With the recent problems with very slow parity checks and read/write speeds with my SAS2LP controller I've started looking at possible replacements. It looks like most of the cards that would have specs roughly equivalent to the one I have now require flashing to IT. Since I don't have a Windows license and have no plans to pay the price for one just to flash a controller, I wanted to find out other methods for flashing that don't require Windows? Or am I limited to controllers that work out of the box?

Most controllers can be flashed with a utility that runs under DOS => you just create a bootable DOS flash drive (easy to do with Rufus) and then put the new firmware on that drive and boot to it.

 

Check the manufacturer's site for whatever controller you're thinking of to see if that's an option.

 

Would this work in bootcamp?

I'd assume you can create the bootable flash drive in bootcamp, but I've never tried it and don't know for sure.

 

Download Rufus and give it a try.  http://rufus.akeo.ie/

 

You'll want to boot the flash drive on your UnRAID server and flash the installed controller there of course.