This is my first time building anything with a SAS HBA, and my first time trying Unraid.  I did some reading before starting and decided on the LSI SAS 9211-8i, realizing that I would have to flash the firmware to IT mode.  I was not able to do that with the Lenovo M71 motherboard.  There was no specific UEFI options in the BIOS.  I was, however, able to flash to IT mode using a different computer.  My thought was that I would then be able to put the controller back into the Lenovo M71 motherboard afterwards.  However, Unraid does not seem to recognize it at all.  It is not listed in system devices, and, of course, the drives are not there either.  What am I doing wrong?  System devices should list the controller whether there are drives plugged into it or not, right? 

 

I've felt the heat sink on the controller, it is warm, but not hot, and it has only green lights on.  Unraid does recognize the same drives if attached through the on-board SATA connections.  Also, this same Lenovo M71 motherboard started out in a Windows 10 system, and I put the controller card in that first, and it was recognized there, but that was before I flashed the BIOS & firmware.

Please post the diagnostics.

I took it out and put it back onto the motherboard that I was able to flash it with, and it worked fine there again.  I'm looking at the user guide for this HBA now, and it says nothing about the requirements of the motherboard.  I would like a working knowledge of which motherboards have the capability for this and which do not (aside from just a list of motherboards confirmed to work).

 

There must be an objective way to determine whether a motherboard is going to support this hardware.  What should I be looking for?

 

Thanks

It should work in any motherboard with an appropriate slot, but sometimes there could be compatibility issues, unfortunately there's no way to tell unless you or someone else tried it.