unraid version: 6.8.3

 

I am planning to repurpose an old server as an unraid machine. Specs are 2x Xeon X5640, 32gb ECC RAM and a MegaRAID SAS 9260-8i (plus battery) card with the according backplane that interfaces also with mini SAS on the backplane, same as the RAID controller.

 

I have tested setting up an unraid array with 2 SSDs, i plan to use HDDs only for the array and the 2 SSDs as cache drives. Everything worked, i setup the individual drives as a virtual drive, the controller registered that as a RAID 0 eventhough they obviously arent bound into any RAID. Thats the only way to access them, but it seems to work. Photos of the working array, how the SSDs are shown to unraid, and the RAID configuration: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1cm94Xg1o-HpZLScDX11R-TTitCEoSVr5?usp=sharing

 

I have read about people flashing HBAs to IT mode, bbut couldn't find any information on that for this specific RAID card, as cards that are specifically a RAID card and not an HBA should not be used as the wiki states for this "Beware!!! There are numerous providers of SiL3132-based addon cards, and a few of them (unknown how many) are known to be faulty, causing unseen (SILENT) data corruption", though i think this doesnt apply to my RAID controller, right?

 

So before using this in a life environment, maybe someone can help me to suggest what to do, if i can use it, get a different card, or use cables from the backplane to the mainboards sata ports directly.

 

Hope someone can provide me with the necessary information on what to do with that hardware setup

Edited March 22, 20206 yr by cli-jumper

If you can't flash it to IT mode, then it may be more trouble than it's worth to try to use it, and you would be better of with another card.

 

RAID controllers may not pass the disk serial number as the disk identifier. That is how Unraid identifies which disk belongs where, and if that isn't consistent, it will not remember your disk assignments.

 

RAID controllers also may not pass SMART information to Unraid, which it uses to monitor disk health and alert you if a drive is having problems.

 

 

Alright, thank you! I will buy mini sas to sata cable to connect the backplane directly to the mainboard