5 minutes ago, I finished installing a HighPoint RocketRAID 2720 and while looking up how to see if it’s in HBA mode and came across the unraid compatibility page and it lists as not recomended because it’ll cause the parity to desync after rebooting.
Rebooted and it seems fine, has the newer version of unraid addressed this issue or am I sitting on a proverbial time bomb?
Also does anyone have any good resources for testing storage systems(I’m suspecting that I’m bottle necking my cachedrive my connecting it to the SAS interface, but I don’t have hard numbers since I didn’t save my results last time I “tested” it) and how to test if the card is in HBA mode?
Well, here we go, It’s round 2 now.
I got myself a LSI 9210-8i and I’ve now flashed to the latest IT mode firmware thanks to a guide poster over at servethehome, but now I’m stuck with the HBA not recognizing any of the drives. Cables should be fine unless the previous HBA didn’t have standard cables. Pretty lost atm, anyone have a clue where to go from here?
Honestly it was pretty fun although a bit stressful going from freeDOS to EFI for reconfiguring the new HBA and luckily it was only 1 round of swapping PCIe slots.
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I mean Raid isnt a backup so if the data is important just put it on a real backup. Not trying to be that guy just making sure you are aware of that.
Whats the set up? What results are you getting? What did you use to test?
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Wasn’t really a test, but I copied some movies from my main rig onto the NAS and I assume it was around 1 Gbps because that’s what the server NIC said it was using. But on this smaller size transfer I had of some photos stayed around ~700 Mbps loading to cache this time. and this time the test was a bit to short only a 2.7GB folder of photos instead of 20+ GB of .MKV files.
Whats the uplink of the NAS?
a SMC EZ Switch SMC8505T that I got used and has been used for who knows how long.
I have no idea what that switch is capable of, are you using 1gbe 10gbe 25gbe 100gbe?
oh, it’s just a 5 port 1gbe switch
So if you were seeing 1gbps at the nas its probably going as fast as it can
wasn’t thinking about unraid as a true backup since it’s mostly just a plex server & piehole in the making, but isn’t it good enough in it’s redundancy even though it isn’t a full 321-backup system yet? I was phrasing it as a time bomb since it’ll be a “painful” cost to bear having to deal with it if it fails with all the work it’ll be to get another hba and the time to set it up.
If you have the budget sell the hba and get a new one. It could work fine forever but there could be issues too, I personally wouldnt risk it.
that’s the crux of it, could only afford it because it was available at ~$50 with sas cables when the cheapest alternative is closer to ~$200 if available(which currently has no listings here). I’ve been getting told that mobo sata is prooblematic, so I got an HBA, now I’m being told that the HBA is problematic, so I’m feeling quite at a loss.
Starting to feel stressed out about it, guessing the project is going to get frozen for another 8-10 months at this rate. Guess it’s my fault for getting stressed out after watching Wendell’s video on motherboard raid.
is this the page, for anyone looking?
(even tho it is too late to help you…)
https://wiki.unraid.net/index.php/Hardware_Compatibility#PCI_SATA_Controllers
Yes, this page found the HBA I had saying:
"DO NOT USE with 6.1.x+, upon reboot there will be parity sync errors. "
and considering that I rebooted the system, but I didn’t get any parity sync errors.
So right now I’m considering if I should try to get in touch Lime Tech and see if they have an explanation for this. Hopefully it’s an issue that’s been addressed with the revisions since versions 6.1.x and the current 6.9.2
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I’m not one for promoting other forums, and I’ve not really visited, but maybe letting them know / feeding back your experience there, might help them improve the page?
I don’t know how often it changes, and might very well be outdated.
your feedback might help improve it for everyone, not just the unraid people 
Made a user account to post over there, but looking at the search results I got looking the HBA up, all I see is: “NO, get an LSI HBA, High point is bad”, without elaborating.
and at this point I feel like I’d just get bitched at or ignored for posting something like this over there.
Maybe I should just let my server rust and collect dust for another year and maybe I’ll feel like I can afford splurging >$200 on an hba next year.
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sorry man, my bad.
But I appreciate the effort, even if they were disingenuous.
I personally use cheaper, ~£40 refurbed hba’s, like off ebay.
But hindsight is 20/20…
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Sorry, thanks for being patient with me. I guess I should just start an HBA collection since I’ve already got an ancient controller with a SO-DIM slot and runs on PCI(not E) which I got for 5 bucks for the novelty or just list it up for sale in a month or two.
Got anytips what I should look for when looking for refurbished parts on ebay? I have no experience purchasing things from that platform so I’m unsure what to look for.
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prices are a little steep right now, but a guy I like sells stuff on ebay under the store name of the art of server.
you don’t have to buy stuff off him, but he also does Youtube videos, explaining some HBA stuff
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Well, here we go, It’s round 2 now.
I got myself a LSI 9210-8i and I’ve now flashed to the latest IT mode firmware thanks to a guide poster over at servethehome, but now I’m stuck with the HBA not recognizing any of the drives. Cables should be fine unless the previous HBA didn’t have standard cables. Pretty lost atm, anyone have a clue where to go from here?
Honestly it was pretty fun although a bit stressful going from freeDOS to EFI for reconfiguring the new HBA and luckily it was only 1 round of swapping PCIe slots.
Dang!
Okay, I don’t want to put you off by giving bad advice, and I apologise if I led you down the wrong path, and cost you money on a HBA.
I got a couple things you could look at if you want, but you are welcome to just skim over and solicit help from someone else. (click arrow for wall of useless ideas)
The interface (SATA/SAS) and model numbers of the drives might help, in case anyone recognises any funky with them; some drives use 520bit sectors instead of 512.
The drivers are not working on the new HBA. Bummer. So, start from scratch. Did the drives work elsewhere? Is it just the HBA? did they work in IR mode (not IT mode)
Is there any notice at all in the OS of the drives being detected upon insertion?
How are the drives connected? like, backplane, or cabled direct to HBA.
Can you test in case the motherboard can work with them, or even see them?
Which OS are you using? some OS’s (Linux, BSD/Freenas) have systemlogs, Windows has event viewer (and device manager)
Just thinking maybe the drives might still have some formatting from previous card or something.
One guy even had disk sleds with screw holes that did not connect the drives to the actual back plane, leaving an airgap of a 1/2 inch, so the drives were not detected…
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