Need help getting unRAID to see my SAS Hard Drives

[Navyjoker]

Greetings,

 

I am trying to get my two 6TB Exos SAS drives to be recognized in unRAID. My other two drives (1 SSD, 1 1TB HDD), both SATA, are recognized and set up in my array. My SSD is my Cache drive, and the 1TB drive is just in my array. I need to have one of my 6TB drives set as my parity drive, and the other one in my array.

 

I have 4 SAS bays in my case, and have my drives set as follows: 1: SSD SATA, 2: 1TB SATA, 3: 6TB SAS, 4: 6TB SAS. The first diagnostics file I uploaded (valhalla-diagnostics-20220130-1650) was with this setup.

 

I tried changing to: 1: SSD SATA, 2: 6TB SAS, 3: 6TB SAS, 4: 1TB SATA. The second diagnostics file I uploaded (valhalla-diagnostics-20220130-1831) was with this setup.

 

I have my SATA controller set up as HP Dynamic Smart Array B320i Raid Controller in the BIOS. I have also tried the other option as well (SATA AHCII Controller or something), but that didn't work either.

 

I have read that I need an HP Smart Array SAS License Key installed to provide support for SAS Hard Drives? Any ProLiant MS Gen8 users out there that might be able to confirm and help me if this is true?

 

Lastly, on bootup I receive a "SATA3: COMRESET failed (errno=-32)" error that retries like 6 times before moving on. I am thinking this error might possibly have something to do with why my SAS drives aren't showing up?

 

My setup is in my signature. I also attached my syslog in case that might help as well.

 

Any help would be much appreciated! 

 

Thanks!

valhalla-diagnostics-20220130-1650.zip valhalla-diagnostics-20220130-1831.zip valhalla-syslog-20220130-2354.zip

[JorgeB]

 

Do you have the optional SAS license?

[Navyjoker]

I am trying to figure out what that is, and how to get it. Any ideas, or have you heard of that before?

[JonathanM]

3 hours ago, Navyjoker said:

I am trying to figure out what that is, and how to get it. Any ideas, or have you heard of that before?

Maybe this? https://www.globalonetechnology.com/bc393a.htm

Might be better to purchase a supported controller instead of playing licensing games.

[Navyjoker]

Ok, so I have researched and if I purchase an M1015 SAS/SATA Controller (https://www.amazon.com/IBM-Serveraid-M1015-Controller-46M0831/dp/B0034DMSO6), I can just disconnect the mini SAS cable from the port on the motherboard and plug it into one of the two mini SAS ports on the card. This will instantly allow my SAS drives and SATA drives to work. This will also give me the capability of adding 4 more hard drives.

 

My hesitation lies in the fact that I would have to remove my GPU card, which I purchased specifically for hardware transcoding in Plex.

 

My other option is to purchase new SATA only hard drives and use those - but that's going to cost some $$.

 

I know the onboard graphics card in the MicroServer Gen8 is not very good, but I wonder if it will still be ok for running my Plex server.

 

Does anyone have any thoughts? 

[trurl]

1 hour ago, Navyjoker said:

M1015

Don't know if this was part of your research:  

On 1/29/2021 at 7:57 AM, JorgeB said:

8 ports: any LSI with a SAS2008/2308/3008/3408 chipset in IT mode, e.g., 9201-8i, 9211-8i, 9207-8i, 9300-8i, 9400-8i, etc and clones, like the Dell H200/H310 and IBM M1015, these latter ones need to be crossflashed (most of these require a x8 or x16 slot, older models like the 9201-8i and 9211-8i are PCIe 2.0, newer models like the 9207-8i, 9300-8i and newer are PCIe 3.0)

 

[Navyjoker]

As far as I’ve researched, the M1015 is plug and play…

[ChatNoir]

Third line of the description says :

Quote

This RAID controller provides ...

 

RAID controllers are not recommended for Unraid.

 

[Navyjoker]

Those are all SATA controllers. I need a SAS controller with mini SAS ports, not SATA ports...

[itimpi]

11 minutes ago, Navyjoker said:

Those are all SATA controllers. I need a SAS controller with mini SAS ports, not SATA ports...

All the LSI ones have support for both SAS and SATA.   You just have to get the correct cable for connecting the drives to them.

[ChatNoir]

I only use SATA drives and they work just fine on my old Dell H200 IT mode HBA.

Plus there are SATA only controllers too on the recommended thread.

[Navyjoker]

I found this card https://www.ebay.com/itm/313695041101?epid=27026538211&hash=item4909ae764d:g:rO8AAOSwwjlhUdOb what do you think? it is already in IT mode, is not a RAID controller, and has two mini SAS internal ports.

[JorgeB]

If it's in LSI IT mode it's fine.