ZFS with Intel RSTe controller

[max3892]

Hi,

So I have a server (based on an Intel S2600GZ motherboard) that has 2 SAS ports. I cannot configure these ports to AHCI (only RSTe or ESRT2), but it seems that with RSTe, by default, the disk are directly usable by the OS.

I am able to get SMART values, S/N, ect. in FreeNAS.

Here is the dmesg (I tried to keep only the relevant parts)

Code:

[..]
isci0: <Intel(R) C600 Series Chipset SAS Controller (SATA mode)> port 0x4400-0x44ff,0x4000-0x40ff mem 0xe7af8000-0xe7afffff,0xe7000000-0xe77fffff irq 18 at device 0.0 on pci3
[..]
da1 at isci0 bus 0 scbus33 target 0 lun 0
da1: <ATA WDC WD10EARS-00Y 0A80> Fixed Direct Access SPC-3 SCSI device
da1: Serial Number WD-WCAV5R951666
da1: 300.000MB/s transfers
da1: Command Queueing enabled
da1: 953869MB (1953525168 512 byte sectors)
da1: quirks=0x8<4K>
[..]
da2 at isci0 bus 0 scbus33 target 1 lun 0
da2: <ATA WDC WD10EARS-00Y 0A80> Fixed Direct Access SPC-3 SCSI device
da2: Serial Number WD-WCAV5R901108
da2: 300.000MB/s transfers
da2: Command Queueing enabled
da2: 953869MB (1953525168 512 byte sectors)
da2: quirks=0x8<4K>
[..]

The full version: https://pastebin.com/qKZ4SzWM

I know I could just buy a used LSI2008/230, but is it "safe" to use ZFS with this controller in RSTe mode without RAID?

Thanks,

 

[Ericloewe]

RST is just fakeRAID handled with an unholy mixture of Windows drivers and System Management Mode voodoo. Just don't configure anything and you'll be fine, it's just Intel SATA.

 

[max3892]

Thanks!