Recommended controllers for Unraid


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Hi.

 

I am in the process of building a new Unraid server.

 

Due do some recommendation, which I cannot find anymore, I got the HP 4K1135 (468405-002) SAS Expander card.

 

I tried using it with the correct cables I hope - Mini SAS 36P SFF-8087 to 4 SATA 7Pin.

 

But neither the BIOS nor Unraid does see anything. Now as I am examining the card closer, it has four ports labeled with "TO BACKPLANE". My card seems to be this card: image.

 

I initially ordered the wrong cables - Mini SAS (SFF-8643 Host) to 4X SATA (Target) -  and as I saw my mistake I researched a bit more and found the correct cables, but that there are also cables to connect this card's ports to backplanes.

 

Now I am confused, as I might have gotten the wrong card or I am using it wrong.

 

I also saw mentioning of "flashing it to IT mode" to be able to use it. That might be out of my league though, but I can try, I cannot return the used card anyway.

have

 

My older Unraid server does use four 4-Way SATA PCIe x1 Marvell 88SE9215, though it has a not recommended Marvel chipset. I am using two of those cars now on my newer server to set it up, I just wanted to to have one card for my 16 HDDs.

 

Can anyone point me in the correct direction?

 

 

It is all a bit overwhelming compared to the first server I built four years ago. I also want to use 2.5 Gb ethernet, but that will be a whole other journey.

 

Edited by WhiteTowerBlackNode
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That is a sas expander. It is powered by pcie but doesn't show up in post or anything as it is a dumb device using pcie just to power itself. You also need a sas card to go with it. 

Think of it like a network switch. You still need an ethernet card to interface with it. You run the sas cable or cables from pcie sas card into expander using any ports you want and from expander any still available ports out to the drives (unless the expander tells you which ones to use).

You are going to need a pcie sas card that can be flashed to IT mode to go with it. Sas 6 are pretty cheap the m1015 are what a lot of us have run but you can check back through this topic to see what recommended devices are. I have a 9300-8e (Sas 12)

 

 

Edited by BlinkerFluid
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13 hours ago, BlinkerFluid said:

That is a sas expander. It is powered by pcie but doesn't show up in post or anything as it is a dumb device using pcie just to power itself. You also need a sas card to go with it. 

Think of it like a network switch. You still need an ethernet card to interface with it. You run the sas cable or cables from pcie sas card into expander using any ports you want and from expander any still available ports out to the drives (unless the expander tells you which ones to use).

You are going to need a pcie sas card that can be flashed to IT mode to go with it. Sas 6 are pretty cheap the m1015 are what a lot of us have run but you can check back through this topic to see what recommended devices are. I have a 9300-8e (Sas 12)

 

 

Thanks for the reply. 

in other words, I need an extra SAS only card and connect both cards internally 

using what cable and what port on the expander? The expander card also has an external port. 
Can the extra SAS card live with the short PCIe or does it also need a longer slot?

 

i only have two long PCIe slots and two short ones. 

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20 minutes ago, WhiteTowerBlackNode said:

Thanks for the reply. 

in other words, I need an extra SAS only card and connect both cards internally 

using what cable and what port on the expander? The expander card also has an external port. 
Can the extra SAS card live with the short PCIe or does it also need a longer slot?

 

i only have two long PCIe slots and two short ones. 

 

yes. There is no way to interface with your drives without a sas card. The expander doesn't provide anything other than making more sas ports for you to connect stuff up with

The expander card can just be put in whatever slot it fits in. The smaller the better as it literally is only getting power from the pcie slot. You don't need to use the external port for it at all. Just connect your sas card into whatever expander port is easiest. Sounds like you want to go sas internal 8087 to sas internal 8087

Edited by BlinkerFluid
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1 hour ago, BlinkerFluid said:

 

yes. There is no way to interface with your drives without a sas card. The expander doesn't provide anything other than making more sas ports for you to connect stuff up with

The expander card can just be put in whatever slot it fits in. The smaller the better as it literally is only getting power from the pcie slot. You don't need to use the external port for it at all. Just connect your sas card into whatever expander port is easiest. Sounds like you want to go sas internal 8087 to sas internal 8087

Thanks.

 

All links to German Ebay and Amazon.

 

I think I found such a card. LSI 9207-4i4e 6G PCIe x8 is the name and it is also in IT mode. German Ebay link: LSI 9207-4i4e 6G PCIe x8 3.0 Gebraucht SAS SATA HBA IT Mode FreeNas Avago

4i4e probably means 4 internal and 4 external SATA devices.

Or do I need to get an internal only card like this: RAID HBA LSI Megaraid 9211-8i 6G PCIe x8 Gebraucht SAS SATA IT Mode m1015

 

 

According to the first page of this thread, the 9207 cards are supported.

 

And then I just need to get this cable: Internal Mini SAS 36pin SFF-8087 to Mini-SAS 36pin SFF-8087 Server Hard Drive Raid Data Cable

 

When I have that card and that cable, I then connect the internal SAS port to the "To Controller" port of the expander card? What about the "TO BACKPLANE" ports of that expander card? Do they only work with backplanes? Even if so, I would still have 4 ports available for 16 drives and also have 4 internal SATA ports on the MB.

 

As for this part in the OP:

Quote

8 ports: any LSI with a SAS2008/2308/3008/3408 chipset in IT mode, e.g., 9201-8i, 9211-8i, 9207-8i, 9300-8i, 9400-8i, etc and clones, like the Dell H200/H310 and IBM M1015, these latter ones need to be crossflashed (most of these require a x8 or x16 slot, older models like the 9201-8i and 9211-8i are PCIe 2.0, newer models like the 9207-8i, 9300-8i and newer are PCIe 3.0)

Do I understand that correctly, that IT mode does suffice for "SAS2008/2308/3008/3408 chipset in IT mode, e.g., 9201-8i, 9211-8i, 9207-8i, 9300-8i, 9400-8i, etc".

