Is it possible to passthrough a PCIe to 4xSATA adapter to a VM?

[left4pve]

I need(sorry but absolute need) to run TrueNAS inside Proxmox VE. I've been reading articles saying it might not be a good idea wrt data security, but since I'm just going to host some medias and personal files that will be also backed up to AWS S3, I'd still like to give it a try.

Since my motherboard only has 2 SATA ports, I ordered this PCIe to 4xSATA adapter. I wonder if it's possible to pass through this entire card to TrueNAS VM, so that it can see and manage the RAW hard drives connect to the card in order to utilize the ZFS RAIDZ.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09K4XK91L?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

Thanks! Any suggestion is welcomed.

 

[leesteken]

Passthrough of PCIe devices is usually possible but depends on the motherboard (which make and model is yours?) and its IOMMU groups. What is the output of for d in /sys/kernel/iommu_groups/*/devices/*; do n=${d#*/iommu_groups/*}; n=${n%%/*}; printf 'IOMMU group %s ' "$n"; lspci -nns "${d##*/}"; done when you plug-in a PCIe card into the slot you intend to use for the SATA controller?
And not all PCIe devices reset (FLR) properly or work when passed through, so make sure to buy something that you know worked for someone else.

EDIT: If PCIe passthrough does not work, then disk passthrough might be an option (as it appears to work for TrueNAS in this thread).

 

[left4pve]

@leesteken Thanks for the valuable info. I'm still waiting for the power supply to arrive. Here's the device I have for now:
1. Intel i3-12100, VT-d supported
2. GIGABYTE Z690I AORUS ULTRA LITE, which should have enough support for IOMMU

I'll come back once the power supply arrived.

 

[Dunuin]

Also make sure that TrueNAS supports that HBA. When using PCI passthrough your guest OS needs to provide the drivers, not your host OS. Atleast in case of TrueNAS Core it is quite picky when it gets to hadware as it is based on FreeBSD (so Unix and not Linux). Here is a list with compatible HBAs for download: https://www.truenas.com/community/resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/
Best compability you would get with a LSI based HBA. You can't just get something from Amazon and hope that it works.

 

[left4pve]

It's interesting that PCIe pass-through is natively supported on my ProxmoxVE installation without any extra step? I noticed that VT and Memory Map is by-default enabled in the BIOS setting. Maybe that's the reason? I tried 3 different motherboard+CPU and they all work like a charm.

 

[jackieo500]

Can anyone confirm the GIGABYTE Z690I AORUS ULTRA LITE works well with Proxmox? Looking to buy it in the next few weeks.
Cheers.