Adaptec 3085 8 port 8x pcie SAS/SATA card

[erikatcuse]

Adaptec 3085 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816103042&Tpk=3085

 

Does anyone have any experience with this card in any way?  I'm curious if it will allow you to use it as just a SATA controller without the Raid.  I've read the documentation and it says it allows for simple volumes but can't find a good definition of what that means. 

 

I know it's expensive but there are a few on ebay right now without cables for around $150. I found cables to go from the back to 4 SATA connectors for about $40 each.  So for 230 its cost effective and I get to use my x16 port with 8 drives instead of a x4 and a x1 4 port cards.

 

Erik

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Well I can't comment as to the compatibility of the device to unRAID, but that's probably not what you'd want to get.

 

It features external SFF-8088 connectors, which means that you probably won't be able to get the drives to mount to the card without tricky cable working...it's mainly a card to interface with an external case that holds hard disk drives (often through InfiniBand cables and such...enterprise cabling costs a lot as well!  )

 

If you want a comparable card that features internal connectors, look for the Adaptec 3805.

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It would appear to me (at first glance, anyways) that Adaptec 3-series hardware RAID cards aren't supported by unRAID quite yet; if someone can compile the drivers so it can work with Adaptec 3-series cards with simple JBOD volumes to identify an individual disk, that'd be great for my existing hardware as well as those who are thinking about getting a nice multi-port PCI-e card for unRAID purposes.