Another Newb (Canadian) Help me pick a card...


Recommended Posts

Hey folks..

 

Got Unraid up and running well. Using an Asus P6T6 WS Revolution Mobo. It has 8 onboard sata ports which I have full. Thinking about adding an expansion card of some sort. I have an old 9650SE-24M8 card that I have been playing with. Its been a bit problematic so I think I will just replace it. Locally all I can find are some cheap PCIE 1x cards that I am sure performance will be an issue. Looking at the hardware list I am having a hard time finding anything local or with reasonable shipping. So I have fallen into trolling ebay and getting lost in the options. There are so many controllers talked about here and I just want to make it works and delivers decent (or better) performance. Hoping for 4+ ports and in the end I will investigate distributing the drives, parity and cache drives across controllers to maximize performance.

 

Was thinking about ordering the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 off of ebay. A few for about $30(USD) with $20(USD) shipping to Canada. Then I will need a couple cables. Best option I have found is Newegg.ca for about $35(CAD) for 2 cables  http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116097&_ga=1.84011993.1501904548.1427412111

 

So about $100(CAD) or $76(USD).

 

Thoughts? Decent bang for the buck or is there a better option I should be looking at in this price range? Should I spend a few more dollars to get better performance?

 

Sorry to beat a dead horse. I have been running in circles all night trying to figure out what to order. My experience is so limited its tough to choose.

 

Many thanks in advance!

 

Mike

Link to comment

Either the SASLPMV8 or the SAS2LPMV8 will be fine (The SAS2 will give you a little bit more performance for not too much more money -> it's only ~$20 more brand new at newegg.ca).  On my SAS2LP on single drive reads I can hit the maximum the drive can offer for speed (200MB/s), and on parity checks (with some drives only rated at 150MB/s max) I get parity check speeds of up to 130MB/s

 

The SASLP will be a bit slower

 

Link to comment

Either the SASLPMV8 or the SAS2LPMV8 will be fine (The SAS2 will give you a little bit more performance for not too much more money -> it's only ~$20 more brand new at newegg.ca).  On my SAS2LP on single drive reads I can hit the maximum the drive can offer for speed (200MB/s), and on parity checks (with some drives only rated at 150MB/s max) I get parity check speeds of up to 130MB/s

 

The SASLP will be a bit slower

Thanks for the feedback squid. I cannot seem to find the sas2lp in the same price range as the saslp on eBay. No used available it would seem.

 

How does the IBM m1015 compare? It seems to be in the dangers price range. Any others I should consider? I am mobile right now but will try and answer this myself when I can.

 

As I was laying in bed last I was pondering options. I should check with my work to see if we have any servers going for recycling. Maybe score a chassis and our raid card.  Also I should try and sort out the 9650SE-24M8.

 

The 9650SE-24M8 seems to had been working. Anyone know performance wise how it would compare? A few things I noticed when I was toying with it that made me nervous.

 

No smart data available

The drive names where being partial zeroed out as if it is not fully reading the serial numbers

Speed seemed quite slow

Preclear plugin would not work on this controller

 

Thanks again

 

Mike

Link to comment

I would also recommend the SAS2LP, the SASLP with 8 disks will limit your parity checks to ~80MB/s.

 

The M1015 (or Dell H310, same LSI chipset) are also very good options, note however that they have to be flashed to IT mode for Unraid (Sticky thread on this subform)

How is there performance of the IBM/dell compared to saslp and sas2lp? No concerns on flashing. Looks easy enough.

Link to comment
  • 3 months later...

keep in mind that the SASLP(SAS1) doesn't support 3TB+ drives, you pretty much need to buy SAS2 cards these days.

Ran 4TB Seagate drives on mine so I don't think this is true.

Ditto.

 

If you have plenty of pci-e slots, some cheap 2-port pci-e 1x cards can be a good way to go - what specifically was your concern with performance with 1x cards?

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.