Recommended controllers for Unraid

[z0ki]

Is there a max drive size for 9211-8i? Reading some mixed reports some saying max is 12TB and other say won't work with 18-20TB drives? 

[JorgeB]

8 hours ago, z0ki said:

say won't work with 18-20TB drives? 

Pretty sure they work.

[ChatNoir]

9 hours ago, z0ki said:

Is there a max drive size for 9211-8i? Reading some mixed reports some saying max is 12TB and other say won't work with 18-20TB drives? 

My Dell H200 works with 18TB drives. Don't think that 20, 22TB drives should be an issue either.

[PhantomICEMAN]

Has anyone tried to add a HBA to a Jonbo N3 case.. Ive got one of these nvme sata expansion cards off aliexpress for my array but judging from the price im not sure how well /long these will manage before they topple over . Id therefore  rather go for something more reliable however im not sure if the case ive got will have sufficient space infront of the heatsink to put  small fan on top of it (still waiting for it arrive).Has anyone had any experience or would a sata expansioin card serve me better?, im planning on running an 8 disk array. Going off some of the comments here it looks like even the sata expansion cards have been somewhat problematic on here for some people.

Edited December 2, 2023 by PhantomICEMAN

[dopeytree]

Heya HBA's are great but only really once you start to want to connect a lot of drives. 

People get mixed up thinking that 2x ports means only 8x drives this is not correct they can be used with a sas expander for daisy chaining.

 

The Jonbo n3 case looks like it has 6 drive bays. How many sata ports has your motherboard got?

 

I started with a similar small build case with 8x drive slots I then added a HBA (needs to be half height). I have 10 sata drives in the machine plus the HBA also has a wire going out the case into a self build case that has 2x 12x bay backplanes. This is because the backplanes have built in SAS expander chips. Meaning 1x cable can passthrough to many drives (over 100+). This is the beauty of HBA cards.

 

For you use case you may be better off with a m.2 to sata converter. That might give you 4-6 extra sata ports. It depends how much you want the m.2 slot.

 

- I would buy any sata cards from Amazon for easy returns.

- SaS HBA cards I'd buy from ebay with 'IT flashed'.

Edited December 2, 2023 by dopeytree

[PhantomICEMAN]

The Jonsbos got 8 hdd bays.. I think my main concern is using something cheap to manage the sata connections and once the drives all start getting connected theres issues with file transfer or drives start randomly losing connectivity .Having an enterpirse level controller will give you some peace of mind that it will be able to deal with the demands place upon it. My mobo has 4 onboard sata connections.

[Oublieux]

Hi everyone, I have a basic Unraid home server. It's a five bay using a Jonsbo N2 case. I am looking to add more SATA ports as my mini-ITX only has four and all four are already in use.

What would be the most optimal way to expand the drives? I initially purchased an M.2 to SATA adapter (https://www.amazon.com/SilverStone-Technology-ECS07-Expansion-SST-ECS07/dp/B0B8TV1QRG/) but HDD's connected to it are not recognized in BIOS on my ASRock H670M-ITX motherboard. It's perhaps faulty, but before I decide to outright replace it, I was wondering if anyone had any other suggestions.

 

Thank you.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Oublieux

[Bonza]

On 7/4/2023 at 8:47 PM, Shonk said:

I have ordered a CH341A i will dump the firmware and post a copy once i have flashed my other two cards

 

 

I will dump the card with the known firmware first

then find the exact bytes i have to trim the bin down to to match the crc32

then do the same with the latest firmware

Hello any luck to make a dump of 221118-003E-00?

Or my asm1166 came already with 211108-0000-00 that one seems to support higher chipsets but I'm interesting what do newer fw?

[JorgeB]

13 hours ago, Oublieux said:

but HDD's connected to it are not recognized in BIOS on my ASRock H670M-ITX motherboard.

That can be normal, if they weren't recognized by Unraid post the diagnostics. 

[ved]

Hello, Can anyone help with an recommendation for a good LSI HBA card ?

I am located in estearn europe and my budget is around 50-60 euros.

I might also use the board for a couple of ssds so i think it needs to support TRIM but i do not know if such a board is available within my budget, would lsi card from aliexpress be any good ?

