# Disk setup with hpe Bxxxi RAID Controller



## dnrn (Apr 22, 2017)

I have a HPE PROLIANT DL120 GEN9 with HPE Dynamic Smart Array B140i Controller, where I will love to install FreeBSD for my first time.

I have 4 1tb sata disk I would like to setup in a RAID 5 array. This is just my initial though, I am very open for alternatives. My primary concern is to have some protection from disk failure and second gaining some reading speed from stripe. 

My first naive solution was to use the supported b140i controller and create a RAID 5 array from the "HPE Smart Storage Administrator". But apparently the logical device wasn't registered by FreeBSD. 

Back to the internet, I've found two discussions about this topic:
[1]: https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hardware/2015-December/007730.html
[2]: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/52588/#post-307910

The solution discussed in 1, is to turnoff the software RAID in BIOS and disable the
HP Dynamic Smart Array Bxxxi RAID Controller.

Does anyone have a good idea how I could setup the disks for installing FreeBSD?


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## tetragir (Apr 22, 2017)

Hi
You can turn off the RAID controller and just use ZFS to set up the disks the way you want.
Please read the ZFS section of the handbook: https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/zfs.html
There are also 2 recent books about ZFS: http://zfsbook.com


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## gkontos (Apr 22, 2017)

Like suggested above, use JBOD and set up ZFS. The installer in FreeBSD 11.0-RELEASE does a good job for root on ZFS.


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