SATA Controller Cards


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So, johnnie.black, do you think LSI 9210-8i can be switched over to IT mode? According to Broadcom's website it's controller is a SAS2008, which according to your post a few back is one that can be switched for use in unRAID. 

 

Sorry, new to a lot of aspects of building my first unRAID server and have been lurking a long time trying to learn and figure out the details so I "might" get it right the first time with minimal headaches!

 

Thanks for any input.

 

EDIT: 

Forgot to mention this controller is part of a used build I was considering (instead of building from scratch) located here: Ebay

Already have an Antec 1200v3, fans, cages and ps but that's basically it so still open to every option plus a complete used setup.

Edited by onlyjeeps
forgot a point
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  • 1 month later...

Hi all, 

 

Think I have a good grasp on what I need from reading the pages here. Have a few questions to  make sure though. 

 

I am looking at adding 8 SATA ports for expansion including one optical drive as my win 10 vm recognizes the optical drive, but crashes the vm when opening data disk.  For   instance installing audio drivers for an Audigy Rx sound card that was just installed. I will be using this optical drive for burning blu-ray for the plex server. After reading additional threads that the expansion resolved there issue. Currently I have just 2 4TB HGST with room to add 6 more so makes sense to get a card now for future growth. 

 

1. Purchasing an LSI 9211-8i - does this come in IT mode? this IT mode removes the raid component correct?

2. When purchasing cables, do not get the ones that have the metal latches? Need the SATA end for HDD to be a 90 down. Could use recommendation here of which ones for the expansion board. 

3. This board is plug-n-play? Does not matter if I need to configure it as long as I have directions to follow

4. Which vendor is recommended to avoid counterfeits? Rather pay more for quality than being cheap. 

5. Anything else I need to know

6. Adding this to the pcie lanes impact the 16 lanes for the GPU?

 

Would this be the right card wit IT already installed?

https://www.amazon.com/LSI-Controller-LSI00301-9207-8i-Internal/dp/B008J49G9A/ref=olp_product_details?_encoding=UTF8&me=

 

Thanks!

Edited by blewstar
added link to card
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  • 6 months later...

Hey everyone. I work for a Home Theater company outside of Atlanta and need some advice on a big project. I've been building gaming PCs for the last 8 years, and have the opportunity to work on something bigger.

(Apologies for the long post, I just want to give everyone a complete picture of what I'm trying to do and my findings thus far:)

 

I have a client who is wanting to take his 500 some-odd blu-ray movie collection and have us digitize it and set up a home media server. I am planning to put it into Plex to be able to stream around the house and to his mobile devices. The server would need to be able to rip these blu-rays, in which I plan to use Handbrake to do so. It would also need to be able to act as a media server of course, which I think having server grade components would help keep the server up and running for longer.

 

Where I see an issue happening is in the storing of all of these movies/shows. I want to make sure everything is backed up and can be accessed easily.

 

Therefore, I was thinking of building a server with a few instances of MakeMKV running to pull the video files off. I would have 2 Blu-ray drives, and an array of Seagate Enterprise SAS HDDs that has at least 50TB of available storage (possibly set up in a RAID 10 for speed and redundancy unless Unraid has something like that). All of these will be loaded into Plex for streaming to the Home Theater area as well as TVs around the house.

 

I want to have lots of extra room in case my client wants to add to his collection other videos, TV shows, pictures, files, etc. Therefore, the server will be in a 4U chassis, and the HDD array in a separate enclosure to store the hard drives (parts listed below). He has a 42U A/V rack that I am planning to install this in, however I'm not sure exactly what the depth is. If it has to stick out the back or have another smaller rack next to it, that's not a big deal.

 

I read through the FAQ on r/htpc and adjusted a few things on my build, but wanted to post the whole thing to see the nuances where I may have made a mistake.

 

Ultimately, my concerns/goals here would be to:

  • Have a highly reliable and powerful media server
  • Can rip Blu-ray disks to a digital backup while retaining the highest level of quality possible.
  • Able to play them back smoothly, at full 4K, HDR, 7.1 surround sound, in multiple locations, at the same time.
  • Possibly running 4 continuous VMs, or one for each Plex instance? Or just some way to distribute the load across the available processor cores for best performance (maybe this is done automatically?)
  • Is as quiet as possible
  • Rips DVDs to an array that is at least 50TB of usable storage space with redundancy.
  • Can be remotely accessed for updates and other services (TeamViewer kind of thing, where I can see and control the server)
  • Professional looking

After much research, I have come up with these specs that I believe will work well:

 

Server:

  • Intel Xeon E5-2620 V4 (8-core / 16-thread, 2.1Ghz, LGA 2011-v3)
  • ASUS Z10PA-U8/10G-2S
  • EVGA GeForce GT 730
  • Crucial Registered 32GB kit (4 x 8GB) (2133Mhz; ECC)
  • LSI 9380-8e RAID Controller (if I need to run RAID. How does Unraid handle this many drives and the redundancy?)
  • Preferably Unraid, otherwise Windows 10 Pro (x64)
  • 2x Samsung 860 Pro 256GB (RAID 1 [or other] for redundancy)
  • EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 P2
  • iStarUSA D-400-6-ND 4U Server Chassis
  • EVGA CLC 280
  • 2x LG Blu-ray Optical Drive WH16NS60
  • ICY DOCK 2 x 2.5 Inch to 3.5 Inch Drive Bay

