Sata III Controller Card + Mobo Compatibility Question

[Endda]

Hi,

 

So I have been building up my unRAID machine for a few years now and have loaded up my computer with hard drives. After loading them up with 4TB drives, I have begun switching them out with 8TB drives but I have also added a couple of controller cards as well.

 

This is the motherboard I am currently using. .  .

 - https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131979

 

. . .with a 450w power supply. . .

 

 - https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139052

 

I have one cache drive for quick downloads that get moved over to the 11 hard drives I have installed (the 12th drive is the parity drive). They were all 4TB to start with but I now have three different 8TB drives in there (the fourth 8TB drive is used as parity). To accomplish this, I have had to use these two controller cards. . .

 

  - https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AZ9T3OU/

 

. . .but two ports on one of those controller cards do not currently work. So I'm only able to use 6 of the 8 SATA III ports that these cards are offering me. I assume this is due to the card being bad (but maybe it's because of the slot placement of the cards?

 

I have the machine connected to a UPS and usually see it hit about 200 or 250 watts during load. it's at idle right now and only pulling 84 watts. So when I try to add another hard drive to that controller card, I don't think it's the PSU that is limiting it. Again, I think it's just half of the card that is bad.

 

So, I have been wanting to add another controller card to the motherboard, but instead of going with another 4-slot one, I was thinking about this one. . .

 

 - https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ESFEI2E/

 

It's the same brand as the ones I'm currently using I O Crest, and it uses the Marvell chipset (which I hear is great for unRAID as it's plug-in-play. My question is, do you think my current motherboard can handle this 8-port controller card? It is three times as expensive as the 4-slot cards that I am currently using, but I was thinking that it would be okay since it will prevent me from adding two more 4-port cards which can impede airflow.

 

Is it possible that the two ports on one of those cards don't work because I have it plugged into a wrong slot? That part has always perplexed me, but my end goal is to start adding back in some of these 4TB drives that I upgraded to 8TB drives so that I can save some money and not have to wait for a sale and start shucking external drives again.

 

I currently have one of these controller cards plugged into slot 2 (which all 4 ports are working), and the other is plugged into slot 6 (of image 003.png that is attached to this thread). It's this one that is plugged into slot 6 that can only handle 2 hard drives at a time. If I try to plug in 3 or 4 then unRAID just doesn't detect them.

 

If I move that controller card to another slot on the board, would that allow me to add two more drives to the pool? Or is there something else that is limiting these two cards to only being able to use 6 drives? If so, could replacing these two controller cards with that 8 port card resolve the issue?

 

Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

[JorgeB]

3 hours ago, Endda said:

and it uses the Marvell chipset (which I hear is great for unRAID

You hear wrong, Marvell controllers are not recommended for Unraid, and that one uses a port multipliers so twice not recommended.

[Endda]

2 minutes ago, johnnie.black said:

You hear wrong, Marvell controllers are not recommended for Unraid, and that one uses a port multipliers so twice not recommended.

Perhaps this is why I assumed they worked well with unRAID

 

 - 

 

 

Is there a different card/chipset that is recommended then?

 

[Endda]

What about something like this

 

 - https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-LSI-SAS-SATA-9201-8I-6Gbps-8-Ports-HBA-PCI-E-RAID-Controller-Card-9210-8I-/142729911794

 

paid with these cables

 

 - https://www.ebay.com/itm/2X-miniSAS-SFF-8087-MINI-SAS-TO-4-SATA-Data-Cable-For-SAS-RAID-Card-LSI-9211-8i-/391595894308?hash=item5b2cef2624

 

?

 

I'm just looking for something affordable and plug-in-play. I'm not worried about super fast performance here. It's rarely that I have three streams going at the same time

Edited September 30, 2018 by Endda

[JorgeB]

16 minutes ago, Endda said:

Perhaps this is why I assumed they worked well with unRAID

They used to, but not since Unraid v6, though some users still get away with using them, but it's a crapshoot.

 

The LSI works and are the recommended HBA to use, any LSI with a SAS2008/2308/3008 chipset in IT mode, e.g., 9201-8i, 9211-8i, 9207-8i, 9300-8i, etc and clones, like the Dell H200/H310 and IBM M1015, these latter ones need to be crossflashed.

 

 

 

 

[Endda]

The LSI cars with the SAS chipsets are all $100+ and most seem to need to be flashed into a certain mode to work properly.

 

It's surprising that there isn't an affordable, out of the box working card that the unRAID devs have worked on to become the go-to expansion card.

 

I'll try moving my current 2nd card around, but if I'm going to spend $100+ on an LSI SAS card then I might as well just invest it in an 8TB drive and then sell the 4TB to recoup the cost.

 

I understand the 24+, 12+, and even 8+ cards being priced so high, but man. these LSI ones work well even though they cost a lot, but have to be flashed into a different mode makes me wary to even mess with them.

 

Thanks for the help. I found the new WIKI page (Google links to the limetech url and the devs here haven't setup a 301 redirect to the new page. I'll keep my eye on that and try to make a decision.

[JorgeB]

8 hours ago, Endda said:

The LSI cars with the SAS chipsets are all $100+ and most seem to need to be flashed into a certain mode to work properly.

The one you linked is $40, and it doesn't need to be flashed.

 

[Endda]

8 hours ago, johnnie.black said:

The one you linked is $40, and it doesn't need to be flashed.

 

I'm also seeing others with 'genuine' in the title leading me to speculate that these are often imitations and fakes (especially since it ships from Hong Kong). So I was unsure if I should trust it. I did find a different model for about $50 that is said to have already been flashed and working for unRAID. So I'll be trying that out this weekend.

 

The expensive ones I was referring to were the majority of the ones that I had seen listed on the unRAID wiki

[JorgeB]

I usually buy and recommend buying user server pulls instead of new ones from China, less chance of getting a fake, and price is about the same.

[Endda]

30 minutes ago, johnnie.black said:

I usually buy and recommend buying user server pulls instead of new ones from China, less chance of getting a fake, and price is about the same.

Yea, I'm glad I went with the other one that ships from Texas then (even if it was about $15 more). I mean, both had perfect to near perfect feedback rating, but the one shipping from the US will get here faster and they specifically mention it working in unRAID. So I can always use that as a reason to get a refund just in case it doesn't work.