# LSI SATA 300-8X



## franckc2 (Jul 30, 2014)

Hi, I have a FreeNAS server I'm trying to setup with 2x LSI SATA 300-8X. It's running FreeBSD kernel 9.2-RELEASE-p9. I can see in my /dev amr0 and amr1 so I know the controllers are detected and installed. The problem is when I want to create an array or in this exact case a JBOD drive with MegaCli nothing works.

`MegaCli -AdpCount` returns

```
Controller Count: 0
```
`mfiutil show adapter` returns

```
mfiutil: mfi_open: No such file or directory
```

So I'm pretty much without a clue.

Thanks for your help.


----------



## Oko (Jul 30, 2014)

franckc2 said:
			
		

> HI I have a FreeNAS server I'm trying to setup with 2x LSI SATA 300-8X.
> 
> It's running FreeBSD kernel 9.2-RELEASE-p9
> 
> ...



FreeNAS has its own forum which is pretty good. Mostly professionals. I am not familiar with the card. What are you trying to do? FreeNAS IMHO is useful only if you run ZFS (I run RAID-Z2). It sounded almost like you were trying to create hardware RAID. FreeNAS and ZFS in particular are not intended for that. I would be also very surprised to learn that the MegaRAID CLI interface works on FreeBSD and FreeNAS in particular as it is an embedded system. Please post more information.


----------



## franckc2 (Jul 30, 2014)

Well yeah I'm kind of wanting to use hardware RAID (I just don't want to buy an HBA since I've got perfectly good hardware). I will be posting the question in the FreeNAS forum also.

FreeNAS apart, I'm trying to use MegaCli or mfiutil() to manage my LSI Raid card. That's what my post is all about, trying to figure out why the tools aren't working. What I want to do is to be able to create/modify my arrays or JBOD drives. I just find it very impracticable to reboot the server each and every time I want to add a drive.

I will be moving my HDD from my personal computer to the NAS but will be reusing the HDD once freed.


----------



## Oko (Jul 31, 2014)

franckc2 said:
			
		

> Well yeah I'm kind of wanting to use hardware RAID (just don't want to buy an HBA since I got perfectly good hardware). I will be posting the question in the FreeNAS forum also.


I don't think anybody will bother with your post. If you are using hardware RAID FreeNAS is a wrong OS for you. You can try to use vanilla FreeBSD with UFS. Personally I will go with DragonFly BSD and HAMMER if the RAID card is supported or if not Red Hat with XFS will work for sure.



			
				franckc2 said:
			
		

> I will be moving my HDD from my personal computer to the NAS but will be reusing the HDD once freed.


That is a toy setup. Again nobody on FreeNAS will bother. Unless you have tons of ECC RAM, _an_ industrial grade HDD, _a_ good server grade mother board and processor, ZFS is not for you. I know that some people on this forum run ZFS on commodity hardware but ZFS is not really written for such deployment. Again I would go with HAMMER and DragonFly if I want to play with such hardware.


----------



## wblock@ (Jul 31, 2014)

Oko said:
			
		

> If you are using hardware RAID FreeNAS is a wrong OS for you.



I can agree with that.  ZFS really is hardware RAID, it's just using the computer hardware instead of the wimpy hardware built into a RAID card, and much more involved firmware: ZFS.



> That is a toy setup.



Let's try to be respectful.



> Unless you have tons of ECC RAM, industrial grade HDD, good server grade mother board and processor that ZFS is not for you. I know that some people on this forum run ZFS on commodity hardware but that ZFS is not really written for such deployment.



A lot of people in a lot of places use ZFS on commodity hardware.  Successfully, too.  It's a safe guess that ZFS on commodity hardware has probably received more testing than less well-known filesystems like HAMMER on any type of system.


----------



## franckc2 (Jul 31, 2014)

Hi, it might be a "toy" setup but I'm running it on a Supermicro 3u dual Opteron server with 15x SATA/SAS backplane. This will be a home/test lab NAS for personal stuff and also VMWare ESX so that explains de the low cost older LSI controller.

I do think my question is relevant and  is NOT "freenas" "FreeNAS" related.

Again, my problem is still "why can't I manage my LSI RAID card with the tools even if the controllers are detected?"


----------



## SirDice (Jul 31, 2014)

I would suggest using FreeBSD instead of FreeNAS, especially with the other functions you plan on using. FreeBSD will give you a lot more room to play with. In this respect FreeNAS is built to be used as a NAS and nothing else. 

On FreeBSD I'd try 9.3-RELEASE, it contains updates to the LSI driver, supporting more cards.


----------



## franckc2 (Jul 31, 2014)

I must say I was looking at FreeNAS _be_cause of my dual purpose NAS. The easy  DLNA and file sharing for my personal stuff and the iSCSI part for my VMWare test lab.

I'm a Windows guy (prolly probably got that from my style of post) and find it easier to deal with a GUI than to learn FreeBSD (I know I'm lazy). I used to play with Slackware a long time ago .. so I could prolly probably catch[]up but not sure I wanted to invest that kind of time in the product.

If going 100% FreeBSD is the way to go, well looks like I'll be learning


----------

