Advice upgrading to larger drives [ESXi, OmniOS & Napp-IT]

[nle]

Hi all, I am in the process of upgrading to new and larger drives our (now) quite old NAS box. And I need some advice.

As of now the box runs the following software:

• ESXi 5.5 u2
• VM1: OmniOS v11 r151014 with napp-it (data storage)
• VM2: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Crashplan Backup)

Current hardware:

• Supermicro X8ST3-F, Single Intel Core i7 / Xeon 55xx, 8 x SAS [Motherboard]
• INTEL CORE I7 960 3.2GHZ 8MB S-1366 [CPU]
• 6 x 4GB CORSAIR DDR3 XMS3 INTEL I7 1333MHZ [24GB RAM/Memory]
• 2 x HITACHI DESKSTAR 7K1000.C 500GB 7200RPM SATA/300 16MB [ESXi + VMs]
• 6 x Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 2TB SATA3 64MB cache, 7200RPM, 6GB/S [Storage/datapool, RaidZ2]
• 1 x Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 2TB SATA3 64MB cache, 7200RPM, 6GB/S [Spare]
• 1 x OCZ 120 GB SSD 2,5" Vertex 3 SATA III, Read/Write 550/500MB/sec [Cache]

I want to upgrade all my storage drives from 2TB to 4TB, and increase our storage space. I’m thinking about getting HGST Deskstar NAS 4TB.

My plan is to:

1. Autoexpand set to on.
2. Remove my spare drive from the pool, power down, and physically remove the drive.
3. Plug in a new drive, and then replace one of the drives in the pool.
4. Resilver. Power down.
5. Remove old drive, and put the new replaced drive in it’s physically slot.
6. Repeat step 3–5 until all drives is replaced.
7. Plug in new spare drive and add it to the pool.

Is there a better way? Or anything else I should think of?

Thanks!

 

[gea]

If your HBA is hotplug capable ex with LSI 9207 (check if a hotplugged disk is detected after a few seconds), you do not need the power cycles.

Just plugin new disks and do a disk replace 2TB -> 4 TB.
You can hot-unplug disks (state remains removed until reboot but who cares)

beside that, your plan is ok.

 

[nle]

Thanks @gea!

My motherboard has LSI 1068E, and it looks like it supports hot swap/plug.

 

[gea]

LSI is ok

Onboard Sata/AHCI is basically also hotplug capable but this is disabled per default:
To enable add the following line to /etc/system (OmniOS)

set sata:sata_auto_online=1

 

[nle]

Thanks, that would have taken me a while to figure out!

 

[TuxDude]

I'm not 100% certain, but I believe that the LSI 1068e controller is not going to support drives >2TB.

 

[nle]

Thanks for the reply.

I have a single 4 TB drive in the pool now that replaced a faulty 2 TB. It shows up as 2.2 TB, but that should be because all other drives are 2 TB.
So if you was thinking 4 TB drives would not work at all, you're wrong. But if it's that they will not show more than 2 TB, I don't know (yet).

Or?

 

[gea]

LSI 1068 is quite old and supports max 2TB.
- Do not use with larger disks -

 

[nle]

That was a bummer! :/

Any recommendations for a new HBA which takes 8 drives and works with my motherboard (i presume PCIe)? In other words, what do I need to buy/do to add new 4TB drives to my existing setup?

Thanks again guys, really appreciate the help/advice!

 

[TuxDude]

The LSI 1068 is a first-gen SAS controller (aka 3G SAS, SAS1, etc.), and as far as I know all of LSI's first-gen controllers are limited to 2TB max per disk. Any of their newer controllers (SAS2 / 6G or faster/newer) support the larger drives just fine, besides which any drives that large are probably 6G drives and could use the faster controller too. In my case I've got a IBM 1015 (branded LSI SAS2008), which is a PCIe 2.0 x8 controller, but there's tons of options out there.

 

[gea]

A very good current 6G HBA is the LSI 9207 as it comes with IT firmware per default.
Another option is the LSI 9211/IBM 1015. I would reflash them with the LSI 9211 IT firmware.

 

[nle]

Thanks again! I guess I'll go for the LSI 9207.

yet another newbie question, but do you know if mini-sas to sata/sas cables comes with the card? (my guess is no, but I don't want to buy anything unnecessary)

 

[TuxDude]

Most of these cards are bought used, so its pretty random as to what they will come with as far as cables, documentation, drivers, full-height vs half-height bracket, etc. Just read all the fine print before you buy anything and you should know what it will be coming with. Also, the cables connecting your current LSI1068 to the drives should work with a new controller so long as it has the same type of ports.

 

[nle]

Thanks. I think I will be buying it new, not that big of a used server parts marked where I'm from. I need to use mini-sas to sata on this one, and on my existing it's only regular sas/sata.