JBOD/IT clarifications for 9240-8i and 9265-8i

[klaus]

9240-8i @9211-8i in IT mode was glitching up with ESXI 5.1 (latest firmware/driver),
but it's been rock solid with 9240 in JBOD mode

9240 didn't require JBOD initialization, it passed the drives through and allowed to use exiting partition/data
albeit Pieter's review which incorrectly implies that it's not the case...
"I will probably run my 4x SSDs in LSI9211-IR mode to have the best of both worlds. It has great performance with RAID 0 and my 4x SATA III SSD’s and add other drives at will. Any drive added just shows to the OS no need to make it a Virtual Drive or JBOD first."
http://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-m1015-part-4/


My question is are JBOD's interchangeable between controllers?
According to this http://kb.lsi.com/KnowledgebaseArticle16511.aspx
9265-8i JBOD needs initialization, does that mean all pre-existing data will be deleted?

 

[mobilenvidia]

Well sorry the M1015 in LSI9211 mode (both IT and IR) just passes the drives through (or JBOD), there is no JBOD setting as it's default
The LSI9240 has a setting for JBOD, drives newly added for me were 'unconfigured good', and needed to be set to JBOD to show to the OS
You may find differently, I can only comment on what I see.

JBOD is universal it doesn't do anything to the drives, it just shows them to the OS
Any drive in JBOD one controller will work on any other controller that also supports JBOD.
Some controllers don't support JBOD (ie LSI9260/80) and need single drive RAID0, I have successfully gone from this to JBOD without loosing data.