SAS/SATA controller

[banterer]

I'm planning to use a SAS card with two 1SAS->4SATA breakout cables. For the card, is this a good buy?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B089KPG2WM/

 

There's also this one, which is three times the price... worth the extra?

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00AENN2LW/

[JonathanM]

The first link seems to be a RAID controller, which is not recommended for multiple reasons. You want a plain HBA which just passes along the disks to Unraid without interfering.

[banterer]

That's a great help, thanks. Related, if I have 5 drives of sizes 1t, 2t, 2t, 4t, 12t - what's the largest resilient virtual drive I'll be able to create?

[JonathanM]

Unraid doesn't aggregate drives like normal RAID in the parity array. Each data drive is individually formatted, and root folders on each drive are merged as user shares.

The parity drive(s) must be the same size or larger than any single data drive.

 

[banterer]

Ah ok I see, didn't realise that. So it's kind of like RAID1 in that sense. And presumably you can have either the parity drive fail, or a data drive, and it will rebuild. What if the data drives total are bigger than the parity drive? 

[JonathanM]

20 hours ago, banterer said:

Ah ok I see, didn't realise that. So it's kind of like RAID1 in that sense. And presumably you can have either the parity drive fail, or a data drive, and it will rebuild. What if the data drives total are bigger than the parity drive? 

 

[banterer]

Will this work? It says 'RAID' in the description, but it also says that it uses SAS3008 which is a compatible chipset according to other posts I've seen? Confused!

 

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigabyte-cra3338-rev-10-12gb-s-sas-raid-card-pcie-30-x8-with-2x-mini-sas-hd-sff8643-for-upto-8x-sas

[JorgeB]

10 minutes ago, banterer said:

but it also says that it uses SAS3008

LSI HBAs can have IT or RAID firmware, IT is recommended for Unraid, that model appears to come with RAID firmware, though they can usually be flashed with either firmware.

[banterer]

Same question (having great difficulty getting hold of a controller card!)

 

This?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/10Gtek-Internal-Express-Controller-SAS2008/dp/B01M2AC40Y/

[banterer]

3 minutes ago, JorgeB said:

LSI HBAs can have IT or RAID firmware, IT is recommended for Unraid, that model appears to come with RAID firmware, though they can usually be flashed with either firmware.

Ah great, guessing that last one is the same then? How easy is flashing the card?

[JorgeB]

If you see RAID support in the description I would assume it comes with RAID firmware.

[JorgeB]

Just now, banterer said:

How easy is flashing the card?

Firmware update is usually very easy, though some models can be more complicated when changing firmware type.

[banterer]

Last question (sorry, this is getting spammy, I'm getting desperate)

Any good? 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/BEYIMEI-Express-Controller-Expansion-Non-Raid/dp/B098Q2NL4H/

[JorgeB]

13 minutes ago, banterer said:

Any good? 

No, there's a SATA port multiplier.

[BobbyDing]

On 4/26/2022 at 1:26 PM, JorgeB said:

No, there's a SATA port multiplier.

Just reading through the forums to educate myself. I wasn't aware that sata port multipiers existed. Are they not usable in unraid? Thanks.

[Hoopster]

1 hour ago, BobbyDing said:

Are they not usable in unraid?

More like very much not recommended as opposed to not usable.  Port multipliers multiply the number of ports drawing from limited bandwidth (such as PCIe lanes) but they cannot create additional bandwidth.  That may be OK in a PC scenario where all devices are not usually actively reading/writing at the same time, but, in the case of a parity check or disk rebuild, etc. in unRAID, it results in several devices trying to simultaneously use the same limited bandwidth which can cause problems.

Edited June 1, 2022 by Hoopster

[Hoopster]

On 4/26/2022 at 11:06 AM, banterer said:

How easy is flashing the card?

Here is a link to a card the works well and is already flashed with IT firmware.