June 2, 201313 yr Looking for a SAS card. I understand that the SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8 is/was a favorite for unRaid users, but am open to other comparable cards.
June 2, 201313 yr The IBM M1015 is the controller that has overtaken the SASLP-MV8 as the go to card around here. I've got two of them, in addition to my SASLP-MV8. http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-SERVERAID-M1015-ADAPTER-PCI-E-2-0-X8-RAID-CONTROLLER-CARD-46M0861-LOW-P-/190846191255
June 2, 201313 yr Author Bummer. I should've done some more searching, as I found a SASLP card on NewEgg, Open Box, for $80 and pulled the trigger ~15 minutes after my OP! What are the benefits of the IBM card? Should I rush to cancel my NewEgg order and opt for it instead?
June 2, 201313 yr Unless you're doing an ESXi-based system, where the M1015 seems to be the preferred pass-through card, the SASLP-MV8 is fine. And with your motherboard/CPU you're obviously not going to be running an ESXi setup, so I'd just go with the SASLP-MV8 you've already ordered.
June 2, 201313 yr Bummer. I should've done some more searching, as I found a SASLP card on NewEgg, Open Box, for $80 and pulled the trigger ~15 minutes after my OP! What are the benefits of the IBM card? Should I rush to cancel my NewEgg order and opt for it instead? Main benefit is more bandwidth so if you ever decide to use a SAS expander, or with SSDs, or use the cache pooling feature that will be in the final version of 5.0, the additional bandwidth will benefit you. I'd say if you don't mind spending the extra $14 bucks, cancel it and get the IBM card.
June 2, 201313 yr Cache pooling is a new feature that will be in v5 that allows you to "pool" multiple drives in a RAID-1 "pool" for a cache. This provides fault-tolerance for the cache. The key difference between the two cards is that the SASLP-MV8 is a PCIe x4 card; the M1015 is PCIe x8, so it provides twice as much bandwidth (4GB/s vs 2GB/s). However, unless you're using an expander, that difference is irrelevant, as you're not likely to exceed 2GB/s with only 8 drives ... they'd have to average over 250GB/s of throughput, and that's simply not going to happen. Even if you wanted to use 4 SSDs for your cache pool, you could simply connect them to your motherboard ports, and your "spinners" to the expansion card. Certainly won't hurt to cancel and get the M1015, but the reality is you won't notice any difference with your system unless you plan to expand beyond 12 drives (the 8 on the card plus your 4 onboard ports).
June 2, 201313 yr Author Well it seems I will do fine with the Supermicro card. Thanks for the input. Once again, these forums prove to be a critical resource! Not to gush too much, but man I love the unRaid community for making it possible for a layman like me to get the most out my NAS without overspending or excessively complicating things beyond my means!
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