I would like to buy a new 9400-16i


michael123

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On 10/26/2017 at 12:25 PM, michael123 said:

Will/can existing driver in unRaid support the new Broadcom 9400-16i ?

That's the first risk that comes to my mind as well. Other than asking here on the forums, or buying the card and trying it and taking the risk, I'm not sure what command line in unRAID would list what drivers are included to see if the driver is there. I've faced this same question myself when I took a risk buying a newer card.

 

On 10/26/2017 at 12:25 PM, michael123 said:

Or it is too risky.. and I should stick to the 'end of life' 9300-16i ?

I think there are ways to mitgate the risk. I purchased from a onine seller that allowed 30 days returns, no questions asked. thankfully in my situation the card worked. Is the risk work it vs the 9300? Wow I had no idea that this question would have taken me on a 15 minute journey to undersand what he 9400 is offering compared to the 9300. I've always kind of ignored the U.2 interface since I haven't seen many storage devices utilize it. But wow it's so much more, for those curious, the spec I read here is fun read: http://www.ssdformfactor.org/docs/SSD_Form_Factor_Version1_00.pdf

 

9300 or 9400? I'm going to assume you have a way to utilize the new features in the 9400, or expect you will within one year, if not, just stick with the 9300. However in my mind the decision is solely determined by two questions that you have to ask yourself...

 

1- Are you doing this because a constraint is driving your decision? It could be you are using a small form factor with only 1 PCIe slot, in that case the 9400 makes sense. If you have two or more PCIe slots, then I would simply ask, why take the risk when you can get a 9300 and trust it'll do it's job, and if you want U.2, get a separate card to do that.

 

2- If you're asking because you want to have fun and explore, then find a way that lowers your risk exposure like I mentioned above and give it a try, and report back if it works!

 

Good luck!!!

 

 

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@michael123 wow cool card. I need external interface. Also after trying the Areca experience.. the web based interface, and having RAID as an option to do RAID-0 or now doing RAID-6 as my parity drive, it's been a lot of fun. I'd like to continue to explore more with Areca options. Please keep anymore more suggestions coming, I'm in no rush.

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@Lev I have an old box bought directly from Lime maybe 9-10 years ago. I have 15 drives chassis, so I wanted to get a new supermicro X11 board, and add 16-port (internal) adapter so I could live happily for next 10 years. As it is unraid, I just need an HBA "plug-n-play" (but not "plug-n-pray"). Disks are SATA3, except for the m.2 cache drive, which I will mount directly to the motherboard. Do you know anything I can plug in, connect the wires, and forget under unraid -?

 

 

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41 minutes ago, BobPhoenix said:

My LSI 9201-16i's were plug and play and are fast enough for the current spinners on the market.  Just made sure I got used server pulls and not a fake new controller from China off eBay.

 

I usually buy from Amazon, I saw Benchmark Technology sells now

How fast is this card? Did you have a chance to benchmark it?

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Seems to be.  The check before that was considerably slower ( 87.8 MB/s) but I probably had accesses to the system while the parity check was going on.  This time I purposely started it at bedtime and moved my backup directory to a different server.  My backups happen overnight and I use the server during the day so by moving the backup folder to a different unRAID box I got time to do the parity check at night with no accesses and increased the parity check speed.

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2 hours ago, BobPhoenix said:

Seems to be.  The check before that was considerably slower ( 87.8 MB/s) but I probably had accesses to the system while the parity check was going on.  This time I purposely started it at bedtime and moved my backup directory to a different server.  My backups happen overnight and I use the server during the day so by moving the backup folder to a different unRAID box I got time to do the parity check at night with no accesses and increased the parity check speed.

 

Nice. Do you know if these are the cables I need to connect the drives?

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01BTEYLEQ/ref=ox_sc_act_image_1?smid=A21TE5CLHZDYA7&psc=1

 

Do you think that 0.5m will be sufficient?

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Not with the LSI-9201-16i's I've ordered. They have SFF-8087 connectors.  The connectors for a LSI-9201-16i would be Forward breakout cables that have SFF-8087 connector on the Controller end and Sata plugs on the other for individual drives.

 

If you are talking about a LSI-9300-16i or a LSI-9400-16i I don't have one of those controllers so I cannot tell you about them.

 

The cable I would buy for a LSI-9201-16i to individual drives would be:

https://www.amazon.com/Internal-SFF-8087-Forward-Breakout-Cable/dp/B0735N9HY9

 

There are different lengths so get whatever size you need.  I have some .5M, .6M and 1M cables.

Edited by BobPhoenix
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So since i need two 16 port cards for my system i guess i need to ask ... what is THE best card on the market with 16 ports currently (all internal)?

cost not a issue what should i grab for my 4u unraid server?

Is the answer the 9400i is the best but random guess as to if it will work or not.

 

I kind of hate to spend a grand to "find out" if it works.

 

What did you decide michael123?

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1 minute ago, merlyn said:

What did you decide michael123?

 

I hesitated ordering 9400-16i as it is quite new and wasn't sure about support.. 

Then I saw already discontinued 9300-16i is sold for 30% more than its retail.

I looked for 9201-16i card. It is a card from 2011, but supposed to be sufficient for SATA3 anyway. I contact Benchmark Technologies that are considered the best retailer for these things on Amazon. They could not tell me what's the firmware version installed there, when I asked about manufacture date, they said it might be 2013 or 2015.

 

So I pulled the trigger on Adaptec 1000-16i above, bought it yesterday from newegg. I saw here on the forum that it is supported in unraid 6.3 and later.

 

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