So the installation is baremetal freeNAS I guess, I just installed FreeNAS on a machine, should I have done otherwise? Any advantages? What do you think about this card also:
Also you said I should buy a Dell branded one, but the one you posted above is not, so does it really matter?
Thanks for the help
The one I linked to (http://www.ebay.com/itm/172398533672) is a Dell OEM.
The only RAID controller that makes sense is 9260-8i. Any model below is not worth it even if it's sole use is to functiopn as an HBA with IT Firmware. Not to mention support for older models is iffy. Any model above 9260 (except for sub versions like 9261) will cost too much. You are better off with the HBA vs 9210 as that uses an old chipset (2008). The only old chipset that is worth it is 2108 which is what the 9260 has.
As Dexter_Kane and I have mentioned, if you go the RAID card route you will want to flash IT Firmware which makes the RAID controller function as an HBA. It's probably more headache than it's worth, just get the HBA, it's plug and play.
do you have try to disable the dedup on your volume ?