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Need help picking ESXi compatible HBA

A

Amars

n00b
Joined
Feb 17, 2012
Messages
19
Hi all,
I currently have a ghetto SAN consisting of:
1x HighPoint RocketRaid 2314
3x TR4M+BNC
7x Hitachi 2 TB drives
5x Seagate 1.5TB drives

My goal is to switch over to virtualization - capable storage server. I have used NORCO RPC-4220 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219033 before in builds, and was leaning towards that for this build as well.
My primary question is this: What 5x SFF-8087 ESXi compatible HBAs would you recommend? It must support OCE / ORLM, and be as affordable as possible. Let me know your thoughts!
For migrating to this new array, I would purchase 5 new 2TB drives for an array on the new HBA, copy the data from my 7x2TB array onto the new array (and the remainder onto external HDDs I own), then break the 7x2TB array and expand the new array for a total of 12x2TB drives. The 1.5TB drives will go away upon completion of this project.
Thoughts? Opinions?
 
Well, it definitely looks like openindiana and ZFS is the way to go for what I've been describing. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...yMark=False&IsFeedbackTab=true#scrollFullInfo offers a whole mess of functionality for a fraction of the price; unfortunately it is limited to 8 drives. Does anyone know if multiple LSI Internal SATA/SAS 9211-8i can run in a system side by side without issue, and be attached to the same OpenIndiana VM / part of the same ZFS array?
 
Amars said:
Well, it definitely looks like openindiana and ZFS is the way to go for what I've been describing. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...yMark=False&IsFeedbackTab=true#scrollFullInfo offers a whole mess of functionality for a fraction of the price; unfortunately it is limited to 8 drives. Does anyone know if multiple LSI Internal SATA/SAS 9211-8i can run in a system side by side without issue, and be attached to the same OpenIndiana VM / part of the same ZFS array?
Click to expand...

Yes, no problem.
A pool is build from vdevs. Vdevs are build from disks on any controller.
You can pass-through up to 6 (when i remember correctly) adapter to a single VM
 
Amars said:
Well, it definitely looks like openindiana and ZFS is the way to go for what I've been describing. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...yMark=False&IsFeedbackTab=true#scrollFullInfo offers a whole mess of functionality for a fraction of the price; unfortunately it is limited to 8 drives. Does anyone know if multiple LSI Internal SATA/SAS 9211-8i can run in a system side by side without issue, and be attached to the same OpenIndiana VM / part of the same ZFS array?
Click to expand...

Yes, I have 3 M1015's in passthough on an X9SCM
 
I've had a complete change of heart since my last post, but for kicks I might as well explain my new direction:
I already have a Poweredge 1950 running XenServer (I know, gross, not ESXi but my work is a Citrix shop so I'm trying to become more proficient). Rather then building a new physical server, I decided to just virtualize my existing storage. For starters I picked up http://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-MegaRAI...C_Drives_Storage_Internal&hash=item1c24ea84ed LSI MegaRAID SATA/SAS 8888ELP and intend to pick up a http://www.ebay.com/itm/SGI-3U-Medi...937?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20c48188a9 in the next couple days. I guess for now I'll skip on ZFS and just build a gianormous RAID6 on this thing since 8888ELP doesn't support JBOD (or at least I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere that it supports it).
This should provide me a lot of expandability since I can daisy chain the expanders, and likely be more power efficient then my existing setup.
 
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I'd be really hesitant to use a card like that unless you just don't have the slots to put in something else. Highpoint doesn't have the greatest rep.
 
dave99 said:
I'd be really hesitant to use a card like that unless you just don't have the slots to put in something else. Highpoint doesn't have the greatest rep.
Click to expand...

For home use, I would hop on. For something more mission critical, yeah, I'd go with something else. It's really pretty simple though, just a 32 drive non raid controller. The complexity is in the raid, and with that card you are using something else (ZFS) so the particular card matters a lot less.
 
extide said:
If you are using ZFS then this card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115110 looks pretty sweet. I plan on getting one of those and a Norco 4224 at some point, to put my ZFS array in.
Click to expand...

If you are using OpenIndiana/ Solaris, the LSA HBA's are the best to use at all like one or more LSI 9211.
If you are looking for a cheap but quite compatible alternative to a LSI 9211, use the IBM 1015 with the same chipset and reflash from Raid to IT mode
 
But all of those are significantly more expensive solutions. I run ZFS native on a Ubuntu box at home and it would run that highpoint card just fine.
 
_Gea said:
If you are using OpenIndiana/ Solaris, the LSA HBA's are the best to use at all like one or more LSI 9211.
If you are looking for a cheap but quite compatible alternative to a LSI 9211, use the IBM 1015 with the same chipset and reflash from Raid to IT mode
Click to expand...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-ServeRA..._EN_Networking_Components&hash=item2c64634a66 <---- wow those are stupid cheap, thanks for the recommendation Gea. I need SFF-8088 connectors though since I opted to use my Poweredge 1950 with Rackmount SAS expanders, so I picked up an http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118089 LSI 8888ELP for $150 with 512MB Cache and BBU off ebay. Its fully Xen and ESXI supported, so should work like a charm.
For SAS expander enclosures I'm going to do http://www.ebay.com/itm/SGI-3U-Medi...937?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20c48188a9 since they're cheap and well supported by the card I picked up. That should allow me plenty of expandability.
Does anyone know if the LSI 8888ELP can be flashed to support JBOD? I couldn't find any info on this. I would love to use OI / ZFS, but otherwise I'll just do a RAID6.
 
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