Advice on purchasing an LSI 9305-24i

[SRussell]

Getting back into IT after a few years and so much has changed in technology and Ebay. I am looking at the same controller from a US shipper and one in China.

From a US seller, new HBA with no 8643 cables for $249

LSI Logic 05-25699-00 9305-24i 24-Port SAS 12Gb/s pcie IT Mode Controller - US | eBay

Internal Connectors：6 x Mini SAS HD SFF 8643. Data Transfer Rate：12Gb/s SAS-3 Compliant. Internal Ports：24. We keep our promises that we will provide you with the best solution within 24 hours. Brackets：Full Height and Low Profile.

www.ebay.com

From a seller in China, new HBA with 6x 8643 cables for $259

NEW LSI Logic Controller Card IT Mode 9305-24i 24-Port SAS 12Gb/s 6* 8643 SATA | eBay

Fastest and safest way for making a. We are convinced you will.

www.ebay.com

Are LSI cards manufactured in China? I found several LSI 9300 that are stamped with made in China. I am not opposed to wherever the card is manufactured. I am hesitant that I might be buying a counterfeit card. Or, the card is made in the same factory but is not registered for LSI for future warranty support.

Greatly appreciate any advice and insight. Cheers

 

[unwind-protect]

I'm facing the same choice but I want longer cables than the included ones.

I wouldn't think the warranty can be used with either. But then you probably don't need it and for 24/7 you need to buy 2 controllers anyway.

 

[CyklonDX]

9305-24i makes little sense from performance point of view... 9300-16i sells for 50-80 usd,
in the end they have same max throughput (its same chip)
Do you really need 2 additional mini-sas connectors?

if you do its better deal to buy 2x 9300-16i/8i than 1x 9305-24i

 

[BLinux]

To help you guys out, if the model label doesn't have the assembly number, that's likely not legit. Also, if the S/N starts with XWxxxxx it's likely not legit. Being who I am and what I do, those vendors have reached out to me and literally told me they can print whatever S/N I want on the cards. LOL Most Broadcom legit S/N start with S, SP, SV, etc., at least from the 40000+ cards that I've seen.

For the 9305-24i, the assembly number should be 03-25699-xxxxx where the last 4 digits might vary. Also, on the legit 9305-24i cards I've gotten in my hands, the SAS ports usually have port number labels on them, but that's not hard to replicate so I wouldn't use that as the only indicator, but I do seem to see the ones that are suspect tend not to have the SAS port labels.

Broadcom have had these manufactured in China and Thailand too. So, the country of origin is probably not a good indicator of legitimacy.

Also, if you just outright ask the vendor if they are selling legitimate broadcom/LSI cards, they are usually not going to lie. If they know the cards are not legit Broadcom cards, they will either not respond, or they'll come back and say the cards are "OEM" without specifying for which brand. If they are legit, they will usually respond quickly to confirm.

That's at least what I would do if you have concerns about getting a counterfeit or not official Broadcom card.

 

[BLinux]

9305-24i makes little sense from performance point of view... 9300-16i sells for 50-80 usd,
in the end they have same max throughput (its same chip)
Do you really need 2 additional mini-sas connectors?

if you do its better deal to buy 2x 9300-16i/8i than 1x 9305-24i

The port density does present some issues. But, for the HDD use case, you need about 48Gbps of I/O bandwidth, the PCIe 3x8 bus has 62Gbps so that is enough for 24x HDD use case. But for sure, if using SAS-2 or SAS-3 SSDs, the PCIe bus is not enough and using 2 cards to double the PCIe bandwidth might be beneficial. The SAS3224 chip can do over 1M IOPS per broadcom's claim.

 

[mattventura]

9305-24i makes little sense from performance point of view... 9300-16i sells for 50-80 usd,
in the end they have same max throughput (its same chip)
Do you really need 2 additional mini-sas connectors?

if you do its better deal to buy 2x 9300-16i/8i than 1x 9305-24i

I wouldn't buy a 9300-16i. It's just two 9300-8is and a PLX chip, so it uses a lot of power (there's a reason it has a PCIe 6-pin power connector).


