[OmniOS-discuss] Dell R730xd

[Dan McDonald]

> On Oct 20, 2014, at 9:36 AM, Randy S <sim.ple at live.nl> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Can anyone please tell me if I should expect any problems installing omnios R10 on a new Dell R730xd

Possibly, but let's take a look...

> Thinking about chipsets, nic drivers etc (all standard on the dell)
> PowerEdge R730xd Specifications: (from site)
> 
> 	• Form factor: 2U rack
> 	• Processor: Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 product family
> 	• Processor sockets: 2
> 	• Dimensions: H: 8.73cm (3.44in.) x W: 44.40cm (17.49in.) x D: 68.40cm (26.92in.)
> 	• Cache: 2.5MB per core; core options: 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18
> 	• Chipset: Intel C610 series chipset
> 	• Memory: Up to 768GB (24 DIMM slots): 4GB/8GB/16GB/32GB DDR4 up to 2133MT/s
> 	• I/O slots: Up to 6 x PCIe 3.0 slots plus dedicated RAID card slot
> 	• Drive bays:
> 		• Internal hard drive bay and hot-plug backplane:
> 		• Up to 16 x 3.5” SAS, SATA, nearline SAS, SSD + 2 x 2.5” drives
> 		• Up to 18 x 1.8” SAS, SATA, nearline SAS, SSD drives + 8 x 3.5” SAS, SATA, nearline SAS, SSD drives, + 2 x 2.5” HDD
> 		• Up to 26 x 2.5” SAS, SATA, nearline SAS, SSD, PCIe SSD drives

How are those SAS and SATA slots being driven?!

The C610 chipset has what's know as a Storage Controller Unit (SCU), which is not supported by any illumos distribution currently.  SAS won't work at all, and SATA will only work if it presents as AHCI SATA.

If there's a Dell-supplied raid controller, I'll need to know which model it is, AND what chipset drives is.  There may be hope here, but Dell likes HW-RAID, which we generally frown up on in the illumos & ZFS communities.  The H330 looks like an LSI 3008 with "skinny" firmware on it, and the H730 looks like an LSI 3108 with "skinny" firmware on it.  Generally speaking, both of those controllers are HW-RAID.  The H330 (like its predecessor the H310) can do passthrough/raw-disk, but I believe it will be driven by the "mr_sas" driver, which has not had a lot of performance work done upon it.  Oooh, I do see, however, that the H730 now has raw-disk mode, unlike its predecessor the H710.  Still, same warning about the mr_sas driver, however.

Generally speaking, I'd try SuperMicro HW over Dell, but if your environment is insistent upon a Dell, I'd recommend:

* Intel NICs if possible (though Broadcom 10GigE support is in the midst of being improved on illumos, and Mellanox has had some work as well).
* Query the *illumos* community about the H330 or the H730 controllers.  Maybe Nexenta (a Dell partner) has done additional work on these, so they may have something to say there.

Hope this helps,
Dan