We have an old server that I want to re-purpose. It currently sits in a Supermicro 3U SC836TQ chassis, with a 16 port direct attached SAS backplane. We want to fully popular the chassis with 16 drives and RAID them. My question is, what is the most cost effective way of doing this? A 16 port RAID controller card, or a expander backplane and a standard 8 port controller card?
16 port RAID controller or something else?
- Thread starter eroji
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Does it have to be hardware raid? If you are running Linux then you can use ZFS - then you can use two simple HBA cards. Probably much cheaper than a HW raid card.
Of course you also have to have two free PCIe slots too.
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Of course you also have to have two free PCIe slots too.
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This is going to be a video recording server, which we want to run on Windows Server. It does support Linux but the motherboard does not have enough ports to wire up all 16 ports, so we would need a HBA at least if we wanted to go that route. Hardware RAID would be ideal.
The only bottleneck is the backplane. If I went with a expander flavor I can get a regular 9211-8i, and perhaps virtualize FreeNAS under ESXi and a Windows Server to host the server software. Although that just adds additional complexity. Another choice is just pay up for a 16 port RAID card then raid 5/6 the drives put Windows Server directly on it.
The only bottleneck is the backplane. If I went with a expander flavor I can get a regular 9211-8i, and perhaps virtualize FreeNAS under ESXi and a Windows Server to host the server software. Although that just adds additional complexity. Another choice is just pay up for a 16 port RAID card then raid 5/6 the drives put Windows Server directly on it.
The one I would probably get is: LSI 9305-16i x8 lane, PCIe 3.0 Low Profile SAS SAS 9305 12 Gb/s SAS Host Bus Ada (with ebay 2% cash back)
But... this would be #2 on my list. I just ordered two of the 8-port models to give them a try: Adaptec HBA 1000-16i 2288400-R 16-Port 12Gb/s SAS SATA Host Bus Adapter Card 12G
Then use software RAID.
But... this would be #2 on my list. I just ordered two of the 8-port models to give them a try: Adaptec HBA 1000-16i 2288400-R 16-Port 12Gb/s SAS SATA Host Bus Adapter Card 12G
Then use software RAID.
How's this? LSI MegaRAID SAS 9260-16i: 16-port 6Gb/s SATA + SAS Raid controller
We don't need the fastest controller, and RAID6 is what I'm leaning towards.
We don't need the fastest controller, and RAID6 is what I'm leaning towards.
I've not had good luck with Adaptec RAID controllers on 2012 R2 or 2016 TPs.
I'd stick to 3ware branded cards or LSI cards.
I'd stick to 3ware branded cards or LSI cards.