[SOLVED] ZFS and RAID Controllers

[glauber@personalizetecnol]

Hi everyone, I've researched a little bit about ZFS and related stuff and I saw on proxmox documentation to not install zfs on top of a hardware controller that has it's own cache management. Here things start to warmup, on my controller i have a cache option while creating a pool, does it means if that do not put a cache on that pool, I could fearless create a zfs on top of that pool that is managed by my RAID controller?
Something else I saw is this sentence on the documentation: " An HBA adapter is the way to go, or something like LSI controller flashed in “IT” mode." I just made a quick research on what is an HBA because i didn't know yet and found a little website, i still don't understant both the "HBA and LSI controller flashed in "IT" mode", so could you give me links to study and configure/test them? (overall zfs books,courses and documentation are also welcome)

By the way i'm planning to use proxmox for large scale projects on my city, so i need to make extensive tests on lab first, I'd apprecite your help and patience.

 

[Dunuin]

You dont want HW raid controllers at all. Not just with no caching enabled. See here: https://openzfs.github.io/openzfs-docs/Performance and Tuning/Hardware.html#hardware-raid-controllers

A HBA is basically a storage controller without any additional abstraction layer (like raid) between the OS and the drives. Like the SATA ports of your mainboard if set to AHCI mode.

If you flash a LSI raid card into IT mode it will loose all the raid stuff and becomes a dumb SAS/SATA controller like the onboard ports. And thats exactly what you want because ZFS needs to direct access to the drives without some stuff sitting between.

 

[myzamri]

You dont want HW raid controllers at all. Not just with no caching enabled. See here: https://openzfs.github.io/openzfs-docs/Performance and Tuning/Hardware.html#hardware-raid-controllers

A HBA is basically a storage controller without any additional abstraction layer (like raid) between the OS and the drives. Like the SATA ports of your mainboard if set to AHCI mode.

If you flash a LSI raid card into IT mode it will loose all the raid stuff and becomes a dumb SAS/SATA controller like the onboard ports. And thats exactly what you want because ZFS needs to direct access to the drives without some stuff sitting between.

Thank you for the explanation

 

[glauber@personalizetecnol]

You dont want HW raid controllers at all. Not just with no caching enabled. See here: https://openzfs.github.io/openzfs-docs/Performance and Tuning/Hardware.html#hardware-raid-controllers

A HBA is basically a storage controller without any additional abstraction layer (like raid) between the OS and the drives. Like the SATA ports of your mainboard if set to AHCI mode.

If you flash a LSI raid card into IT mode it will loose all the raid stuff and becomes a dumb SAS/SATA controller like the onboard ports. And thats exactly what you want because ZFS needs to direct access to the drives without some stuff sitting between.

Do u have any model o HBA card link?
The part of flashing a LSI raid card into IT mode, do all controllers has this option?

 

[Dunuin]

Do u have any model o HBA card link?
The part of flashing a LSI raid card into IT mode, do all controllers has this option?

Only a handfull of raid cards can be flashed to IT mode. As far as know there are only some LSI cards (or HP/Dell rebrandings like the H310/H710).
And even its sold as a HBA without any raid you might want to check first if the chipset of that card is fully supported by the linux 5.4/5.11 kernel.

 

[glauber@personalizetecnol]

Only a handfull of raid cards can be flashed to IT mode. As far as know there are only some LSI cards (or HP/Dell rebrandings like the H310/H710).
And even its sold as a HBA without any raid you might want to check first if the chipset of that card is fully supported by the linux 5.4/5.11 kernel.

well, thanks for your help, gonna make further researches now. ;D