I suspect I'm probably duplicating questions here, but digging through all of the R710 threads is a bit... daunting.  So, I apologize ahead of time if I missed the answer to my question.

 

I'm not a new unRaid user but I am new at trying to figure out all this DAS/HBA/etc stuff.

 

I currently have a R710 LFF with the H200 connecting the 6 built in drives.  I'm using the R710's sata controller for the optical drive and a 240GB SSD that I'm using as cache for the moment.  (see signature)

 

I'm looking to expand and I'm contemplating buying an MD1200 and migrating all of my array drives into it and turning the drive bays in the R710 into a cache pool/whatever.  The question comes to:  what HBA card should I be looking at?  I have some SAS3 drives now, so I'd like a 12Gbps card.  I *think* I should get an LSI 9300-8e based card to hook up the MD1200, but I know they are PCIe 3.0 cards and the R710 only has 2.0 slots.  As far as I can tell it should work, but all articles I can find regarding backwards compatibility on PCIe are about graphics cards.  If it will work, are there any specific 9300-8e cards I should be looking for?  If it won't, what's my best option?

 

Asking any of these questions through Dell is an exercise in frustration because all they hear is "unsupported configuration" and the zombie-apocalypse will descend upon me.

 

Thank you in advance for patience and advice!

Edited December 7, 20187 yr by rwarren873
left words out and spelling :(

Disregard the part about 12Gbps, I just realized I'd need an MD1400 minimum for that and they're WAY too expensive.  I'd still like to know if the 9300-8e based cards will work in the R710 and would successfully connect an MD1200.

4 hours ago, rwarren873 said:

I'd still like to know if the 9300-8e based cards will work in the R710 and would successfully connect an MD1200.

It should, PCIe 2.0 is not a problem, though Dell servers can sometimes be picky.

FWIW, I went a different direction.  Bought an R720xd.  Working on getting it up and running now, and it'll become my primary unRAID box once everything is stable.  With 12 3.5 bays and 2 2.5 bays, I sincerely hope I won't be short of storage options any time soon.  If the day comes I need an external DAS, at least the 720 has PCIe 3.0

 

Now I'm torn on what to do with the R710.  Pure Windows Hyper-V box, ESXi, backup target for unRAID?  Decisions, decisions...

Maybe run pfsense on it. Way over kill. Could remove a cpu for it.

 

Also what raid card In the r720xd?

 

Should of got a r510. Cheaper.

 

FWIW, I went a different direction.  Bought an R720xd.  Working on getting it up and running now, and it'll become my primary unRAID box once everything is stable.  With 12 3.5 bays and 2 2.5 bays, I sincerely hope I won't be short of storage options any time soon.  If the day comes I need an external DAS, at least the 720 has PCIe 3.0 [emoji4]

 

Now I'm torn on what to do with the R710.  Pure Windows Hyper-V box, ESXi, backup target for unRAID?  Decisions, decisions...

 

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