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ZFS Multiple Motherboard SATA Controllers

wpirobotbuilder
By wpirobotbuilder
in Storage Devices
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Go to solution Solved by alpenwasser,

I'm looking at making a ZFS build, but I'd like to avoid having a hardware RAID card or an HBA. They are expensive and another point of failure.

 

Does anyone know if using drives on a motherboard with multiple SATA controllers would cause problems? All drives are in a single pool.

ZFS (well, the folks who write the docs :D ) actually encourages you to use as many

controllers as possible (within reason, of course) and to create your VDEVS in such

a way that a controller failure does not bring your individual VDEVS offline, thus

reducing the risk of failure due to controller problems for your zpool.

Plus, what @Vitalius has said.

Posted

I'm looking at making a ZFS build, but I'd like to avoid having a hardware RAID card or an HBA. They are expensive and another point of failure.

 

Does anyone know if using drives on a motherboard with multiple SATA controllers would cause problems? All drives are in a single pool.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use, and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. - Galileo Galilei
Build Logs: Tophat (in progress), DNAF | Useful Links: How To: Choosing Your Storage Devices and Configuration, Case Study: RAID Tolerance to Failure, Reducing Single Points of Failure in Redundant Storage , Why Choose an SSD?, ZFS From A to Z (Eric1024), Advanced RAID: Survival Rates, Flashing LSI RAID Cards (alpenwasser), SAN and Storage Networking

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Posted

I'm looking at making a ZFS build, but I'd like to avoid having a hardware RAID card or an HBA. They are expensive and another point of failure.

 

Does anyone know if using drives on a motherboard with multiple SATA controllers would cause problems? All drives are in a single pool.

It won't. As long as the OS (FreeNAS I assume), sees them all, it wouldn't matter anymore than it would on a Windows machine (it wouldn't).

† Christian Member †

For my pertinent links to guides, reviews, and anything similar, go here, and look under the spoiler labeled such. A brief history of Unix and it's relation to OS X by Builder.

 

 

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  • Solution

I'm looking at making a ZFS build, but I'd like to avoid having a hardware RAID card or an HBA. They are expensive and another point of failure.

 

Does anyone know if using drives on a motherboard with multiple SATA controllers would cause problems? All drives are in a single pool.

ZFS (well, the folks who write the docs :D ) actually encourages you to use as many

controllers as possible (within reason, of course) and to create your VDEVS in such

a way that a controller failure does not bring your individual VDEVS offline, thus

reducing the risk of failure due to controller problems for your zpool.

Plus, what @Vitalius has said.

BUILD LOGS: HELIOS - Latest Update: 2015-SEP-06 ::: ZEUS - BOTW 2013-JUN-28 ::: APOLLO - Complete: 2014-MAY-10
OTHER STUFF: Cable Lacing Tutorial ::: What Is ZFS? ::: mincss Primer ::: LSI RAID Card Flashing Tutorial
FORUM INFO: Community Standards ::: The Moderating Team ::: 10TB+ Storage Showoff Topic

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Bam, thank you both!

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use, and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. - Galileo Galilei
Build Logs: Tophat (in progress), DNAF | Useful Links: How To: Choosing Your Storage Devices and Configuration, Case Study: RAID Tolerance to Failure, Reducing Single Points of Failure in Redundant Storage , Why Choose an SSD?, ZFS From A to Z (Eric1024), Advanced RAID: Survival Rates, Flashing LSI RAID Cards (alpenwasser), SAN and Storage Networking

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I also had this concern but I can say now, after having it setup, that it works great! I have 8 drives spanning across an Intel and Asmedia controller and they are working great in ZFS.

Desktop - 3930k | Rampage IV Extreme | 64gb Vengeance RAM | 256gb 840 Pro | 2x MSI 7870 | Corsair 900D | Creative SB Z | Sennheiser HD280 | Logitech G710+ | Razer Mamba | My salary's worth of water cooling.

Server/NAS - i5-4570 | Gigabyte Z97 Ud5h | 32gb Crucial 1600mhz | 500gb Samsung 850 evo | 4x 4tb WD Reds | Corsair H80 | Bitfenix Shinobi | Windows 7 Pro |

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