Adaptec 72405 to Replace Existing Array on LSI 9210-8i ?

[jivetrky]

I current have a Supermicro X8DTL-3F, with a GTX 1060, LSI 9210-8i, and HP SAS Expander.

 

I have 15 HDD attached, with A few SSD attached to the onboard ports.

 

With this setup, speed it pretty blah.  I haven't really looked into it, but I'm afraid the SAS Expander may still have firmware limiting it to 3gbps.   Even my SSDs are really slowed by the onboard ports, also 3gbps (with no ability to flash the onboard SAS)

 

What started this is that I think both onboard NICS are becoming flaky because they both often drop to 100mb , no matter the CAT 6 cable I try.  This is both connected to my dumb switch or to my edgerouter.  So I was going to throw in a PCIE add-on card to hopefully fix that issue.   The problem is, my GTX 1660 can only fit in the x16 slot and it covers the slot below it.  The 8x slot has the LSI, the bottom PCIE has the SAS expander.

 

I know I just need to upgrade all around.  I've been eyeing some decent used Supermicro setups from the server store.com, but need to keep this closer to the $100 range for now.    I can get a 24 port Adaptec 72405 for that price (of course I have to change all my cables because of the sff-8643 ports).   My question is, will switching from the LSI in IT mode to the Adaptec in HBA mode cause me problems with my existing array?

 

Other thought, which would be even cheaper, if it works, I believe the SAS expander only gets power from the PCIE slot, so could I find somewhere else to mount it in the case and perhaps use something similar to this to power it? (Just the 1x slot and power cable, not the other half) Then I have a free slot for the NIC adapter.  Of course this doesn't help with my drive performance at all, but maybe while I have the expander pulled, I could see about the firmware upgrade for 6gbps.

 

 

So yeah, TLDR is basically could I safely move my array from the LSI card to the Adaptec card?  I think I read somewhere that the HBA mode isn't quite the same as IT mode, so unraid might not recognize the drives after attached to the Adaptec?   OR  could I get away with powering the expander card, not using the board slot, but something like the thing I linked above?

 

Thanks everyone in advance!

[debit lagos]

Did you ever make this move?  Curious on the experience.  Thanks.

[DoeBoye]

On 6/19/2020 at 2:58 AM, jivetrky said:

So yeah, TLDR is basically could I safely move my array from the LSI card to the Adaptec card?  I think I read somewhere that the HBA mode isn't quite the same as IT mode, so unraid might not recognize the drives after attached to the Adaptec?   OR  could I get away with powering the expander card, not using the board slot, but something like the thing I linked above?

 

Thanks everyone in advance!

I moved to an Adaptec 72405 more than a year ago, and though the initial setup was a bit of a pain, it's been working without issue since. Here's a thread documenting the situation.

 

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/83895-please-explain-what-is-happening-with-my-adaptec-72405/?tab=comments#comment-777570