So I have an old norco 4220 case that I am going to be reusing for moving over to unraid. What kind of expansion card should I be looking at, Should I use SAS or sata cards. (Backplane is mini sas, but I do have reverse breakout cables if needed)

Unit supports 20 drives so I would need cards that support at least 8 drives. 

I have read people using a Dell H310 and then something about flashing it to IT mode. (Not sure what that is)

 

Update: Could I take this card: 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-SAS-9211-8i-8-port-6Gb-s-Internal-IT-MODE-ZFS-JBOD-HBA-IR-MODE-RAID/352612690487?hash=item52195aaa37:m:mbEDowx1AV5jIlfu6fiaMHg

and connect it to this card:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Expander-for-HDD-SSD-RES2SV240-PCIe-x8-6G-SAS-SATA-24-Port-E91267-203/133063317075?hash=item1efb311653:g:WE4AAOSwLgZc6PJH

So I would connect the second card to the first card and then use the second card to connect to the backplane (Card 2 would give me 20 drive support) and in the future i could connect another card like the second one to the first card for another 20 drive support?

 

and will there be a drive size issue. I have read something about a 2Tb cap?

 

What cards (that are inexpensive) would you recommend and why?

 

Thanks. (Looking forward to joining the unraid era)

Edited September 27, 20196 yr by almulder

 

 

Thanks so much, looks like that answered all my question. I did search but got overwhelmed in reading through them, these helped perfectly.

31 minutes ago, almulder said:

Thanks so much, looks like that answered all my question. I did search but got overwhelmed in reading through them, these helped perfectly.

No problem, glad I could help.