Recommended controllers for Unraid


Recommended Posts

Word of warning, if you get one of those m2 5 port adapters like this:
imagem.png

...make sure you get one with a heatsink. I've been having issues with my array after have finally traced it back to the chip overheating and causing weird issues. I looked online and plenty have heatsinks included now but mine did not.

Link to comment
On 11/1/2022 at 11:46 AM, Georg2U said:

 

 

 

Hi all,

 

That was exactly my problem.

The card finally works.

 

BEYIMEI PCI-E 4X zu 6-Port SATA3.0 Erweiterungskarte,6 Gbit/s SATA 3.0 PCIe-Karte,PCIe zu SATA-Controller-Erweiterungskarte (ASM1166)

 

Thank you for the effort.

 

So I tried multiple cards of exactly this model (BEYIMEI PCI-E 4X to 6-Port) and another one from MZHOU (also sold on Amazon; quite sure it's the same card). All cards have the ASM1166 chip and I was getting them to replace two hbas on an Intel Z690 motherboard.

 

I've tried to upgrade the firmware on a total of 4 different workstations, including 2 Ryzen builds (1gen and 3gen on Asus motherboards) and two Intel ones (x99s and z97s MSI motherboards) to no avail. In my case, the firmware flashing tool just did not recognize any of those cards. Reseating PCIe slots, hard-setting PCIe generation and a lot of other settings did not help there. While some were useable with the correct drivers on Windows, I simply could not get the flashing tool to recognize the cards.

 

The only vendor I could find around here (Central Europe) that also sells cards with an ASM1166 chip was SilverStone (ECS06 model). It's pricier but they provide the flashing tool and firmware on their website. The card was recognized immediately and the firmware upgrade was also successful. To be honest, I have no idea what the actual problem was but at least the last ditch effort was successful. In any case, thanks for the information on the firmware upgrade!

Link to comment

So trying to learn the ins and outs of PCIe generations/lanes in regard to drive counts/bandwidth support.

 

Sanity check please?   If my research and understanding is correct?

 

My drives are 7200rpm 3.5 drives rated ~270 MB/s (I am seeing this real-world on existing LSI 2308 HBA).

 

So 8 drives would need: ~2160 MB/s...

 

Does this mean that for Gen3 x8, the 2308 is complete overkill, since it supports upto 7880 MB/s?

 

And even at Gen3 x4, 3940 MB/s would allow max drive throughput?

 

Thanks for confirming (or correcting :)) what I assume is a simple question...  Thinking of adding another 2308 but only have x4 left on my config.

 

Edited by dandirk
Link to comment

Thanks to advice on here I've just swapped my cheap sata pci card for a 'LSI 9207-8i 6Gbs SAS HBA'. 

 

s-l1600-4.thumb.png.b8441f30371d1c1b3fac8a86e60d327e.png

 

Cost £35 on ebay and will run at gen3 speed.

Much better plus the thiner style cables are so much easier to work with in a nas case!

I changed the crusty thermal paste on the chip and zip tied a 40mm noctua fan to the heatsink.

 

In my case I have MSI 560 Mortar mATX motherboard which limits the pci lanes available depending on your build.

- I have a gen4 NVMe SSD with x4 lanes.

- A gen4 x16 with graphics card in.

- Then an empty gen3 x1 slot.

- Then a gen3 x4 lanes NVMe ssd in (but reduced if using the 2nd NVMe slot to x2 or x1)

- Lastly a gen4 x16 slot with x4 lanes (but reduced if using the 2nd NVMe slot to x1 or x2)

 

So my LSI card is actually only getting x1 lanes. However that is still above 900MB/s which should be ok to write to 2 or 3 drives at once. It has 4 spinning drives attached. And that fills up 8bay NAS case with x8 drives. + 2 NVMe's + 2x sata SSD's.

 

In the future if I got ZFS I may pull out the gen3 NVMe SSD and place into the spare x1 PCIe slot with a m.2 to PCIe adapter.

 

This would then give the LSI card the full x4 lanes so speeds of up to 4GB/s but the 2nd NVMe slot would be limited to just above 900MB/s. Becuase my NVMe are a raid1 mirror cache pool... That would then cripple the 1st NVMe which is a gen4 which can run up to 6500MB/s... as it defaults to the slowest speed of the 2 drives for the mirroring.

 

So could end up removing the NVMe raid1 mirror and setting up a custom sync. To keep both NVMe drives working at best speeds available.

 

Definitely going with a server cpu & motherboard next time to gain more PCIe lanes.

