Question about RAID card on Asus case

[wbulot]

Hello,

I am setting up a server for my company's needs.
This server contains 12 disks and I would like to not do hardware RAID.
I want to manage the RAID in software with ZFS.

So I wanted to remove the RAID card, but it seems that it is not possible.
My question is if the RAID card is necessary on this type of case even if I want to do software RAID.

Thanks

Case
ASUS RS520-E9-RS12-E/4NVME 2U RACK CHASSIS
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Xeon® Silver 4210R 10-Core (2.4 GHz, 3.2 GHz Turbo, 13.75M L3 cache)
Motherboard
ASUS® Z11PR-D16 (DDR4 RDIMM, iKVM)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Kingston DDR4 2666MHz ECC Registered (1 x 32GB)
Graphics Card
ASPEED INTEGRATED GRAPHICS ACCELERATOR (GPU)
1st Storage Drive
12 x 4TB SEAGATE IRONWOLF PRO 3.5", 7200 RPM 128MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive
250GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 2300MB/W)
NVMe Upgrade Kit
Integrated NVMe Upgrade Kit, Quad OcuLink
RAID Card
ASUS PIKE II 3108-8i/16PD RAID Card
Power Supply
ASUS REDUNDANT INTEGRATED 800W 80+ PLATINUM POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
2 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Asus Passive 2U Heatsink
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Network Card
Intel X550-T1 10 Gigabit PCI-E CARD (1 x RJ45)
Remote Management Chip
INTEGRATED ASUS ASMB9-IKVM
Rails
Integrated Asus Friction Rail Kit

 

[richard_pcs]

Hey!

On this particular model, the backplane acts as an expander and requires a PIKE card in order to break up the SATA lanes correctly. Without this, I think only 8 of the front hotswap bays will function off the two iSATA motherboard connections.

Something to mention, you've got 3 PCIe devices configured:

ASUS PIKE II 3108-8i/16PD RAID Card
Integrated NVMe Upgrade Kit, Quad OcuLink
Intel X550-T1 10 Gigabit PCI-E CARD (1 x RJ45)

With only one full length lane connected to CPU1. My suggestion would be that you could flip the X550T1 card to a mezzanine card and we can install the NVMe upgrade kit on a non-functional PCIe lane? It sounds like you don't need this for the time being, but this could operate in the future if a 2nd CPU was added.

Block diagram for ref below:

Cheers

 

[wbulot]

Thank you very much for your answer @richard_pcs .
My needs have evolved, and I will probably go for a solution with more storage.

I made a 4U configuration with 24*4 TB.
Can you confirm that this configuration is viable, and I can avoid using the hardware raid in order to manage everything with ZFS?

Thank you

Case
ASUS RS540-E9-RS36-E 4U RACK CHASSIS
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Xeon® Silver 4210R 10-Core (2.4 GHz, 3.2 GHz Turbo, 13.75M L3 cache)
Motherboard
ASUS® Z11PR-D16 (DDR4 RDIMM, iKVM)
Memory (RAM)
64GB Kingston DDR4 2666MHz ECC Registered (2 x 32GB)
Graphics Card
ASPEED INTEGRATED GRAPHICS ACCELERATOR (GPU)
1st Storage Drive
24 x 4TB SEAGATE IRONWOLF PRO 3.5", 7200 RPM 128MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive
250GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 2300MB/W)
2nd M.2 SSD Drive
250GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 2300MB/W)
RAID Card
INTEGRATED ASUS PIKE II 3108-8i/240PD RAID Card
Power Supply
ASUS REDUNDANT INTEGRATED 800W 80+ PLATINUM POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
2 x 1 Metre European Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Asus Passive 4U Heatsink
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Network Card
Intel X550-T2 10 Gigabit PCI-E CARD (2 x RJ45)
Remote Management Chip
INTEGRATED ASUS ASMB9-IKVM
Rails
Integrated Asus Friction Rail Kit

 

[richard_pcs]

Yeah I think this would work with the controller in JBOD mode, but I'll double check with ASUS for you now. I get what you mean with ZFS as sometimes this can be a bit tricky when it goes through a controller.

Looking over the config, you've got the same issue with too many PCIe devices for a single chip. The only changes that you'd need is the X500T2 to the ASUS Dual Port 10GbE RJ45 mezzanine card to solve this.

I'll come back to you once I hear from ASUS.