 

But when I get these cards, "Dell H200/H310 and IBM M1015", they need to be cross flashed. Or does the cross flashing apply to the the 9201 to 9400 cards as well?

 

 

Thanks again, I think I begin to slowly understand those cars much better.

 

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2 minutes ago, WhiteTowerBlackNode said:

4i4e probably means 4 internal and 4 external SATA devices.

Correct, and it's already in IT mode, which is the default for that model.

 

3 minutes ago, WhiteTowerBlackNode said:

And then I just need to get this cable

Yes.

 

3 minutes ago, WhiteTowerBlackNode said:

When I have that card and that cable, I then connect the internal SAS port to the "To Controller" port of the expander card? What about the "TO BACKPLANE" ports of that expander card?

You can connect the HBA to any of the ports, it works like a switch.

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31 minutes ago, WhiteTowerBlackNode said:

Can the extra SAS card live with the short PCIe or does it also need a longer slot?

Some expanders have power connectors and don't even need to be connected to a slot at all, it's just there to provide a convenient mounting location and power if needed.

 

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23 hours ago, JonathanM said:

Some expanders have power connectors and don't even need to be connected to a slot at all, it's just there to provide a convenient mounting location and power if needed.

 

The only connectors I found were on the top left near port 2C and the one on the bottom left close to the slot metal: image.

Is there a power port? Or could one get a 15-pin SATA to PCIe adapter for power?

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14 hours ago, HDT said:

Will I be able to use this device or will I have to buy a new controller?

That's a MegaRAID controller with no IT mode option, you can use it but it's not recommended, there will likely be several issues, like not possible to connect the devices to a different controller if that one fails without doing a new config or possibly rebuilding all the disks in the array, no spin down, possibly no SMART and temps, etc

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I am a bit befuddled by some of the technology discussed here ... its a long time since I bought a disk controller and they were IDE back then :)

 

This one appears to be an ASM1166 chipset delivering 6 x SATA ports ... I can't see any reference to a port splitter or a Marvell Controller could someone give their opinion before I splash out please.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B097RBLM9G/?coliid=I2K10J0Y5GL5K8&colid=314IUN0K3IVY2&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it&th=1

 

Thanks

  • Upvote 2
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2 hours ago, sailingbikeruk said:

I am a bit befuddled by some of the technology discussed here ... its a long time since I bought a disk controller and they were IDE back then :)

 

This one appears to be an ASM1166 chipset delivering 6 x SATA ports ... I can't see any reference to a port splitter or a Marvell Controller could someone give their opinion before I splash out please.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B097RBLM9G/?coliid=I2K10J0Y5GL5K8&colid=314IUN0K3IVY2&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it&th=1

 

Thanks

Yes this card should be ready to go. If you are using SSD drives with this you may want to opt for x4 model. 

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On 5/17/2022 at 12:22 AM, Gragorg said:

If you are using SSD drives with this you may want to opt for x4 model. 

Thank you for the reply.

 

It seems the pcie slots on the motherboard might not support x4, I’m away presently, but will double check. I am building this on the cheap with recovered or second user bits I’ve acquired wherever possible. I’m only buying this because the NVMe slot shares a channel with two SATA ports.

 

is it reasonable to assume that I can swap the current spinning disks to this controller and put the SSD onto the onboard ports without breaking the array if the MB doesn’t support x4?

Edited by sailingbikeruk
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On 5/18/2022 at 5:14 AM, sailingbikeruk said:

 

is it reasonable to assume that I can swap the current spinning disks to this controller and put the SSD onto the onboard ports without breaking the array if the MB doesn’t support x4?

The drives are assigned by the drive id so the specific sata port won't matter.  Should work fine.

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May an expert weigh in on if this one will work?

LSI S2308 6Gbs PCI-E3.0 FW: P20 LSI 9207-8i IT Mode For ZFS FreeNAS unRAID US

 

This seller offers 3 variants of the 9207-8i:

  • $63.88 = LSI
  • $49.88 = NEC
  • $36.98 = IBM
  • Free S/H for each

 

Not sure what exactly the difference will be between LSI vs NEC vs IBM?  Maybe different quality manufacturing and components?  The LSI is almost 2x the cost of the IBM.  Maybe an engineer in this field can weigh in?

 

The seller also has packages with 2 included  8087 SATA Cables for $10 more.

 

This model seems like the best candidate according to this page:

 

image.thumb.png.8fbef13f4a9b430626aecbbfd2cac2f6.png

 

Speed tested here:

 

Quote

LSI 9207-8i PCIe gen3 x8 (4800MB/s) - 9w - LSI 2308 chipset

8 x 565MB/s

 

Edited by HDT
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13 minutes ago, Logopeden said:

I Plan to use the HBA for the 15 drives. 

There are some recommended models on the first post:

 

Quote

If more ports are needed you can use multiple controllers, controllers with more ports (there are 16 and 24 port LSI HBAs, like the 9201-16i, 9305-16i, 9305-24i, etc) or use one LSI HBA connected to a SAS expander, like the Intel RES2SV240 or HP SAS expander.

 

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18 hours ago, JorgeB said:

If more ports are needed you can use multiple controllers, controllers with more ports (there are 16 and 24 port LSI HBAs, like the 9201-16i, 9305-16i, 9305-24i, etc) or use one LSI HBA connected to a SAS expander, like the Intel RES2SV240 or HP SAS expander.

Thank for helping ease my mind, just order Broadcom 9305-24i

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