does anyone know of a very small lsi controller that will support 8 sata drives?  I found the IBM 9211-4i ones on ebay, they look awesome, but only support 4 drives (https://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-H1110-81Y4494-9211-4i-FW-LSI-9211-8i-P20-IT-Mode-for-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID/224011559187?_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160811114145%26meid%3D7d7010ad5e704b9cba023414e6d02868%26pid%3D100667%26rk%3D8%26rkt%3D8%26mehot%3Dlo%26sd%3D303521684314%26itm%3D224011559187%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2334524%26brand%3DIBM&_trksid=p2334524.c100667.m2042)

 

I need it as small as possible as I'll be using it on a M.2 GPU riser board and it's in a very small ITX case.

 

I'm open to chipsets other than LSI, but no asmedia/jmicron/si junk

Edited May 24, 20206 yr by Abzstrak

That card is only a 4 port card.  Those models are only designed to fit into small enclosures.  You should be looking at LSI 9240-8I 6Gbps SAS HBA.  Such as this one:  https://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-9240-8I-6Gbps-SAS-HBA-LSI-9211-8i-FW-P20-IT-Mode-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID-US/133123367829?_trkparms=aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D225074%26meid%3D0d2fc60252eb4d1c8404562cfd8f2dd2%26pid%3D100012%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D12%26mehot%3Dag%26sd%3D224011559187%26itm%3D133123367829%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675%26algv%3DSimplAMLv5PairwiseWebWithBBEV2bDemotion%26brand%3DLSI&_trksid=p2047675.c100012.m1985

 

Yes its a bigger card but these cards are designed to be installed in servers and handle 8 drives.  If you have a very small case, I would recommend a nice mid tower.  I got 15 drives in mine.  If you only have 1x pcie slot I would recommend NOT using that slot as it performs very poorly with hard drives.  You could experience excessive pre-clear times because there are not enough data lines to support your drives.

 

You have not told us what motherboard you are using, or the case.  I am curious what you are using. 

yeah, I know its 4 port, thats why I said I like it but its only supports 4 drives.

 

I appreciate the help, but if anyone has any knowledge of a really samll lsi controller, please let me know.  I'm not changing the ITX case for a few additional 2.5" drives :)