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I'm looking for hardware to run FreeBSD. I really like the chassis of the Dell R210, because two of them can stack up on a shelf in my wiring closet and take up the space of a single tower (laying on its side). However, after spending weeks trying to make it work, I'm seriously considering returning the thing. It's HD controller doesn't work with FreeBSD in RAID configuration and it doesn't even work with 8.2-RELEASE at all. (This is the H200, BTW.)

Can you recommend any hardware that is sold now (can't buy used hardware at my job) that will run FreeBSD with RAID support and two ethernet interfaces?

Thanks in advance!

Data Scavenger
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  • Unfortunately product recommendations are off-topic here, as they are not only subjective but can become very irrelevant very quickly. In future when other people browse this question, the information will possibly be out of date or factually incorrect, and we don't like misinformation here. – Ben Pilbrow Jun 05 '11 at 13:07
  • You *might* be alright asking in [The Comms Room](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/127/the-comms-room), but no guarantees. Also bear in mind it's the weekend, so it's a bit quiet in there! – Ben Pilbrow Jun 05 '11 at 13:08
  • Thanks for the suggestion of the chat room. I'll check that out when I get a chance. BTW, enterprise hardware is typically sold for 6-18 months. So any answers here can still be useful to others until about November 2012. So in addition to helping me with this issue, the answer would be helpful to others for quite a while. – Data Scavenger Jun 05 '11 at 15:20
  • Yes I'm aware of how long enterprise hardware is available for, that message was just one of my many "auto comments" I have set up as standard responses to common questions. My actual point was, and still is that shopping questions are off topic (see [here](http://meta.serverfault.com/questions/1182/can-we-come-up-with-a-consensus-opinion-on-purchasing-suggestions) and [here](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/11/qa-is-hard-lets-go-shopping)) by official policy. – Ben Pilbrow Jun 05 '11 at 15:39

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Maybe that RAID controller don't work because is a fake RaID and fake raid isn't the best choice in Linux/BSD enviroment, it's better choice an external RAID Controller or buy a server with a real RAID controller on board...

aleroot
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  • +1, it's a fake-raid controller and FreeBSD doesn't support those (last time I checked). Options are to get a real RAID HBA or use software RAID. Note that if you're using ZFS you should *not* use a RAID HBA anyway. – Chris S Jun 05 '11 at 14:16
  • Thank you for this information. I am still looking for a recommended model of server to buy to replace this one, though. Do you have any suggestions? – Data Scavenger Jun 05 '11 at 15:17
  • @Data, see http://serverfault.com/questions/272777/freebsd-server-certified-compatible-hardware – Chris S Jun 08 '11 at 12:43