What would be the go to "expander" for this board? It supports 14 drives as it sits with the onboard controller flashed, but I need to more drives. I've read about H310, some LSI, An Intel 1015 (IIRC), etc.... is there one that stands out as a better option?

 

Thanks for any suggestions.

53 minutes ago, live4soccer7 said:

What would be the go to "expander" for this board? It supports 14 drives as it sits with the onboard controller flashed, but I need to more drives. I've read about H310, some LSI, An Intel 1015 (IIRC), etc.... is there one that stands out as a better option?

 

Thanks for any suggestions.

Does this mean you don't have any spare PCIe Slots? So cannot add another HBA?

I do have spare slots. I was asking for suggestions on which one to get.

I think that SimonF was asking because there are two type of addon card:

• SAS disk controllers (HBA)
• SAS expander

and the two are quite different.

 

You asked for an expander, we assume you mean SAS expander which can be used with the existing LSI to connect more disks, but you can also add another HBA, see here for recommendations for both:

 

Thanks! looks like I need a little education here. I'll get read up and post back if necessary Thanks a ton

9 minutes ago, live4soccer7 said:

Thanks! looks like I need a little education here. I'll get read up and post back if necessary Thanks a ton

Like you I have an SL7 

 

I would recommend lsi cards. I currently have a 16port external card in my SL7 test server and route cables back into case, When it was the main server I had additional storage in another case hence the external.

 

02:00.0 Serial Attached SCSI controller: Broadcom / LSI SAS2308 PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS-2 (rev 05)
        DeviceName: Onboard SAS
        Subsystem: Super Micro Computer Inc Onboard SAS2308 PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS-2
07:00.0 Serial Attached SCSI controller: Broadcom / LSI SAS2116 PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS-2 [Meteor] (rev 02)
        Subsystem: Broadcom / LSI 9201-16e 6Gb/s SAS/SATA PCIe x8 External HBA

 

 

On my main server I have the following.

 

03:00.0 Serial Attached SCSI controller: Intel Corporation C606 chipset Dual 4-Port SATA/SAS Storage Control Unit (rev 06)
        Subsystem: Super Micro Computer Inc C606 chipset Dual 4-Port SATA/SAS Storage Control Unit
07:00.0 Serial Attached SCSI controller: Broadcom / LSI SAS2308 PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS-2 (rev 05)
        Subsystem: Broadcom / LSI 9207-8i SAS2.1 HBA

Edited May 8, 20215 yr by SimonF

It looks like the H310 or the M1015 would probably be the best choice as they can be had for cheaper than some of the other similar models. The "breakout" cables are what I would need since I don't have a backplane. 

 

Any preference over the H310 vs the M1015?

Would it be worth going for a SAS3 version if I were to attach 8 drives to two SAS ports? I'd imagine the throughput could be slowed down a bit by that. Perhaps it wouldn't really matter with the speeds that Unraid can/can't do.

6 minutes ago, live4soccer7 said:

SAS3 version

You only need SAS3 if you are using 12Gb/s drives. Although you will be able to connect SAS2 devices to it.

 

What drives are you planning on using?

I'll just be using Sata drives for the NAS. Prob some WD Red drives. 

I ended up going with the H310 with the breakout cables. It was hard to beat that added capacity for $35.