JBOD Enclosure:

  • RAID Machine R4412RM JBOD Enclosure
  • 12x Seagate 10TB SAS HDDs

Other

  • APC 1000 Watts Pure Sinewave Smart-UPS
  • Netgear ProSAFE XS708T 8x10G Network Switch
  • StarTech SFP+ Cable
  • StarTech RACKCONS1901 19" Rackmount LCD Console

Some questions I have:

  • Am I missing anything glaringly obvious that won't allow me to achieve my goals listed above?
  • To stream around the house, what devices would I use?
    • The guys over at r/htpc recommended Intel NUCs or Nvidia Shields at the TV locations
  • Is there any way that I could remotely connect to a VM that the server is creating? So that I or the customer can log in and utilize the power of the server from anywhere.
  • What OS would I use?
    • Originally, I was just thinking of 5 copies of Win 10 Pro to keep the OSs all the same. But I would really like to use Unraid and the docker capability for automatic encoding, I just want to make sure all of this data is backed up.
  • Is there a way to use ZFS? Does Unraid support that?
  • Can I get those VMs to automatically put the completed movies onto the RAID array?
    • My guess is yes, if I set up the destination folder of MakeMKV/Handbrake to be the shared VM folder, which is on the array.

Price is not super critical to me, more that it works reliably and is quiet.

 

On top of digitizing and backing up all of my client's movies, I'm looking for alternate uses for this server. So far I've come up with:

  • Plex server
  • iTunes or other music server (I know Plex handles music, just haven't played around with it)
  • PVR/DVR for their favorite shows
  • Spotify/Pandora Controller?
  • Backup computers in house
  • VM machine
    • How would we log in remotely?
  • Stream TV to anywhere in the house
  • Stream PC to anywhere in the house. Use any TV as an HTPC
    • Use Nvidia Shield/Intel NUC/Roku Ultra as receiving side
  • Use iPad's/Tablets to control TV using TeamViewer for Remote Control
  • Kodi
  • Netflix/Hulu/Amazon Prime/YouTube/HBO Go/DirecTV now player
  • Steam Big Picture (client doesn't really play games)
  • YouTube Leanback

Another idea that was recommended to me was to get a higher end QNAP/Synology NAS, install plex, hook up a USB blu-ray drive to it and rip the movies from there directly. I believe they can run a VM of Unraid/Win 10, but not sure if that would cause problems trying to do it that way.

 

Anyways, thank you all so much for your help! Sorry for the giant post, just trying to figure all of this out and don't want to miss something silly.

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@Arcaeus --- Why don't start by reading the Section 1 of the UnRaid manual and other sections that pertain to your questions.  The manual can be found here:

 

     https://wiki.unraid.net/index.php/UnRAID_Manual_6

 

I want to point out that Unraid is not RAID in the formal sense.  It does use either single or dual parity in its protected array (and raid is a part of its name) but that is where the similarity ends. 

 

 

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@Frank1940 Ok I read through that document and that clears up a lot of information. Thank you for that!

 

However, if I'm wanting to have basically 14 drives in there (12 SAS, 2 SATA SSD), what card would I use to connect all of those? The SSDs can just go right into the SATA connections on the motherboard, but what PCI card would the SAS drives connect into? And would I just get 2 cards if there isn't a 12 port card that works? 

 

I found this case that looks like it can hold everything in one case, which seems like it would be great:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219039&Description=norco 12 bay&cm_re=norco_12_bay-_-11-219-039-_-Product

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There are no twelve port cards.  Eight, sixteen and twenty four are available from LSI but the cost of the 16 and 24 make the eights very attractive for most of us.  Most of us use SATA drives.  (I think mostly because they are cheaper!)  Many of us have gotten LSI based cards off of E-Bay.  Many folks have gotten the used cards (Dell, IBM, Hp) as they are almost always genuine.  Avoid Marvell based solutions as they sometimes have problems when used with Unraid.   (When the big server farms upgrade their servers, they apparently replace everything...) If you purchase 'New' from E-Bay, vet the vendor carefully as there are counterfeit cards out there.  I would purchase only from a US based vendor with a proven track record. (Since you are in the SATA controller thread, you do realize that Unraid requires cards that are in the 'IT Mode' not RAID.)  

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@Frank1940@garycase Like I said in my original post, price is not as big of a concern for me. My original build for this project was over $14,000 and now based on the new information that you and others have helped me with, I've gotten it down to about $6,700. If I need to spend $500-800 on a quality card to make sure that everything connects properly, I'm ok with that (and still WAY under what I had originally planned).

 

Also like I mentioned before, I really would like to use Enterprise SAS drives. I apologize for being in the wrong thread, this just seemed like the best place to get the answers that I needed. And pardon my ignorance, but would the 12 port card that Gary recommended work with SAS drives? You mentioned a 16 port card, does anyone have a link to that?

