 64 GB in (32 GB is the max for the 1150 platform).

 

[Octopuss]

Allright, server is up and running, but what the hell...? The damn fans are spinning at 100% speed and my head is about to explode.
I can't for the love of me figure out where the hell can I configure this. Google gave me exactly zero useful results.
Help!!

 

[Evertb1]

Allright, server is up and running, but what the hell...? The damn fans are spinning at 100% speed and my head is about to explode.
I can't for the love of me figure out where the hell can I configure this. Google gave me exactly zero useful results.
Help!!

You should be able to configure that in the IPMI interface (In the WEBGUI choose FAN Mode or in the IPMI view application choose IPM Device ). You can choose some standard Fan profiles. Also search the forum for "fan" scripts to learn how to finetune the settings for the fan control. You should be able to find something usefull in the resources pages.

 

[Octopuss]

I changed it to "standard speed" and they are still spinning at 100%. I'm going batshit crazy here!
There is virtually ZERO control over this. How could they overlook such extremely basic feature?

 

[l@e]

Just check on the board if you can pass through the hdd from the esxi to the FN vm. It has to get direct access and smart data also. On bios should be already enabled vt-x/d, if not activate it. Nevertheless it will depend on the onboard controller the ability to forward ports alone. With pci-e card would be easier since esxi will pass the whole lane.

 

[l@e]

I changed it to "standard speed" and they are still spinning at 100%. I'm going batcrap crazy here!
There is virtually ZERO control over this. How could they overlook such extremely basic feature?

Check with ipmi view better or in bios should be a silent setting. Hope you don’t have loudy fans. I never touched that on smc server cases and they are preaty low noise.

 

[Evertb1]

I changed it to "standard speed" and they are still spinning at 100%. I'm going batcrap crazy here!
There is virtually ZERO control over this. How could they overlook such extremely basic feature?
View attachment 28215

In fact you can have more control over your fan speeds then you ever had. It only takes some work. Though it is odd that you don't see a difference at all with the different profiles. I always use the IMPI view tool (Windows app) and start it up as administrator if I want to change some things. I have struggled with the fan control as well at the start. Until I found this thread. Just click on the "Show: original post" button. Or on the " here" link.

 

[Octopuss]

Check with ipmi view better or in bios should be a silent setting.

There is not. There is absolutely nothing related to fan speed in the BIOS, and the settings accessible in IPMIView make no difference at all - the CPU fan and the case fan are spinning at 100% speed.
I'm this close to just returning all the hardware and give up.

 

[Octopuss]

In fact you can have more control over your fan speeds then you ever had. It only takes some work. Though it is odd that you don't see a difference at all with the different profiles. I always use the IMPI view tool (Windows app) and start it up as amdinistrator if I want to change some things. I have struggled with the fan control as well at the start. Until I found this thread. Just click on the "Show: original post" button.

That thread makes no sense to me :(
It's directly related to running FreeNAS, but I am not even there yet - I am dealing with the board directly.

 

[Evertb1]

That thread makes no sense to me :(
It's directly related to running FreeNAS, but I am not even there yet - I am dealing with the board directly.

If you install FreeNAS you get IPMI tool. Then you can execute those commands.

 

[Octopuss]

Yes, but I need to figure out how to do it without FreeNAS, because it is not installed yet. I need to install and configure Vsphere first too.

I know this is FreeNAS forum, but seeing as Supermicro boards are what people use most of the time, I hoped I could get some general help, because I have no idea where else to ask.

 

[Evertb1]

Yes, but I need to figure out how to do it without FreeNAS, because it is not installed yet. I need to install and configure Vsphere first too.

I know this is FreeNAS forum, but seeing as Supermicro boards are what people use most of the time, I hoped I could get some general help, because I have no idea where else to ask.

In order to get fine control over your fans you need IPMI tool. That is embedded in the FreeNAS kernel. It should be avavilable for ESXi as well but as far as I know you need to add it yourself. I can't help you there but there are some resources on the web. I have an installed ESXi and I will look if I can find something about it.

 

[l@e]

anyway just checked my runing system on office and is set on "optimal". try that

 

[Octopuss]

anyway just checked my runing system on office and is set on "optimal". try that

I did. Doesn't do anything.
I even plugged the CPU fan to different headers.

In order to get fine control over your fans you need IPMI tool. That is embedded in the FreeNAS kernel. It should be avavilable for ESXi as well but as far as I know you need to add it yourself. I can't help you there but there are some resources on the web. I have an installed ESXi and I will look if I can find something about it.

I installed IPMIView from Supermicro's site, and there's no control over the fans either.

 

[l@e]

Just one question: how many wires you fans have?
And can you check on ipmi view the rpm?
The headers are with 4 pins as I remember and one of them (most cases the blue one ) is digital control with PWM.