Problem with RAID Controller

[Farmer93]

Hi, LTT Community

I am having some trouble finding a compatible PCIe x8 or x16(prefered) RAID Controller for a new server. I would like a LSI MegaRAID controller but so far haven't had any luck find one. The server hardware is a Norco RPC-4116, Supermicro H8DGI-F motherboard, 2xAMD Opteron 6376 2.3ghz, 64GB DDR3 ECC memory, WD Blue 1TB SSD boot drive, 16x8TB SATA WD RED Pro drives, and 6x500GB WD Blue SSD cache. My biggest problem seems to be the 8TB WD RED Pro drives. With these drives the two problems I'm seeing are the size is to large or the RED Pro is not supported entirely. I do not wish to change brands as I'm a big fan of WD and with that said I also don't wish to upgrade to the WD Golds which are in my 500TB vaults as they were pricey. I will be running RAID 6 on FreeNAS, sorry I didn't say sooner. Thank you in advance for the help.

[Oshino Shinobu]

If you're using FreeNAS, you should use the software RAID features rather than physical RAID cards, it's what FreeNAS is designed to work with. Is there a specific reason you want to use hardware RAID? 

 

EDIT: FreeNAS technically doesn't use RAID, it uses the ZFS equivalent of various RAID types. FreeNAS devs recommend against using "hardware" RAID http://www.freenas.org/blog/freenas-worst-practices/

[Farmer93]

I wish to use physical RAID cards as I have 16 hotswap drives and my MB has 6x SATA 2.0 (3gb/s) ports but most of all from past experience they are more reliable and slightly faster. 

[astrosheen]

7 minutes ago, Farmer93 said:

I wish to use physical RAID cards as I have 16 hotswap drives and my MB has 6x SATA 2.0 (3gb/s) ports but most of all from past experience they are more reliable and slightly faster. 

 

So HBA cards are out of the question?

 

[Farmer93]

Well Astrosheen you make a good piont. I have never used a HBA card. If you would infrom me more on there reliability and speeds and what work load they can handle. I may look in to them. For Oshino Shinobu if FreeNAS is not the bast OS for my system what would you recommend that is still free (sorry linux user here we like freeware). 

[scottyseng]

26 minutes ago, Farmer93 said:

-snip-

An HBA card is exactly like a hardware RAID card, without the RAID part of it. It's equally as reliable and as fast.

 

You want HBA cards for software RAID. It's 100% passthrough and is pretty much the same as if you were plugging the drives straight into the motherboard.

 

I'd usually only recommend hardware RAID cards if you want to move between systems a lot, use Windows (Though there's great software RAID options for windows), or really need to offload the RAID calculation (Which is minimal with how fast CPUs are these days).

[Farmer93]

Scottyseng thank you. That helps a bit how picky are HBA cards with compatibility and do you feel I can find one for the hardwear I'm using.

[scottyseng]

3 hours ago, Farmer93 said:

Scottyseng thank you. That helps a bit how picky are HBA cards with compatibility and do you feel I can find one for the hardwear I'm using.

HBAs aren't that picky much like RAID cards...As long as the PCIe slot works, more than likely you'll be able to use one. You may need to install a driver for it before it works completely though (Usually it's plug and play).

[Farmer93]

With that HBA sounds like a great deal but I have been up all night researching this and so far I've learned that HBA cards will only work with RAID 0, 1, or 10 or not at all which is very bad here. If someone knows something different please direct me to a reliabile source. And as I was sure I'd used a RAID Controller in a customers bluid with FreeNAS before I printed and studied FreeNAS documentation and have found that FreeNAS does support RAID Controllers. So if we could return to my original post of having some trouble finding a compatible RAID Controller for this server. Any reliabile information on a compatible controller for the WD Red Pro 8Tb drives is appreciated. Thank you for your time.

[scottyseng]

17 hours ago, Farmer93 said:

-snip-

You are mistaken. A HBA card does not have RAID at all. It is a pass through card. If you see a HBA with RAID on it, you're probably reading one with a incorrect description.

 

If you are using FreeNAS, you should not be using a RAID controller, it kind of defeats the purpose of using FreeNAS (ZFS). While it does work, it makes it tough for FreeNAS to provide the protection it is known for without direct access through the drives.

 

The reason everyone is saying not to use a hardware RAID card with FreeNAS is that a hardware RAID controller will not report errors to ZFS. ZFS wants to know these errors so it can fix it (Hence why it wants direct access).

 

However, if you still want a RAID card, get a LSI-9361-8i (with battery).

[Farmer93]

That is very helpful Scottyseng. If you would provide information on a HBA card that can work for this server I would be greatful as i wish to do more research on HBA. "HBA cards will only work with RAID 0, 1, or 10 or not at all." this information was for a pass through card that had no RAID on it.

[scottyseng]

5 hours ago, Farmer93 said:

-snip-

https://www.broadcom.com/products/storage/host-bus-adapters/sas-9300-8i

 

This is a good new HBA card to use. Just note that this card uses SAS 3 (12Gb/s) ports. The SAS 2 (6Gb/s) ports you see on some older equipment uses different ports. Make sure you get the right cables as needed.

 

I think you might've run into RAID cards that can be converted to HBA cards. Not many RAID cards do this (Most don't). It usually involves flashing the card with HBA firmware / turning a setting on / off in the card BIOS.

 

But yeah, I would really recommend a HBA card for FreeNAS so it has direct access to the drives and let ZFS handle the arrays. It does what it does best with direct access.