PCI-E sata card for ssd boot drive?

[avalon60]

As I don't have any spare sata ports left on my board, I was thinking about using a sata card and also use a ssd drive to boot freenas.

If need be I could move a sata cable for one of the Hard Drive to a sata card and plug the ssd directly onto the board. Are there any pitfalls in doing that, and or is it a no no?

 

[Ericloewe]

Theoretically, not a problem.

In practice, I wish you luck in finding a PCI-e SATA controller that does not suck, other than a full-blown LSI HBA.

 

[ethereal]

i would go for an hba card that is supported by freenas - i have the m1015 which seems to be widely available (second hand) and well supported and recommended on these forums

 

[avalon60]

At the moment I do have a ASUS U3S6 expansion card which has 2 sata ports on it, and have the x2 1TB Green drives on it. I did initially buy it for awindows machine a while ago now, then decided to install it in my FreeNAS box and make use of it.
I have seen on Amazon some cards and this one has some good reviews :

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Syba-PCI-e...id=1463772382&sr=1-1&keywords=sata+card+pci-e

 

[avalon60]

i would go for an hba card that is supported by freenas - i have the m1015 which seems to be widely available (second hand) and well supported and recommended on these forums

If I bought one of those, would it be a simple case of just plug and play sort of thing.

 

[Ericloewe]

At the moment I do have a ASUS U3S6 expansion card which has 2 sata ports on it, and have the x2 1TB Green drives on it. I did initially buy it for awindows machine a while ago now, then decided to install it in my FreeNAS box and make use of it.
I have seen on Amazon some cards and this one has some good reviews :

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Syba-PCI-e...id=1463772382&sr=1-1&keywords=sata+card+pci-e

Yeah, that thing falls into the "absolute crap" category. It's a first-gen SATA 6Gb/s controller and those were universally atrocious.

 

[Ericloewe]

If I bought one of those, would it be a simple case of just plug and play sort of thing.

Well, you have to flash the firmware to the correct version and, if applicable to the card you buy, crossflash it to IT mode.

 

[ethereal]

there are loads of guides around for flashing and freenas has the tool built in - so you just need the firmware and run the commands in the shell. it was very,very easy on freenas.

you can create a boot drive but that is a little more complicated

 

[avalon60]

I found this one on ebay:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LSI-Mega-...590429?hash=item41a96125dd:g:K6IAAOSwubRXG0Bm

Would it be ok to use in FreeNAS

 

[ethereal]

that's the one - when you get it you need to flash the firmware.
that one is coming from china - some people may think that this is a counterfeit. i bought two and i decided to avoid places where there may be fake cards

AND I SHOULD TELL YOU THAT THE HBA NEEDS A DIFFERENT CABLE - A SFF-8087 FORWARD BREAKOUT - (1 cable connects to 4 hdd. this hba needs 2 cables for all 8 hdds - you could start with one cable if that is all you need)

like this
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B013G4EOEY/?tag=ozlp-20

 

[avalon60]

Thanks I have just ordered them from Amazon.co.uk. Your dollare are our Pounds.

And I've ordered the LSI controller card from ebay

 

[avalon60]

Ok, my

LSI Mega 9240-8i SAS SATA LSI00200 8-port Server RAID Controller Card IBM M1015 together with a CD driver disk, which I won't need.

arrived today from China, which was pretty good considering I only ordered it 10 days ago, and now I need to flash it to IT mode.

I understand that FreeNAS has the tool built in. Do I install the card into my FreeNAS box and then flash it with nothing attached.
If there is a step by step procedure for doing this, could someone point me in the right direction.

I have googled flashing the said card, but am not sure that some of it relates to FreeNAS.

 

[ethereal]

there are many threads in this forum going into great detail on how to flash your card.

you need to choose the method that suits your needs

 

[avalon60]

Just a thought, would the card have to be flashed inside the FreeNAS box or can I do it in another desktop pc

I found some instructions here, but it says to flash as a 9211-8i p16 IT Mode, where mine is the 9240-8i. :

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...r-version-16-for-dev.25925/page-3#post-164658
Post No 42

The flash file I downloaded is 2118 in the zip file, so do I have to get a 2408 flash file.

 

[ethereal]

freenas has the flasher built in. on desktop pc depending on the type of bios you have you will need a dos boot drive or uefi boot drive

 

[avalon60]

Please earlier post with link.

I downloaded the tools zip file from the above link and everything is there, and I have just created a dos boot usb drive with everything on it.

Just read here about flashing a 9240-81 to 9211-81:

https://fogelholk.io/reflash-lsi-megaraid-9240-8i-to-9211-8i/

 

[ethereal]

you have the m1015 so use the 2118it (version 20.00.04.00)

 

[ethereal]

make sure you have the correct version - which is 20.00.04.00 for freenas 9.10
and it needs to be 2118it

if you flash the wrong version i.e 16 - freenas will want you to do it again

 

[avalon60]

you have the m1015 so use the 2118it (version 20.00.04.00)

Yes , so I do.
Thanks

 

[avalon60]

When I have flashed the card in the FreeNAS box, and then connect the drives to the breakout cables, is there anything likely to go wrong due to plugging the drives into different sockets etc.
As I didn't have time today, I intend to do it tomorrow now