hardware suggestions please

[macz]

I am trying to find a HBA IT controller like a lsi 9200-8e or ibm1015 that I can use to connect to a SE3016 16 drive disk array that has 8088 in and built in expanders.

at a minimum the card needs to have one 8088 out so I can connect to the array from a hackintosh running 10.11.4... any internal drive capability would be a plus.

and forget my noobness here.. but if the card is in IT mode and it has a 8088 out and 4 sata/sas connectors internally... is it limited to 4 drives internal or can brake out cables be used to get say 4 per port for each of those 4

lastly.. I am just looking for cost effective low power storage.. does not have to be fast and io is not a major concern.. the machine is basically a media server

so would the new 8tb singled seagates work good or stick to the new 8tb WD red that have healium? might be able to hold out until the 10tb+ drives come out so perhaps I will just get a cheap usb3 8tb drive for additional backup space since the backup pool will run out (raidz 8x1.5tb) before the primary pool currently just 6x2tb stripped but I have 2 more 2tb drives.. the idea is that when the 8x2tb gets to 80%.. bust up both pools that are from very old code and not fully compatible here and make a new backup pool of 2 raidz pools stripped 1 8x1.5tb and the other 8x2tb.. then just stripe some new 8 or 10tb drives as needed for the running pool

thanks for the suggestions

[Brendon]

Hi,

Not sure that you're going to get much in the way of specific advice. My 2c worth - stay away from the Shingled drives, not that there is anything wrong with them, they are achival storage, and have a few performance limitations.

Cheers
Brendon

[macz]

thanks brendon... yeah. I have read that SMR is just not implemented at the file system level yet for optimization...

my problem is two fold.. my backup array of 8x1.5tb is in a esata sans digital box and its going to be full in short order as I add the last 2 2tb drives to my online pool of 6x8tb. when that pool tops out.. I want to move both over to the SE3016 for a 16 drive backup pool.. probably a pool of 2 raidz 8 drive ...

the question is what to have up and running 24/7 that will also be able to be a backup pool later .. by the time that 16 drive unit fills those drives will be end of life and will probably move the 8 drives of whatever over and keep the cycle going.

since its mostly a media server.. the writes are large and usually just once.. its not like I am running a database... but I get the overhead issues of overlapping tracks..

I think that the current crop of WD 8tb reds are helium filled but not SMR... so that might be a good way to go but they are significantly more than the segate smr drives..

the se3016 is limited to 4tb drives I think due to the multiplier board but again, by the time that 16 drive array fills I can either swap out a better expander or replace the box in its entirety

my most immediate need however is for an IT HBA controller to hook my hackintosh to the 3016 box via 8088 cable..

I dont need boot or raid with ZFS as you know.. but I need a card that can play well with ZFS

other option is to abandon running OS X ZFS as the server, move to ESXI and run nappit with OS X VMs in an all in one config.. would solve many other issues as well however complicate 24/7 home ops until I get the hang of it...

also would like to stay under 180watts for the 24/7 box running the up to 8 drive online pool... I am currently at 155 idle with 6 2 tb drives on a gigabyte ep45 board with a e8400 but am thinking of moving to a dual xeon l5640 setup that would draw perhaps a little more juice idle but have 10x the performance

hope more folks can weigh in here...

thanks again,.

[Ikukuru]

I am afraid I have no advice to offer, but I am very interested in the answer. I am currently using a couple of 4 x sata pci-e cards and i don't like it, with two dying on me in the last year. despite that i am not looking to upgrade this year unless i have a catastrophic hardware failure.

[macz]

well as expected.. I received a lsi 2008 based lsi 9212-4i-4e IT mode card and while I can access the card and see drives in bios.. fails to recognize in OS X.. no driver loading for dev mfg 1000 devid 0072


anyone...

are there any lsi cards that work native with OS X

[haer22]

As my backup-backup-pool I have 4*8TB Seagate Archive. On that pool I have a copy of all my other pool. That pool is Capacity optimised whereas my front-end-pools are more speed optimised .

They are SLOW when writing a lot of data (>10's of GBs) but for my hourly syncs with a couple of GBs they are comparable to normal disks.

Hi,
Not sure that you're going to get much in the way of specific advice. My 2c worth - stay away from the Shingled drives, not that there is anything wrong with them, they are achival storage, and have a few performance limitations.
Cheers
Brendon

[macz]

thanks for the suggestions... yes.. the more I am thinking of my use cases the more I am inclined to go that route for my cold storage.. right now my backup pool is a raidz.. no so much for the ability to do a rebuild but to have one set of data that can survive minor bit flips.. if the whole drive takes a hit.. I still have 100% backup that I can start from scratch with.. although it may not have checksum survivability ...

I know that shingled drives will be terrible in a raid of any kind

another avenue to consider

for 20 bucks more than a segate 8tbsmr.. your can buy a WD 8tb my book.. the early ones had enterprise 7200 helium drives that are not smr and the later ones are consumer 5400 red helium .. funny thing is that even the later will cost you 350 to by off the shelf as a raw disk while packaged in a usb3 enclosure only cost 240.. gotta love that math..

[orckland]

The HighPoint RocketRaid 2722 for external connections and RocketRaid 2720 SGL for internal are made by LSI and are excellent choices. Each card supports up to 16 drives with fan-out cables (Monoprice). See my response to the duplicate request under the hackintoshes topic quoted below.

The best choice is the HighPoint RocketRaid 2722 if you want SF-8088 external connections, or its twin the RockdetRaid 2720SGL for SF-8087 internal setup. Both cards are made by LSI but sold by HighPoint and are essentially plug-n-play. They are excellent choices for HBA non-raid configurations with OpenZFS on hackintoshes: I have at least 7 of them in various machines. There are numerous other users in hackintoshland who will attest to their value and robustness as well. They have worked flawlessly for me with OSXZFS to date.

Don't pay full retail price; if you are patient the 2722s frequently drop to $170 or so on Amazon for a new card; 'refurbs' from Amazon Warehouse Deals sometimes go for $100-125. There is also a San Digital-branded variant (San Digital 2-Port Mini-SAS PCI-E PCIe x8 2.0 SAS/SATA 6G RAID Controller (RR2722)) that is identical to the Highpoint card that I once snagged for $75 from Warehouse Deals, so look for those as well.

Note: do not purchase the plain "Rocket" cards that look identical: they will not work as HBAs on hacks [edit: or real macs].

[orckland]

There are a number of good choices, but I have used the surveillance drives from Western Digital (AV-GP) due to lower cost with excellent results. They are designed for 24x7 reliability, and were faster than WD's other drives in some applications according to independent benchmarks three or so years ago. The AV-GP series used a sort of variable rotational speed called Intellipower that, according to WD claims, consumed 40% less power than 7200rpm drives, so that was appealing. Initially, the green variants WDxxEURS and WDxxEURX variants lacked error correction which made them lower cost (and theoretically faster sustained throughput) than WD's Red or Black drives. At the time there was some discussion about their desirability for use with ZFS due to lower cost and ZFS' intrinsic error correction. However, I believe the AV-GP's lack of TLER limited the appeal among mainstream buyers which reduced sales and kept margins lower, so that 'feature' was added back in the replacement purple series. The new surveillance versions (purple) WDxxPURX now have TLER and are advertised as "Intellipower" but are also explicitly labeled as 5400-class. Both the green and new purple drives have risen in cost, but there are still deals on the AV-GP 2TB and 3TB versions to be had. Unfortunately, the older AV-GP series tops out at 3TB.