 

Thank you all again for your help.

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The SAS 9300-16i Host Bus Adapter

and SAS 9305-16i Host Bus Adapter are rated at 12GB/s but not yet reported working with unRAID.

 

The SAS 9300-16i uses a 2x SAS3008 controllers which is confirmed working in the 9300-8i controller.

The other one is most likely also working.

Depending on your location it might be a better choice getting two 9300-8i's or a pair of their OEM server pulls (see wiki) to save a significant amount of money, if you don't need the PCIe slots for other things.

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Model numbers for the LSI cards are found in this thread:

 

     https://forums.unraid.net/topic/69018-sata-controller-replacement-question-and-advice/?tab=comments#comment-630097

 

To get the model numbers for the 16 port cards you replace the -8i with a -16i    Let me at this point interject this factor.   Apparently, LSI never made many of the 16 port cards and I suspect when they did, they were OEM cards (Dell, IBM, Etc.).  (They tend to be a full height card and often won't fit in the half-height server cases.)    

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Yea looking at my setup, I think 2x 9300-8i controllers would be the better way to do it. However, I'm trying to figure out how to physically connect the drives. For SATA drives it looks like it needs a "breakout cable", but SAS uses a slightly differnet connector. Does this adapter look right?

 

https://www.datastoragecables.com/hdminisas/internal/hdminisas-sas29x4/I3529-M.html

 

So I would basically get 4 of these and hook up the drives with them. If I'm plugging the drives into hot swap bays, the connector on the back of the bay should be a regular SATA connector that the SAS connectors of the adapter above should fit into, right?

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I am much more familiar with SAS to SATA connector cables but I believe you are looking for one like this:

 

    https://www.amazon.com/CABLEDECONN-SFF-8087-SFF-8482-Connectors-Power/dp/B010CMW6S4/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1548874809&sr=8-4&keywords=mini+SAS+to+SAS

 

Problem is that with the SAS to SATA, you have to be concerned with which end the SATA connectors attach to (MB or SATA drive).  I am not sure if this is an issue with SAS to SAS...

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi I've come back to Unraid after a long time and I'm looking to run more drives and spend money on hardware i.e. newer, shinier, bigger :)

 

I have and ASROCK H77 Pro MVP4 mobo with an i3 3220. I am looking at getting a SAS controller card because I have run out of SATA ports on my mobo. I hear the AOC SAS2LP cards hare hit and miss. 

 

I found this card on ebay and am wondering if it is a good card with minimal setup needed (as plug and play as possible). https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-SAS-9207-8i-PCI-E-3-0-Adapter-LSI00301-IT-Mode-Card-US-SameDayShip/292749085955?epid=27026538211&hash=item4429348d03:g:460AAOSwSc1bpWpx:rk:3:pf:0 

 

I have space for 2 more Norco 500 bays and one card would be enough to run them ( i have 2 drives currently in use that would go into the drive bays). 

 

Thanks in advance!

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@Arcaeus I would go over to the Plex site and check recommended hardware and check the processor your considering on passmark as you mentioned 4K here is their recommendation

4K HDR (50Mbps, 10-bit HEVC) file: 17000 PassMark score (being transcoded to10Mbps 1080p)

4K SDR (40Mbps, 8-bit HEVC) file: 12000 PassMark score (being transcoded to10Mbps 1080p)

the CPU you listed Intel Xeon E5-2620 @ 2.00GHz is at 7911 passmark score this might not be a very good fit for your plans

 

Edit: correction Intel Xeon E5-2620 v4 score is 11368

Edited by mrbilky
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On 2/23/2019 at 5:01 PM, johnnie.black said:

That's a good option and it's plug and play, seems a little too cheap for a new one though, need to be careful of fakes.

How do you tell if it is a fake or doesn't work as advertised? I mean if you did buy one. How would one tell?

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3 hours ago, vdsilva said:

I mean if you did buy one. How would one tell?

You can check the serial number with Broadcom to see if it's genuine, though likely only after buying it, I usually buy used server pulls, less chance of getting a fake.

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Anyone know of a good and cheap (around 200 us dollars) HBA that has 16 internal and at least 4 external ports? I rather it be a single slot.

I got a Norco 4224, and want to fill the other 16 slots (24 total MB has 8 sata).  And I'm looking at using the 4 external for 2 bd drives and a quick connect 2.5 and 3.5 drives.

I been looking at a few cards on eBay the only one that I found for a decent price was the lsi 9280, but not sure on how it would work with unRAID. I'm not good enough to troubleshoot and make it work. Do I'm hoping on a plug and play.

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2 hours ago, mdipinto said:

I been looking at a few cards on eBay the only one that I found for a decent price was the lsi 9280, but not sure on how it would work with unRAID.

I did a quick search and I don't believe this is what you want.  It is a dedicated RAID card and won't work with Unraid.  Read here for a details on the type of card that you should be looking for:

 

    https://forums.unraid.net/topic/69018-sata-controller-replacement-question-and-advice/?tab=comments#comment-630097

 

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