To OP:

If you're running spinners, a 9300-8i and an 82885T expander is fine, costs a fraction of the price, and only requires one extra cable.

If you're actually running 24 SAS SSDs directly, and don't want to bottleneck through an expander, then 9600-24is are also about $240 from eBay (could be a fake/remanufactured but you run that risk with any ebay card). This future-proofs you a bit more since you're getting a SAS4 PCIe 4.0 card for the same price as you were planning to pay for a SAS3 card.

Not to mention, 24 SSDs on one card will just bottleneck on the PCIe connection, even with the 9600's PCIe gen4. You would need 288gb/s for 24 SAS3 drives, while a PCIe x8 card will only give you 64gb/s for gen3 or 128gb/s for gen4.

Also, OP, how were you planning on mounting 24 drives? If this is a server chassis, check if there's an expander backplane available for it, since that could save both cost and cables.

 

[CyklonDX]

(there's a reason it has a PCIe 6-pin power connector).

The 6pin was only added for certain slots that have limits of 25W. You can run without it on normal pcie ports that supply up to 75W

 

[mattventura]

The 6pin was only added for certain slots that have limits of 25W. You can run without it on normal pcie ports that supply up to 75W

That's a lot for an HBA. The 9305 has a typical consumption of 16.2W (even for the 24i version) versus 27W for the 9300-16i.

 

[CyklonDX]

so op can spend 2-4x more $ to save 11W in use. // i don't think it will return in itself in 5 years.
To each their own, i use 9300-16i and i'm quite happy with it (2 separate backplanes in the system)

 

[GaPony54]

FWIW, I wouldn't go this route. For my new 24-bay build I went with the LSI 9300-8i and the Adaptec 82885T 12 Gbs SAS expander. All in for about $150.00, I lose 4 ports on each card, but still net 28 internal ports, plus I end up with 8 external ports for future expansion to a DAS, or NAS, or something else.

 

[bleomycin]

FWIW, I wouldn't go this route. For my new 24-bay build I went with the LSI 9300-8i and the Adaptec 82885T 12 Gbs SAS expander. All in for about $150.00, I lose 4 ports on each card, but still net 28 internal ports, plus I end up with 8 external ports for future expansion to a DAS, or NAS, or something else.

I don't mean to hijack the thread too badly but I have a situation where I've run out of pcie lanes but want to add more nvme storage by utilizing some of the pcie add-in cards with plx chips onboard.

I have an old norco 4224 4U 24 bay chassis with sff-8087 backplanes. Right now I've got a 9400-16i serving 16 of the 3.5" bays and another older sas3008 card plugged into the remaining 8 3.5" bays. I'm only serving spinning rust for media and backups so speed isn't a concern for any of these drives outside of zfs scrubs and rebuilds.

I'd like to eliminate the old sas3008 card and replace it with an expander to free up the pcie lanes but i'm not sure if the Adaptec 82885T is total overkill for this? The spec sheet for the Adaptec 82885T also indicates it is a pcie x4 card so I wasn't sure if it used the pcie slot purely for power or if it is also going to be consuming pcie lanes itself basically defeating the purpose for me?

Ideally i'd like an expander that doesn't need to be plugged into a pcie slot at all, this is a homelab after all I can just mount it somewhere else in the case and use that slot for something else.

 

[mattventura]

I'd like to eliminate the old sas3008 card and replace it with an expander to free up the pcie lanes but i'm not sure if the Adaptec 82885T is total overkill for this? The spec sheet for the Adaptec 82885T also indicates it is a pcie x4 card so I wasn't sure if it used the pcie slot purely for power or if it is also going to be consuming pcie lanes itself basically defeating the purpose for me?

Ideally i'd like an expander that doesn't need to be plugged into a pcie slot at all, this is a homelab after all I can just mount it somewhere else in the case and use that slot for something else.

It uses the slot purely for power. If you can find a way to mount it, you can power it via the 4-pin molex instead.