mrlittlejeans Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 I'm thinking of picking up a Supermicro CSE-846A 24bay case with a SAS2-846EL1 Backplane. The motherboard is a Supermirco X9DRI-F. I was reading last night about controller cards and what I need to get to connect to the backplane and had some questions I hope someone can help me with. I assume I need an LSI based controller card. Would the Dell H310 flashed to IT mode work here? Will there be a bottleneck on parity checks/rebuilds with this backplane/controller combo? What kind of speeds should I expect on parity checks if all bays were filled with 8TB drives? Is it ok to assume it would be 6GB/s split 24 ways or am I limited by the single SAS2 connection on the backplane? Thanks in advance for any help. Quote Link to comment
JorgeB Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 10 minutes ago, mrlittlejeans said: I assume I need an LSI based controller card. Would the Dell H310 flashed to IT mode work here? Yes 11 minutes ago, mrlittlejeans said: Will there be a bottleneck on parity checks/rebuilds with this backplane/controller combo? What kind of speeds should I expect on parity checks if all bays were filled with 8TB drives? Is it ok to assume it would be 6GB/s split 24 ways or am I limited by the single SAS2 connection on the backplane? Not sure that expander supports dual link, but I believe it does, if it does you'll have around 2600 to 3000MB/s for all disks, the limit will be the PCIe 2.0 HBA, if the backplane only supports single link you'll have 2200MB/s for all disks. Quote Link to comment
mrlittlejeans Posted January 25, 2018 Author Share Posted January 25, 2018 Thanks johnnie! Quote Link to comment
mrlittlejeans Posted January 25, 2018 Author Share Posted January 25, 2018 One more question... Would this card work based on the firmware the seller has flashed it to or would I still need to reflash myself? https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-H310-6Gbps-SAS-HBA-w-LSI-9211-8i-P20-IT-Mode-for-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID-/162834659601?_trksid=p2349526.m4383.l4275.c3 From the description: Listed for sale are what were originally Dell H310 RAID SAS controller cards that I modified for use with ZFS. They have been cross-flashed to Avago / LSI 9211-8i IT (Initiator Target) firmware version P20 (specifically 20.00.07.00). I also flashed the LSI/Avago MPTSAS2 BIOS ROM version 07.39.02.00 and UEFI 07.27.01.01 so that it is easier to access the controller's ROM without booting an OS. In addition, I replaced the full profile PCI bracket with a ventilated one to improve airflow over the heatsink. LSI Avago IT mode firmware version P20 (20.00.07.00) MPTSAS2 BIOS ROM flashed version 07.39.02.00 MPTSAS2 UEFI ROM flashed version 07.27.01.01 Original SAS address preserved Ventilated PCI bracket These are based on the LSI SAS2008 SAS controller chipset and support PCI-E 2.0 specifications with x8 lanes. The controller has 2 SFF-8087 connectors, each carrying 4 SAS lanes. You will need a compatible cable to connect these to your hard drives or a backplane. NEWER HIGH AIR FLOW design now available at my other listing here If you need one with a low profile bracket, see my listing here These cards were used with my storage server running ZFS on Linux (ZoL), but this setup is also ideal for other ZFS setups, FreeNAS, unRAID, Proxmox VE, etc. I have fully tested them using all 8 SAS lanes. Quote Link to comment
JorgeB Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 5 minutes ago, mrlittlejeans said: Would this card work based on the firmware the seller has flashed it to or would I still need to reflash myself? No need, it's flashed to IT mode and using the latest available firmware, so just plug'n play. Quote Link to comment
Recommended Posts
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.