 

 

Edited by dopeytree
Link to comment
On 11/11/2022 at 6:30 PM, floori said:

So I tried multiple cards of exactly this model (BEYIMEI PCI-E 4X to 6-Port) and another one from MZHOU (also sold on Amazon; quite sure it's the same card). All cards have the ASM1166 chip and I was getting them to replace two hbas on an Intel Z690 motherboard.

 

I've tried to upgrade the firmware on a total of 4 different workstations, including 2 Ryzen builds (1gen and 3gen on Asus motherboards) and two Intel ones (x99s and z97s MSI motherboards) to no avail. In my case, the firmware flashing tool just did not recognize any of those cards. Reseating PCIe slots, hard-setting PCIe generation and a lot of other settings did not help there. While some were useable with the correct drivers on Windows, I simply could not get the flashing tool to recognize the cards.

 

The only vendor I could find around here (Central Europe) that also sells cards with an ASM1166 chip was SilverStone (ECS06 model). It's pricier but they provide the flashing tool and firmware on their website. The card was recognized immediately and the firmware upgrade was also successful. To be honest, I have no idea what the actual problem was but at least the last ditch effort was successful. In any case, thanks for the information on the firmware upgrade!

 

It was all a bit risky.

The card was not recognized as a SATA controller and  the source of the patcher was not verified either.
But it worked

 

You definitely nailed it.

That's the main thing:

;) 

Link to comment
On 11/11/2022 at 6:30 PM, floori said:

So I tried multiple cards of exactly this model (BEYIMEI PCI-E 4X to 6-Port) and another one from MZHOU (also sold on Amazon; quite sure it's the same card). All cards have the ASM1166 chip and I was getting them to replace two hbas on an Intel Z690 motherboard.

 

I've tried to upgrade the firmware on a total of 4 different workstations, including 2 Ryzen builds (1gen and 3gen on Asus motherboards) and two Intel ones (x99s and z97s MSI motherboards) to no avail. In my case, the firmware flashing tool just did not recognize any of those cards. Reseating PCIe slots, hard-setting PCIe generation and a lot of other settings did not help there. While some were useable with the correct drivers on Windows, I simply could not get the flashing tool to recognize the cards.

 

The only vendor I could find around here (Central Europe) that also sells cards with an ASM1166 chip was SilverStone (ECS06 model). It's pricier but they provide the flashing tool and firmware on their website. The card was recognized immediately and the firmware upgrade was also successful. To be honest, I have no idea what the actual problem was but at least the last ditch effort was successful. In any case, thanks for the information on the firmware upgrade!

I bought "Die-Wu ASM1166 6 port SATA PCIEx2 adapter from aliexpress" it has red heatsink and red SATA ports on back of card.

PXL_20221116_181127872.thumb.jpg.39c7cb042ee0881e56027428e155d5e4.jpg

In mean time ordered ECS06 just in case and to be honest it's not always an easy task to upgrade this ASM1166.

Even with SilverStone I had couple failes when software didn't recognize my card properly, found out that I already had latest firmware on ECS06 but flashed in anyway - if there are any problems just start flashing software once again until it'll say "It can take some time to detect devices - please be patient".

So let's dive into Die-Wu -> it was not recognized (used same software that came with ECS06) - and firmware was outdated from 2019, but I managed to flash it without any major issues - now it has same firmware (you can check this on POST screen).

 

Currently I need to figure out idle power consumption with NVME disk installed - once I have that data I'll check both cards power consumption and C8 power states.

 

EDIT#1

With Die-Wu power consumption goes up from ~ 8 W to ~ 13 W on average measured on wall plug. Way more than mentioned 2 W. I used powertop tunning at beggining then run powertop  --auto-tune just to make sure - we're loosing C8.


EDIT#2

With SilverStone ECS06 installed I'm reading same consumption as on Die-Wu - ~ 13 W  maybe a 0.1-0.2 W less - but this proves that actual power consumption is around 4 W not 2 W.

 

EDIT#3

So I've got 9211-8i flashed in IT mode and well this thing itself without HDD connected draws 8.5 W !! So power consumption goes up from 8 W without any card to 16.5 W in idle - same Unraid, same plugins, same setup. This is insane to be honest. I've got same measuring device - exactly same setup. And system takes 8 W and HBA card more than that...

Edited by cpu
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment

Hello,

I need to buy a pcie card, and I have seen the alternatives in this topic, however I would like to know your opinion for this card that I found.

 

https://www.axagon.eu/en/produkty/pces-sa6

 

imagem.thumb.png.84f23a5380965064d2130e4f27afa9ee.png

 

or would it be better to buy this one?

https://pt.aliexpress.com/item/1005004881446345.html?spm=a2g0o.cart.0.0.47d47f06a1rbgK&mp=1&gatewayAdapt=glo2bra

 

or this one?

