Jason Posted October 21, 2018 Share Posted October 21, 2018 So the time has come to retire and replace my 8 x 3TB WD Red HDDs in my home WSE12R2 file server. They’ve been running in a RAID6 array leaving 16 TB of usable space. Have used roughly 12 TB of storage with some space leftover. I’m already using all 6 data ports on my motherboard. Not interested in rebuilding the server. The Adaptec RAID card itself generated a considerable amount of heat, so reducing the number of drives connected would be beneficial. Would like to roughly watch my current storage space with newer drives and notice WD has 10 TB Reds (5400 rpm) and now Seagate has their Ironwolf model (7200 rpm) NAS models. The Seagates have 3 year warranties and are about $50 cheaper per drive at moment. They seem to have a low failure rate from 2017 Backblaze review. 1.) Anyone have an opinion of WD Reds vs SG Ironwolf (not Pro version)?2.) Should I use 4, 6, 8 or 10 TB capacity drives? They’re approx same cost per GB.3.) would you just eliminate the hardware RAID card altogether and add a pci-e sata card to add more 6 GB/sec ports, attaching individual HDDs and assigning individual drive letters? RAID at home actually seemed to add more heat and effort than benefit? Am going to attack this project this week. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schoondoggy Posted October 21, 2018 Share Posted October 21, 2018 RAID is mainly for resiliency and/or performance. If you don’t need the performance I would look at DrivePool or StorageSpaces. If you use one of the pooling technologies, you may want to use smaller drives, so your data is distributed across more drives. Currently on NewEgg: Seagate IronWolf $299.99 WD Red 10TB $329.99 HGST Deskstar NAS $324.99 I would go with the HGST. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted October 21, 2018 Author Share Posted October 21, 2018 Thanks. Are you able to recommend a good PCI-E sata controller that would support 4-6 6 GB/sec drives?Currently I’m using all 6 sata ports on my motherboard. 2 x 6 GB/sec and 4 x 3 GB/sec. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schoondoggy Posted October 21, 2018 Share Posted October 21, 2018 I tend to use LSI based RAID/HBA for that. This is a good guide to pick a card that supports JBOD: https://www.broadcom.com/support/knowledgebase/1211161496893/megaraid-3ware-and-hba-support-for-various-raid-levels-and-jbod- SAS 9211 8i is a safe choice: https://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-Logic-SAS9211-8I-8PORT-Int-6GB-Sata-sas-PCI-Express-2-0-RAID-Controller-Card/273518233017?hash=item3faef505b9:g:FmgAAOSwFO5aVXS3 You will need two SFF-8087 to SATA fan out cables: https://www.ebay.com/itm/2X-miniSAS-SFF-8087-MINI-SAS-TO-4-SATA-Data-Cable-For-SAS-RAID-Card-LSI-9211-8i/391595894308?epid=10014708199&hash=item5b2cef2624:g:HFcAAOSwnNBXUkSs:rk:2:pf:0 It is a good idea to load the latest LSI IT firmware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted October 21, 2018 Author Share Posted October 21, 2018 Thanks schoondoggy. This is very helpful. When connecting 2 SATA drives to a controller card like this, could each drive still operate independently with a unique drive letter? Or must you use JBOD to combine them into a single “drive?” Was thinking about picking one up and attaching 2 HGST Deskstar 10 TB NAS drives to it to start. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schoondoggy Posted October 21, 2018 Share Posted October 21, 2018 IT mode or JBOD makes this an eight port SATA controller. All the drives are seperate/independant of each other. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted October 21, 2018 Author Share Posted October 21, 2018 IT mode or JBOD makes this an eight port SATA controller. All the drives are seperate/independant of each other.Just picked up that LSI adapter and 2 x 10Tb HDDs. Could you please point me to instructions on how to set the controller to IT Mode (instead of JBOD)? Seems to be much confusion in forums on how exactly to do this. Thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schoondoggy Posted October 21, 2018 Share Posted October 21, 2018 There are two types of firmware for these LSI cards IR or IT, IR is for RAID, IT is for JBOD. All you need to do is down load the latest LSI update tool and load the latest IT firmware and BIOS on the card. Good info here on tools and process for updating the BIOS and firmware on LSI cards: https://www.broadcom.com/support/knowledgebase/1211161501344/flashing-firmware-and-bios-on-lsi-sas-hbas and here are all of the downloads for the SAS 9211 8i: https://www.broadcom.com/support/download-search/?pg=Legacy+Products&pf=Legacy+Host+Bus+Adapters&pn=SAS+9211-8i+Host+Bus+Adapter&pa=All&po=&dk= 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted October 22, 2018 Author Share Posted October 22, 2018 Also ran across this in case it helps someone else:https://nguvu.org/freenas/Convert-LSI-HBA-card-to-IT-mode/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted October 25, 2018 Author Share Posted October 25, 2018 Got my LSI card and new HDDs. Plan to shut down my RAID array this week after my cloud backup completes and install 2 new 10 TB NAS drives. Hope to reduce noise, power draw and heat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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