I have a dell PowerEdge T30 sever. Looking to add additional hard drives on top of the 4 onboard sata connections. Which PCI Express expansion cards would you all recommend?  

 

Thanks in advance for your help/suggestions. 

Edited December 26, 20187 yr by JohnSracic

1 hour ago, JohnSracic said:

I have a dell PowerEdge T30 sever. Looking to add additional hard drives on top of the 4 onboard sata connections. Which PCI Express expansion cards would you all recommend?  

 

Thanks in advance for your help/suggestions. 

I just put this in my rig it was plug and play no setup required

 

Dell H310 6Gbps SAS HBA w/ LSI 9211-8i P20 IT Mode for ZFS FreeNAS unRAID

Perfect!  Thank you very much.  Where would you suggest the best location to purchase this from? 

2 hours ago, JohnSracic said:

Perfect!  Thank you very much.  Where would you suggest the best location to purchase this from? 

I just bought one on eBay (the best place to find genuine server pulls).

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-3P0R3-PERC-H310-PCIe-RAID-Controller/223286565043?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

 

This one is not flashed to IT mode, I will do that myself.  However, there are plenty of LSI chip-based cards available on eBay.  Many are already flashed to IT mode.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-H310-6Gbps-SAS-HBA-w-LSI-9211-8i-P20-IT-Mode-for-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID/162834659601?epid=19006955695&hash=item25e9b3b911:g:NjgAAOSwqRlcAIRn:sc:USPSPriorityMailSmallFlatRateBox!84058!US!-1:rk:2:pf:1&frcectupt=true

 

If you get something like an LSI 9211-8i (PCIe 2.0) or LSI 9207-81 (PCIe 3.0) you don't have to worry about flashing those either.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/H3-25412-00H-LSI-Logic-SAS-9207-8i-SATA-SAS-6Gb-s-PCIe-3-0-Host-Bus-Adapter/153314087948?hash=item23b23b540c:g:UTAAAOSwxZxcHthS:sc:USPSFirstClass!84058!US!-1:rk:2:pf:1&frcectupt=true

 

Beware of fakes from China.

Edited December 26, 20187 yr by Hoopster