 

https://pt.aliexpress.com/item/1005004711346930.html?spm=a2g0o.cart.0.0.47d47f06a1rbgK&mp=1&gatewayAdapt=glo2bra

 

 

greetings

 

 

 

 

Edited by Rui Ribeiro
links
Link to comment

I should have read this when I was building my server - my own fault


But DO NOT buy a Marvell 88SE9215 based card

Was happily sat watching Plex and then the film died, said the file wasn't there

Checked my server and 3 disks had all dissapeared including my parity disk!!!

 

`usb 1-5: reset full-speed USB device number 4 using xhci_hcd` followed by a ton of errors in logs - looks like the card just randomly reset

There's a lot of chatter over the years on linux forums about the same issue.

Am returning it tomorrow and have a ASM1166 coming as a replacement - hopefully it's more solid

Link to comment
1 hour ago, Vrozaksen said:

i have "LSI SAS2008 PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS-2" (LSI9211-8i) card and i don't know if it's best i can get for power efficent build

I have an LSI 9211-8i clone (the Dell H310) with the same SAS2008 chip.  According to the specifications for the LSI 9211-8i, the power draw is as follows:

 

- nominal - 8.04 Watts

- worst case - 14.63 Watts

 

I do not have the maximum 8 drives connected the the card (only 4 right now) and I have not noticed it drawing significant amounts of power in my server, especially compared to other components.  However, I do not know what you consider to be "power-efficient."

Link to comment
On 11/16/2022 at 3:18 PM, cpu said:

Way more than mentioned 2 W

i got an ASM1166 6Port NVME Card and it only adds 1,5-2 Watts (newest FW).

But i already was on C6 because of one of my NVME SSD´s. 

Maybe your power consumption increase comes from also dropping from C8 to C6

 

before i got the 1166, i used a 1061/1062 and i only got C3 State and was at around 25 Watt.

only by changing to 1166 i dropped to 13,5-14 Watt and got C6. Cant recommend the older ASMedia Controller with PCIe 2.0

 

here is the Card:

https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B0B6RQHY4F/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

it only uses 2 Lanes, becuase the Controller doesnt Support more:

https://www.asmedia.com.tw/product/45aYq54sP8Qh7WH8/58dYQ8bxZ4UR9wG5

Link to comment

Is there any actual difference in speed (in real world use) between a PCI-e 2.0 and PCI-e 3.0 model (for example 9211-8i vs 9207-8i)?

The latter are more expensive and I'm wondering if it should result in any actual noticeable speed difference?

Setup would be with 8 drives connected to the HBA for the next few years, but eventually maybe more than 8 drives with the use of a SAS expander.

Edited by gustomucho
Link to comment
14 hours ago, gustomucho said:

Is there any actual difference in speed (in real world use) between a PCI-e 2.0 and PCI-e 3.0 model (for example 9211-8i vs 9207-8i)?

Depends on the type and how many devices you have connected there, it won't make a difference with 8 HDDs, you can see some real world number in the link posted at the bottom of the first post.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment

So I think I made the mistake of purchasing this card

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09F2CQL58?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

 

All my drives come up ok, but when doing a parity check I was averaging in the 20's.

 

I then installed Diskspeed, and while the individual benchmark results for each drive look good, the test it does while also reading all drives at once clearly cuts performance down dramatically.  I knew it was a gamble with so many ports on a single cheap card, but I am trying to keep to a a tight budget as I am upgrading my server with what was originally my desktop hardware. So the Mobo isn't the typical server/high density port counts I had previously.

 

I had a couple old LSI cards laying around that all work, but then I loose out on my video card/transcoding because I am reliant on 2x8 port cards.

 

So my question is, whats the most budget friendly option to get at least 16 ports on a single card. I know I will end up disappointed but I am still very tempted to simply try out the x16 card from this same seller vs the x4 card I attempted to get by with. I only bought the x4 card because I was trying to give my video card the primary x16 slot, but I suspect the video card could get by on the other port, or worse case, I'll just use 2x8port cards and go to CPU transcoding on the Ryzen 3600X processors that came along with this hardware upgrade.

 

Any budget friendly ideas for a 16 port card? Or can anyone give me a confidence boost that I may get lucky with this x16 card.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09K5GLJ8D?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

 

Link to comment
41 minutes ago, jaj08 said:

All my drives come up ok, but when doing a parity check I was averaging in the 20's.

Avoid anything with a port multiplier (the JMB575 chip on that card).   A port multiplier just divides available bandwidth between more ports and performance will suffer when all attached drives are in use, as you discovered.

 

As mentioned in the first post of this discussion there are the 9201-16i, 9305-16i, etc. LSI 16-port cards.  They will not be cheap but perhaps you can find a good used one somewhere.

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.