So having some trouble trying to find an HBA card. I have a Gigabyte X570 AORUS PRO WIFI with the bottom PCIe slot empty, 4.0 physical 16x but wired for 4x. I'm planing on getting 2 or 3 more drive in the near future which would go over the 6 MB SATA available, ergo HBA card time. While I see there's already list of recommendation something I'm not sure is if:

 

A) Does it matter if I'm putting an 8x/16x sized HBA in a 4x slot or do they generally play nice?

 

B) Is there a card that would have 8+ internal port but also external ports in PCIe 4.0? If I can futureproof and have a disk shelf as an option without changing the HBA that would be nice.

 

C) Also something I'm not sure about, is it best practice to keep the parity disk directly plugged to the MB or is it not really a thing to worry about?

Big thanks for any help

4 hours ago, Eddyall said:

generally play nice

Yes, but bandwidth still limited by its PCIe GEN ver

 

4 hours ago, Eddyall said:

8+ internal port but also external ports in PCIe 4.0?

Those are SAS/SATA port, only new gen have NVMe support or more port. BTW, I doubt would you buy such expensive card.

 

4 hours ago, Eddyall said:

it not really a thing to worry about?

Yes

@Vr2Io thanks for taking the time to respond, I've gone with a LSI 9207-4i4e. One last question if you don't mind, is there an issue with moving hard drives from being plugged on the MB to the SAS card or will Unraid detect them fine without reassigning them in the UI?

41 minutes ago, Eddyall said:

is there an issue with moving hard drives

No issue.

 

41 minutes ago, Eddyall said:

without reassigning them in the UI?

Yes, nothing need to do.