XigmaNAS

Hello there i hope it is ok to ask beginners questions in here i have some and maybe someone
already asked it but i'll try again

first of let me tell you a little about my project, i have a "old" computer i want to use as a nas at home, i hope to use it as ISCSI
it is a i7 cpu with 8 gb ram and room for 15 internal hard drives (3 x 5 bay) right not i have it filled with 15 2-4tb drives each of the as e single drive
i'll like to use it as one big iscsi device on my vmware server(vmware esxi 5.5), all the drives are not older the 1 year and all works well

oki lets take the questions i have fore now :

1. witch (raid) controler is good and cheap ?
i was looking at LSI 9211-8i and LSI 9240-8i and adaptec ASR 5805 but don't know witch i should take ? is it right that 9240 is not supported but 9211 is ??

2. is it possible to have 2 x 8 port raid controller in the same machine ??

3. Is it possible to take lets say 2x 2tb and 2x3tb and 2x4tb and making them into a volume with zfs and the later extend the volume with 2x4tb disk ??
or is there any other cool way to use my disc in the best way ?

4.will zfs support ISCSI ??

5. can i take one drill and adding it as a spare drive to zfs ??

Hope someone can help a newbie here THX

Best regards
Aklausen

Hello,


1) LSI 9211-8i is fine, u can use a Dell Perc H310 (= LSI 9240-8i OEM)
2) never tried it. There are e.g LSI and adaptec Controller available with 16 ports...
3) Doesn't make too much sense to me. Use the amount of Disks (of same size) for the Space u need now.
Later u can add a second pool if u need more space
4) Think yes
5) never tried it but a hot spare is principally possible for ZFS, but I am not sure if the replacement works automatically on error...

some information that applies to you

http://forums.freenas.org/index.php?thr ... zfs.15449/

http://forums.freenas.org/index.php?thr ... ine.12484/

2) yes. if the lsi controllers are the same they even boot of one rom.

3) the smalles drive sets the size of all drives in the same vdev.
what you could do is create 3 mirrored vdevs and put them into one pool. that would give you a pool of 2 +3 +4 = 9 tb.

5) there is no point to spares with zfs. if you want security look into raidz2 or raidz3
http://www.servethehome.com/raid-calcul ... tdl-model/

Hello there THX for the great answers

i can get some 9211 and 9240 for the same price is it better to take 9240 ?? did a read somewhere that i need a custom firmware for 9240 ??

and in question 3 i just want to use my disk the best way and be able to expand the disk / volume later on

/aklausen

For ur purpose it doesn't matter. The Hardware/feature set of the 9240 is somewhat more advanced but u do not use these features here anyway.....

actually you dont want the megaraid (9240) controller because for zfs the dumb hba controllers are the best.
the raid features actually get in the way.

b0ssman wrote:actually you dont want the megaraid (9240) controller because for zfs the dumb hba controllers are the best.
the raid features actually get in the way.

not really, my Dell Perc H310 is a LSI 9240-8i as OEM version. Worked right of the box with JBOD Konfiguration......

you didnt have to flash the it mode firmware?

Again thx alot i think i'll take the 9211
unless the 9240 it mode firmware is oki ?

they are both ok. but you should use the it mode firmware.

b0ssman wrote:you didnt have to flash the it mode firmware?

no worked like I bought it from ebay