Advice on expander

[Froberg]

Hi all.

I'm running the ASRock Rack C2750D4I on my primary system, and I'm currently in the process of setting up a second unraid box to replace my zyxel NAS for backup duty, as I wanted to use resilio sync. Good news, is that there's another unraid license, right there.

Anyway, the backup box came with a small raid card that gives a whopping 1.5GBPS for four channels in a standard PCI slot - which got me thinking, that I've long been given hints that I really should do something about my marvell controller addiction on my main server.

 

So here's what the manual says about the various slots and ports:

PCIE slot:  PCIE1 (PCIE 2.0 x8 slot) is used for PCI Express x8 lane width cards. 

SATA Controller
C2750D4I / C2750D4I+: Intel® C2750 : 2 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s, 4 x SATA2 3.0 Gb/s
Additional SATA  Controller
- Marvell SE9172: 2 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s, support RAID 0, 1 - Marvell SE9230: 4 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s, support RAID 0, 1, 1

 

My current configuration is: 6 hard drives in 2x4 bay hot-swap bays.

Two SSD's / 256GB for cache/appdata.
As you can clearly see, this layout wouldn't be possible without dipping my toes in to the marvell controllers.

 

My plan is using this: https://www.ebay.com/c/150983775

together with these cables: https://www.computersalg.dk/i/433519/lsi-ata-sas-kabel-4-lane-36-pin-4i

 

or https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Perc-H310-SATA-SAS-HBA-Controller-RAID-6Gbps-PCIe-x8-8087-SATA-Cable/153212029835?_trkparms=aid%3D1110001%26algo%3DSPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D40719%26meid%3Dd439da0870f04b4c94b18b9213a60e8b%26pid%3D101072%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D142020669585%26itm%3D153212029835%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2546172&_trksid=p2546172.c101072.m2109 since it's a complete kit...

 

or, again, https://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-SAS-9210-8i-8-port-6Gb-s-PCIe-x8-HBA-RAID-SATA-Controller-card-M1015-9211-8I/142676057533?_trkparms=aid%3D1110001%26algo%3DSPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D40719%26meid%3Dd439da0870f04b4c94b18b9213a60e8b%26pid%3D101072%26rk%3D6%26rkt%3D12%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D142020669585%26itm%3D142676057533%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2546172&_trksid=p2546172.c101072.m2109 this one, if it's better performing or something, together with aforementioned cables. 

 

That would provide the eight S-ATA slots I require if I want to populate all my HDD bays.

I would then use the two Intel 6Gb/s slots for the SSD cache.

 

Is this viable? Any better alternatives?

[Froberg]

Looks like the latter one would be supported out of the box, too. Really just need a confirmation either way so I don't make a costly mistake, as the import duties on items from China is not something to laugh about here.

Anyone.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-SAS-9210-8i-8-port-6Gb-s-PCIe-RAID-SATA-Controller-card-2pcs-SFF-8087-cable/192859683728?hash=item2ce7553b90:g:UIcAAOSwvQdcjM2C

[JorgeB]

All those LSI are fine, though might need flashing to IT mode or cross flashing in case of the Dell.

 

As for the cables just make sure they are forward breakout. 

[Froberg]

2 hours ago, johnnie.black said:

All those LSI are fine, though might need flashing to IT mode or cross flashing in case of the Dell.

 

As for the cables just make sure they are forward breakout. 

Thanks man. They look to be, AFAICT.