[JorgeB]

54 minutes ago, ved said:

I might also use the board for a couple of ssds so i think it needs to support TRIM but i do not know if such a board is available within my budget, would lsi card from aliexpress be any good ?

LSI SAS2 models don't support TRIM with the latest firmware, and all LSI HBAs only support TRIM on devices with deterministic TRIM support anyway, probably better to get one of the recommended SATA controllers.

[vmasip]

On 1/7/2023 at 10:26 AM, PhilBarker said:

The firmware is a lottery too

I bought a card end of last year. The firmware was 4 years old. ASM1166

 

Since upgrading the firmware the speed has improved massively and it’s working fine with power management too 

How do you get the firmware version?

[ved]

I grabbed an Dell H310 from an local store , does anyone have an up to date tutorial about how to flash it in IT mode ?

[ChatNoir]

1 hour ago, ved said:

I grabbed an Dell H310 from an local store , does anyone have an up to date tutorial about how to flash it in IT mode ?

 

[Lolight]

6 hours ago, vmasip said:

How do you get the firmware version?

https://docs.phil-barker.com/posts/upgrading-ASM1166-firmware-for-unraid/

 

Newest firmware download:

 

https://www.silverstonetek.com/en/product/info/expansion-cards/ECS06/

Edited December 20, 2023 by Lolight

[vmasip]

6 hours ago, Lolight said:

https://docs.phil-barker.com/posts/upgrading-ASM1166-firmware-for-unraid/

 

Newest firmware download:

 

https://www.silverstonetek.com/en/product/info/expansion-cards/ECS06/

I meant the current firmware already installed in your board. Which command can make you obtain the firmware label installed?

[Lolight]

47 minutes ago, vmasip said:

I meant the current firmware already installed in your board. Which command can make you obtain the firmware label installed?

You'll have to take the card out and install it in a windows machine as per @PhilBarker instructions:

Then run the windows executable RomUpdWin.exe found in the downloaded firmware update folder.

 

https://docs.phil-barker.com/posts/upgrading-ASM1166-firmware-for-unraid/

Edited December 20, 2023 by Lolight

[Jannik_]

Hi guys,

 

what do you think of such a fair priced pcie gen3 switch card - any expeirence with such a switch and unraid? Aliexpress. It has an AsMedia 2812 IC onboard

 

My use case: I have an Asrock N100M board. I like it very much it just has too little of everything - two Sata ports, one m2 and sadly only a realtek nic

 

Here is also a 4*m2 version. Haha, I would order it if I hadnt just 3 days left of my unraid trial

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Jannik_

[ChatNoir]

@Jannik_ I think that NVME drive use 4 PCIe lane each.

So a board with 2 drives but connecting to the motherboard only on x4 PCIe would result in lower performance.

 

The second option seems better on paper.

 

But I cannot comment on chips.

[Jannik_]

OK, I'll order it next month and report : )

[pras1011]

For hdds is a controller with a 2.5gb ethernet enough? Or is 5gb better?

[OrdinaryButt]

Does anyone know which ASM supports ASPM? Having hard time finding concrete information except for ASM1166 (positive reports that it does). I only need a controller with 4 SATA, least amount of power draw.

EDIT: on ASMedia site, they say all 1064/1164/1166 Support L0s/L1/L2.... This I guess answers my original questions. What I can't find is the difference between 1064 and 1164.

Edited January 5 by OrdinaryButt

[ConnerVT]

1164 - 1064 = 100

 

(Sorry.  I just couldn't help myself)  😝

[JorgeB]

11 hours ago, OrdinaryButt said:

difference between 1064 and 1164

1064 is x1, 1164 is x2

[OrdinaryButt]

3 hours ago, JorgeB said:

1064 is x1, 1164 is x2

Well, in the opening post you do say that you have seen 1164 with x1, and ASM says 1-, 2- (see screenshot) what ever it means.

I am looking for actual data that shows - is 1164 faster than 1064 or any other differences. Their web pages shows minimal details as each is listed as 25mhz Crystal
https://www.asmedia.com.tw/product/17fYQ85SPeqG8MT8/58dYQ8bxZ4UR9wG5
https://www.asmedia.com.tw/product/A58yQC9Sp5qg6TrF/58dYQ8bxZ4UR9wG5