8 port that will work out of the box?

[CMM]

Getting my parts together i am stuck on finding a new 8 port card that will work out of the box. Seems they are all used and referb. What is the failure rate of these cards is the only reason i want new.

 

Does it matter if you mix what your HDD's are connected to? if i where to connect 3 HDD's to my motherboard and 6 to a LSI card.

 

Thanks

[Hoopster]

1 hour ago, CMM said:

Getting my parts together i am stuck on finding a new 8 port card that will work out of the box. Seems they are all used and referb. What is the failure rate of these cards is the only reason i want new.

 

Does it matter if you mix what your HDD's are connected to? if i where to connect 3 HDD's to my motherboard and 6 to a LSI card.

If you want new, get an LSI/Broadcom card configured as an HBA and not a RAID card.

 

I would not personally worry about a used card from eBay or something similar.  Make sure it is genuine and a server pull and not some Chinese knock off.  These are server cards intended for a long service life in a environment that is probably harsher than your unRAID server.  There are hundreds (probably thousands) of these used LSI (and clones) cards in use in unRAID servers and other NAS environments.

 

No problem, mixing hard drives connected to MB SATA ports and HBAs.  I have 4 drives connected to the MB SATA ports and 4 to an 8-port Dell H310 (LSI clone purchased from eBay and cross-flashed to IT mode).

 

You want to connect SATA SSDs to the motherboard anyway as those ports support TRIM.  Many HBAs do not support TRIM operations on SSDs, although, if you buy a new one, it may.

[CMM]

Do they have do be config in IT mode to work with unRAID?

 

What 8 port or 16 port if the price isn't to high would you suggest?

 

Thanks

[KoNeko]

19 minutes ago, CMM said:

Do they have do be config in IT mode to work with unRAID?

 

What 8 port or 16 port if the price isn't to high would you suggest?

 

Thanks

i was looking at

https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/accessories/addon/AOC-S3008L-L8e.php

this is a 8 port that is already configed in IT/HBA mode but also have a other one a LSI  only im not sure this supermicro will work on anyother mainboard than supermirco.

Edited May 3, 2020 by KoNeko

[Hoopster]

1 hour ago, CMM said:

Do they have do be config in IT mode to work with unRAID?

Yes, highly recommended.  There are ways to get unRAID to possibly recognize disks attached to a controller in RAID mode, but, it is really not worth the effort and potential problems down the road if you want to attach the disks to a different controller.

 

unRAID is not RAID, you cannot use a RAID controller with disks in RAID mode or they will not be recognized by unRAID.  In general, cards based on LSI /Broadcom 2008, 2308 and 3008 chipsets work well with unRAID either natively configured or cross-flashed to IT mode.  Some LSI chipsets are RAID only and cannot be cross-flashed to IT mode.  Make sure you know what chipset the card is using and check if IT firmware is available for it.

 

Controllers that use these chipsets are the 9201-8i, 9211-8i, 9207-8i, 9300-8i and others.  There are also various clones like the Dell H200/H310 and IBM M1015.  The clones are natively configured with RAID firmware so you (or someone else) will need to cross flash them with IT firmware.

 

For 16-port options there are the LSI 9201-16i and the 9305-16i.

[tjb_altf4]

I got a pair of Dell H310s (9211-8i) off the art of server on ebay, he will flash to IT mode as part of his service.

[CMM]

How hard are they to flash and how do you even know if they have IT mode already flashed?

 

The ones on Amazon do not say?

[Hoopster]

6 hours ago, CMM said:

How hard are they to flash and how do you even know if they have IT mode already flashed?

 

The ones on Amazon do not say?

I flashed the Dell H310 I got off eBay.  On a couple of steps, I had to do some things manually and deviate from the instructions, but, I got it flashed after a couple of hours of fiddling around.

 

There is a thread in these forums dedicated to helping you cross-flash LSI (and clones) cards to IT firmware.  On eBay the listing will definitely indicate if it has been pre-flashed to IT mode.  The seller "The Art of the Server" specializes in server pulls which he often flashes to IT mode.  There are others who do it as well.

 

In general, if it does not say it is in IT mode (from any seller on any platform) assume it is not.  You could always contact the seller and ask.  Some may even do it for you if it has not already been done.