Card recommendation with 24 internal SAS/SATA ports for ESXi and FreeNAS

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AlphaG

Active Member
Jun 8, 2017
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Currently I'm running three Dell H310 cards (IT mode) running the 24 individual ports in my Supermicro 24-bay server. I'm basically out of expansion slots, partly because of this. Plan was to experiment with adding a graphics card to pass through to the Win10 VM running Plex Media Server for hardware transcoding help.

Are there currently any IT mode capable cards that would serve my needs? The 24I and 4E ports that a MegaRAID 9280 24i4e supports seems ideal. I can even use the 4e for external chassis expansion I suppose down the road.

Anyone have success in cross flashing these? Or any other suggestions?
 

cesmith9999

Well-Known Member
Mar 26, 2013
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get 2 * LSI 16I cards...

they have come down in price lately...

that will allow you to reclaim 1 slot...

Chris
 

nthu9280

Well-Known Member
Feb 3, 2016
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San Antonio, TX
Here are some options I can think of:


@vanfawx and another member have successfully flashed 2208 based cards to IT mode. I don't know if 9280 is based on the LSI SAS2208 or not. Here is the link to the thread.
https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/lsi-9270-8i-it-mode.16085/
 

EffrafaxOfWug

Radioactive Member
Feb 12, 2015
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I was in a similar situation myself recently and needed a 16 port HBA; ultimately I ended up buying a brand new LSI 9305-16i because:
a) as cesmith9999 mentions, price on this card has dropped noticeably over the last few months
b) older/lower tier 16-port HBAs were either rocking horse poo, massively expensive or suspiciously cheap from china (for instance there's dozens of sellers of 9201-16i's from china unloading them at under £100)
c) I didn't find anyone listing cross-flashable OEM cards for >8 ports
c) SAS expanders were only marginally cheaper than the 16i card

Last I looked the 9305-24i was only marginally more expensive than the 16i (as I believe they've got the same chip inside) but this'll depend heavily on what prices are like where you're buying.
 
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