Card recommendation needed

[smjameel93]

Current situation:

First of all, the system is a Windows 10 PC used mainly for gaming and multimedia consumption, all drives are SATA.


I have been using my motherboard’s Intel RST and JMicron chipsets to drive my hard drives.

I do not have any issues with performance, but I needed more storage and do not have any empty ports.
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Drives currently installed:

1. Samsung 850 EVO 250GB
2. Samsung 850 EVO 250GB
3. Western Digital 4TB Green WD40EZRX
4. Western Digital 4TB Green WD40EZRX
5. Western Digital 1TB Green WD10EACS
6. Western Digital 500GB Black WD5001AALS
7. TOSHIBA HDD2L01 750GB MK7575GSX
8. TOSHIBA HDD2H21 500GB MK5055GSX
9. Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS

Current setup:

• Drives 1&2 are configured in a RAID0 array, which holds the OS and few games.
• The RAID0 array is mirrored weekly to drive 6, which can be used to boot the system in case of RAID failure (none yet).
• Drives 3&4 are configured in a RAID1 array; they hold two very light VMs, games archive, personal multimedia and documents.
• Drives 5, 8, 9 holds archived data.
• Drive 9 hosts a Windows 7 instillation directly assigned to a VM.
• Drives 5,7,8,9 are connected via an external eSATA port multiplier (PROBOX).

New Drives:

I have purchased 4x4TB drives, which I plan to setup in two RAID1 arrays.

1. Western Digital 4TB Blue WD40EZRZ
2. Western Digital 4TB Blue WD40EZRZ
3. Western Digital 4TB Blue WD40EZRZ
4. Western Digital 4TB Blue WD40EZRZ

Requirements:

• I would like to have three RAID1 arrays, each having 2x4TB drives.
• I would like to have the RAID0 array for my OS.
• I would like the possibility of migrating the RAID0 array to a RAID5 array.
• I would like to run the rest of the drives independently, as it, without any metadata.
• A card which supports SSD caching is a plus (not required).
• A card which supports PCIe 3.0 is a plus (not required).

Questions:

• I believe that I cannot have independent drives along with RAID drives in LSI controllers, is this true?
• Regarding the number of drives, I can’t possibly connect them all without an expander, directly only 8 drives are possible with most cards, thus, I plan on having
  • The 6x4TB drives (3 RAID1 arrays) on the card.
  • The RAID0 array on Intel RST, which gives me the possibility of upgrading to RAID5 in the future.
  • The rest of the drives directly connected to Intel's and JMicron's controllers (No port multiplier will be required).
• Is this the Best approach I can take, what are your recommendations, in terms of the actual hardware required, and the approach needed to implement the setup?

 

[i386]

All current (pcie 3.0 && sas3 capable) raid controllers* from Broadcom & Adaptec should meet your requirements.

*There are some controllers that are more of a hba and do "fake raid" 1,0 and 10, eg Adaptec controllers with the "e" suffix.

 

[raylangivens]

• I believe that I cannot have independent drives along with RAID drives in LSI controllers, is this true?

No, you can pretty much always (exceptions may exist) use single-drive-RAID0 for that.

 

[smjameel93]

All current (pcie 3.0 && sas3 capable) raid controllers* from Broadcom & Adaptec should meet your requirements.

*There are some controllers that are more of a hba and do "fake raid" 1,0 and 10, eg Adaptec controllers with the "e" suffix.

Thanks for your feedback,

Do you have any specific card that you would recommend based of your experience?

 

[smjameel93]

No, you can pretty much always (exceptions may exist) use single-drive-RAID0 for that.

I am aware of single-drive RAID0, however, I would like to be able keep those drives with a simple MBR/GPT partition map, without any metadata, thus, I can swap then in and out. I would like to be able to access those drives even if the RAID card fails.

I am well aware that IT Mode enable this, but I won't be able to setup my RAID1 mirrors in this mode. Thus, I think keeping them connected to the Motherboards controllers will be the best option.

Just to confirm, can a RAID1 drive (from an LSI RAID1 array) file system be accessed using other controllers?

 

[i386]

Adaptec 7 & 8 series expose the raw drives to the os if you don't put them in an array, not sure which generation of LSI/Broadcom megaraid controller started to support that feature.

For a recommended card: I would go for the latest version, Adaptec series 8 or Broadcom 9361 raid controller and choose whatever is cheaper for you.

In Germany the 81605zq (910€) was the cheapest config for 16 ports controller + ssd caching + cache protection (vs broadcom 9361-16i 810€ + cache cade ~250€ + cachevault +200€), so I got that one.

Edit: Fixed typos