Supermicro AOC-USAS-L8i 8 Port PCIe Card

[Underling]

Im new to unRaid and am about to start fully switching over to it. As all others in the past I was in search for a PCI-e sata HBA similar to the supermicro MV8. In another forum, AVS, this was brought to my attention, http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-USAS-L8i.cfm

 

In a quick search of these forums I didnt find any mention of it. It seems that it can do a simple JBOD, someone reported it working in conjunction with WHS, but I am not positive on this.

Could this work with unraid?

If not, could it be made to work with unraid?

It seems like such a great solution at only ~$30 more than the mv8 card and would be great if unraid could support this.

[SSD]

That looks like a very nice card, and pretty well priced too.

 

Reading the manual seems to imply that you can attach SATA drives, but I think you need cabling not provided with the card.

 

It is not quite clear whether this supports JBOD mode or not, but usually JBOD is supported with most RAID controllers.

 

I also tried to figure out what speed PCI-E port is required.  It says something about auto-negotiation, so maybe it will take adavantage of x4 and x16 slots if you plug it into one.

 

I'd love to know if this works with unRAID.  If it works, I would definitely consider for a future purchase.

[Underling]

Oh ya, you would need internal miniSAS SFF-8087 to Sata Cables. There are minisas to 4 sata ports, they are about $15 bucks a pop (I guess that should be added to cost). Total of ~$160 retail.

 

The reason I said it might support JBOD is because of the report in the other forum (I'll try and find the thread again) otherwise the manual has no reference to it. It is a software raid controller, so I would also assume JBOD is supported but the lack of manual info on it worries me.

 

I did just win one of these on ebay so Ill probably setup a test system to try it out with unraid.

[WeeboTech]

I doubt it will work without compiling a new kernel to include the drivers.

Once there, the chances of it working are good.

[c234rmf]

Some interesting snippets from the manual:

 

There are three RAID modes that are supported by the AOC-USAS-L8i Add-on Card:

• IT Mode (Initiator and Target Mode): This is the default mode for the

AOC-USAS-L8i Add-on Card. The maximum support for this mode is up to 122 hard

disk drives under expander topology. This mode does not support RAID.

This mode requires an IT mode firmware flash to the BIOS and an IT mode driver

installation to the OS.

• IR Mode (Integrated RAID Mode): In Integrated Raid™ mode the integrated ARM

chip on the AOC-USAS-L8i Add-on Card creates Integrated Mirroring™ (IM, RAID

1), Integrated Mirroring Enhanced (IME, RAID 1E) and Integrated Striping (IS, RAID

0) through the chipset’s BIOS and the system’s OS. The maximum support for this

IR mode is up to 63 hard disk drives under an expander topology.

See Chapter 7: "Integrated Mirroring and Integrated Mirroring Enhanced" on

page 7-1 and Chapter 8: "Integrated Striping" on page 8-1 for details on Integrated

Mirroring Enhanced or Integrated Striping.

This RAID mode requires an IR mode firmware flash to the BIOS and an IT mode

driver installation to the OS.

• SR (Software RAID): In this mode you must buy the I-Button feature from

SuperMicro to enable RAID level 5 use. First you must create RAID level 0, 1, 5 or

10 from the MegaRAID BIOS Configuration Utility in order for the OS to see the hard

disk drives (this can be done via MSM too, so necessary need to be done in

MegaRAID Configuration Utility). The maximum support for this RAID mode is up to

eight ( hard disk drives under expander topology.

This RAID mode requires an SR mode firmware flash to the BIOS and an SR mode

driver installation to the OS. This mode also requires that the SWR5 jumper on the

AOC-USAS-L8i Add-on Card is enabled (see Section 2-2: "Front Jumper Locations

and Pin Definitions" on page 2-3 for details).

[boof]

I did just win one of these on ebay so Ill probably setup a test system to try it out with unraid.

 

Please post back with your thoughts! I'm looking at the exact same card, after seeing the same post you mentioned

 

 

[rhinoman]

This certainly looks promising.

[Underling]

Well I tried it out. First did a preliminary test on a few different vista machines and it was out of box set to jbod aka IT mode. All drives are recognized under vista separately.

 

A few side notes on this card. It is "made" for Supermicro UIO slot. It is basically a normal x8 pcie card that is backwards (look at the pics). Its PCI bracket needs to be replaced to secure it into chassis. However it runs just like a normal HBA card when plugged into any x8-x16 pcie slot.

 

As I feared though, didnt work with unraid.

 

Could we perhaps get some driver updates for this card because I believe it is a solution to a lot of peoples needs. At ~$120 + ~$15 per cable come to ~$150 for a x8 PCI-E 8 port Sata HBA card. Pricier than the MV8 but with pcie speeds and better cable management, I dont mind the extra $50.

[SSD]

Send a note to Tom requesting the drivers be added.

 

You might also ask BubbaQ if he would add the drivers to BubbaRAID.

[jimwhite]

try the 4.4 beta, the updated kernel may have drivers for it... 

 

[Underling]

Nah, no luck with 4.4 beta

[WeeboTech]

The kernel has to be recompiled with the correct driver.

If can do this and get it working, Tom may include it in the upcomign releases considering it's price point for 8 ports.

if I could score a cheap one I would try it out.

[smino]

Performance wise, has anyone tried doing a raid 0 HArdware, and presenting that to unraid on any hba?

What is the performance you get in vista on a file transfer using that card?

[erikatcuse]

Since this is similar to the LSI8031E-R check out http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=3109.0 for details on if it will work in unraid

[Joe]

I can confirm that this card works.  I just put it in my server and hooked my cache drive to it.  Getting nice speed 55-60 MB/s

Joe

[Joe]

Update

I have hooked up another drive to this controller and do not get the name showing up, but I do on the Cache drive.  I get no temperatures on either drive and errors indicating such in the logs.  So drives work but are not fully supported.  I would skip this controller until unRaid has better support.

Joe