SATA Card (SOLVED)


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7 minutes ago, Sparky678911 said:

does it matter which card i get

Yes.

 

8 minutes ago, Sparky678911 said:

will i need drivers or will Unraid install itself

You can't install drivers, use one of the recommended controllers and Unraid will have the driver, how many additional ports do you need/want?

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55 minutes ago, Sparky678911 said:

sata card

 

will this be ok 

 

Avoid that card and ANY card with a Marvell chipset.  They are problematic with later versions of the Linux kernel and are known to drop drives or not show them connected in the first place.

 

That card you linked is even worse because it has a port multiplier to get it to six ports in a x1 PCIe slot.  This is too many ports for x1.  In x1 you should generally not have more than two SATA ports in most cases.

 

Look for something based on ASMedia 1061/1062 (2-port), JMB582 (2-port), JMB585 (5-port) - like the one JorgeB mentioned - or LSI chips that can be cross flashed to IT mode if necessary.  The LSI chips will support 8+ SATA ports in an x8 slot and many are using them in x4 depending on the PCIe version supported.

 

I personally am using an 8-port Dell H310 I got as a server pull from eBay for US$30.  I cross flashed it to IT mode and have 7 drives connected to it.  It is based on the LSI SAS2008 (PCIe 2.0) chip

Edited by Hoopster
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As @JorgeB has noted frequently in these forums, the recommended LSI based cards are the following:

 

"Any LSI with a SAS2008/2308/3008 chipset in IT mode, e.g., 9201-8i, 9211-8i, 9207-8i, 9300-8i, etc and clones, like the Dell H200/H310 and IBM M1015, these latter ones need to be crossflashed."

 

Of course, if you don't want/need 8+ SATA ports, you can go with one of the other chipsets mentioned.  eBay and similar markets are good places to find inexpensive used LSI based cards.

Edited by Hoopster
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1 hour ago, Sparky678911 said:

Card 1

 

Card 2

 

i found these two cards the first gives me 3 ports but lets me a extra storage 

 

second 5 ports which would i be best with thank for help 

Yes, those should work as they support three and five drives with the JMB585 controller in an x4 slot.  I agree the second one is a better choice if all you need is SATA ports.

 

The first option also supports two M.2 cards and being PCIe 3.0 it has a 1 GB/s bandwidth per lane for a total of 4 GB/s. That's the theoretical limit and in actual practice it will probably have total usable bandwidth of about 3 GB/s. 

 

HDDs only needs about 200-250 MB/s even in best cases scenarios (which rarely are achieved) so you would need 750 MB/s max for SATA-connected HDDs leaving a little over 1 GB/s available for each of the M.2 cards.

 

Just a note of caution: it is not recommended to connect SATA SSDs to these controllers as they do not support TRIM operations.  Connect SATA SSDs to motherboard SATA ports.

Edited by Hoopster
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/8/2020 at 9:22 AM, Hoopster said:

I personally am using an 8-port Dell H310 I got as a server pull from eBay for US$30.  I cross flashed it to IT mode and have 7 drives connected to it.  It is based on the LSI SAS2008 (PCIe 2.0) chip

This is a great idea/value. I found this one on eBay:

 

https://www.ebay.com/p/1403879837

 

I have an older system that only has 4 sata2 ports on it. I could use another couple ports too keep it going until i commit to a new build.

 

Does the referenced card have to be cross flashed? If so could you recommend a walk though for it? I found a couple sites but if you have a suggestion that would be great.

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I was looking through eBay and found some cards, like the one below, that looked like they are already have been flashed in IT MODE. Any concerns with purchasing one like this?

 

Found some spec online that show the below card is PCI-E GEN2, I'm guessing it would be compatible with a PCI-E GEN1 port?

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-9220-8i-IBM-M1015-SAS-P20-IT-Mode-For-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID-6Gbps-SAS-HBA-US/132628525944?hash=item1ee146b378:g:9XgAAOSwLEhdS~IC

 

 

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1 hour ago, jay010101 said:

I was looking through eBay and found some cards, like the one below, that looked like they are already have been flashed in IT MODE. Any concerns with purchasing one like this?

If it has already has been cross-flashed with IT firmware, it's ready to go with unRAID.

 

PCIe gen 1.0 has only 250 MB/s bandwidth per lane and, realistically, you will get only 200 MB/s max. after the overhead.  That is right on the limit of what you can expect with most HDDs.  A few of the faster ones may perform at over 200 MB/s, but, not much.

 

Don't connect any SATA SSDs to the card or you will severely limit their throughput and you may find that at PCIe 1.0, especially with a lot of drives connected to it, that it may limit HDD performance somewhat as well.

 

It should certainly work as PCIe is backwards compatible with older versions, you will just be limited to PCIe 1.0 bandwidth.  If you plan to use all 8 SATA ports it should definitely be installed in an x8 PCIe slot.

Edited by Hoopster
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