Proxmox 8 Installation on Dell r515

[noiseloops]

Just beginning to tinker with proxmox.
I have a Dell r515 with the below specs:
2x Amd Procs
32GB ram
6x 1TB SAS drives on H700 raid. configured raid 1 on 2 disks to install proxmox on.

I tried to install TrueNas scale and was hopeful the remaining 4 disks can be used on the TrueNas, but it could not get detected. I tried enable IOMMU, but unsure if I am doing it right.
Any pointers would be great.

below is the screen grab lspci and IOMMU

I can see the disks in in the disk folder, but unsure how to make the trueNas detect the unused drives.

 

[tcabernoch]

Well, nobody is replying, and you asked.

I'd ZFS.

ZFS wants to talk directly to the disks. Don't run it over RAID.
Your controller does not have a non-RAID mode, so you have to make 6 single-disk RAID 0's. (Sounds crazy, but its commonly done.)
Hit Ctrl + R when the RAID controller comes up, after the Dell logo disappears.
Select the top node. F2. Clear the controller.
Make the VDs. One disk per VD. I disable caching: noreadahead writethrough.

Install PVE.

On the storage screen, change the option to RAIDZ-1.
Only select the first three disks.

(NOTE ... You could go the easy route here instead. If you select RAIDZ-2 and all the disks, you don't need to do anything else. Done.)

When you get the machine up, prep the remaining disks.
sgdisk /dev/sda -R /dev/sdd
sgdisk -g /dev/sdd
(etc)

get their scsi id's.
ls -alh /dev/disk/by-id/

add them to the pool as another 3-disk raidz1.
zpool add rpool raidz1 scsi-id-1 scsi-id-2 (or somethinglikethat)


So that makes one big lump of space.
The two vdevs act like stripes, increasing speed.
Each 3-disk vdev could handle one disk loss.

 

[UdoB]

ZFS wants to talk directly to the disks. Don't run it over RAID.
Your controller does not have a non-RAID mode, so you have to make 6 single-disk RAID 0's. (Sounds crazy, but its commonly done.)

Yes, this will work.

But please keep in mind that this is still a virtual drive as the Controller keeps control over the hardware. A software package which is using this will not see the hardware but only the abstracted Raid0 without knowing it is a single physical drive. So TrueNAS can not check the SMART data - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Monitoring,_Analysis,_and_Reporting_Technology

For me this is the main reason that this is not recommended.

Flashing to "IT-Mode" - which solves that problem - might be possible, I didn't check DuckDuckGo for this.

Disclaimer: I haven't played that game for a long time now. Perhaps someone could prove my statement wrong...

 

[tcabernoch]

Oh come on now! They said they had a RAID going already. So TrueNAS can't see that SMART either.
And its disingenuous to say that there's no error tracking going on. ZFS tracks that stuff and is happy to report on disk errors.
And 'go download this thing from russia and install it on your controller' ... really? That's the advice?
LOL. I loves me some forum. Yes I do.

 

[UdoB]

LOL. I loves me some forum. Yes I do.

@noiseloops may do that "raid0"-thing, of course. I just want him to know some technical disadvantages.

This is like the multiple "do I need ECC Ram for ZFS?"-discussions. Yes and no is an acceptable answer, but the implications should be known!