Do I need a SAS card?

[kapone]

They're Sandisk x300 128Gb sata drives. I plan on running pfsense, Plex, some game servers, FTP, Web hosting. I just want the most speed possible
for future use cases.

12x128gb disks = ~1.5TB worth of total disk space. I'm assuming...you're not gonna use RAID0...so the final amount of disk space will be even less.

If that's roughly inline with your storage needs...a single PCIe disk/flash accelerator (that has drivers for ProxMox) would be way better. 1.2TB or even 3.2TB PCIe disks can had for not too much money. And no HBA...no cables...no raid...no multiple disks...

 

[itronin]

They're Sandisk x300 128Gb sata drives. I plan on running pfsense, Plex, some game servers, FTP, Web hosting. I just want the most speed possible
for future use cases.

do you already have these drives? Are they new? If used, or you've been using them you may want to look at the write stats.

hmmm 65TB write endurance...

Your use cases sound like they could be more/mostly read-intensive today. If you are thinking of "the future" and you don't own the drives you might want to consider something else though.

 

[itronin]

If that's roughly inline with your storage needs...a single PCIe disk/flash accelerator (that has drivers for ProxMox) would be way better. 1.2TB or even 3.2TB PCIe disks can had for not too much money. And no HBA...no cables...no raid...no multiple disks...

or even better like @kapone says do the PCIE (x2 for at least a mirror), plan out your HBA (9211-8i, 9300-8i) and when your plex media collection grows you can put in some large cap spinners and 12 will absolutely not tax either of those HBA's.

 

[nivedita]

It doesn't.

Interesting. Wiredzone listing says these have LSI SAS3x28 expander chips, and the doc says it does do buffering. Maybe there's some configuration that SMC didn't do on the backplane?

 

[i386]

And would it matter which two I plug into the HBA card so the expander works?

No, sas is a switched protocol. You could use any of the multi sas ports.

This is actually a question I've had -- with SATA drives attached to an expander, does the HBA/expander (assuming both HBA and expander are SAS3) link still operate at 12Gbps or does it get limited to 6Gbps?

Interesting. Wiredzone listing says these have LSI SAS3x28 expander chips, and the doc says it does do buffering. Maybe there's some configuration that SMC didn't do on the backplane?

It doesn't.

This feature works with sas3 hba/controllers and sas3 expanders, broadcom calls it's "databolt".

Screenshot from a sata exos x16 behind a sas3 expander connected to a sas3 raid controller:

They're Sandisk x300 128Gb sata drives. I plan on running pfsense, Plex, some game servers, FTP, Web hosting. I just want the most speed possible
for future use cases.

If you're still looking for drives check "husmh8020bss204" on ebay, these are the last sas ssds with the hgst brand and they are <$40 on ebay.
Spec sheet: https://promotions.newegg.com/b2b/HGST/15-1527/images/imgs/pdf/Ultrastar_SSD800MH.B_specs_sheet.pdf
These models are the high endurance models which are even better than the "husmm" ssds that sth likes

 

[Jonnyswboy]

12x128gb disks = ~1.5TB worth of total disk space. I'm assuming...you're not gonna use RAID0...so the final amount of disk space will be even less.

If that's roughly inline with your storage needs...a single PCIe disk/flash accelerator (that has drivers for ProxMox) would be way better. 1.2TB or even 3.2TB PCIe disks can had for not too much money. And no HBA...no cables...no raid...no multiple disks...

or even better like @kapone says do the PCIE (x2 for at least a mirror), plan out your HBA (9211-8i, 9300-8i) and when your plex media collection grows you can put in some large cap spinners and 12 will absolutely not tax either of those HBA's.

No, sas is a switched protocol. You could use any of the multi sas ports.



This feature works with sas3 hba/controllers and sas3 expanders, broadcom calls it's "databolt".

Screenshot from a sata exos x16 behind a sas3 expander connected to a sas3 raid controller:
View attachment 17828

If you're still looking for drives check "husmh8020bss204" on ebay, these are the last sas ssds with the hgst brand and they are <$40 on ebay.
Spec sheet: https://promotions.newegg.com/b2b/HGST/15-1527/images/imgs/pdf/Ultrastar_SSD800MH.B_specs_sheet.pdf
These models are the high endurance models which are even better than the "husmm" ssds that sth likes

I already have the 12 disks. I do like the idea of just getting one 3.2TB NVMe and when I outgrow it I can throw in an HBA card so I would have fast storage and slower high capacity storage as well.

What disks support ProxMox drivers and what is the function of the driver? What is an affordable SSD that you would recommend that's under $500? If possible I would like to spend a little less like closer to $300.

Do you think this would serve me well?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/721458-B21-HP-3TB-PCI-E-FH-HL-G2-SSD-ioDrive2-I-O-Accelerator-HP-ProLiant-Server/

or

https://www.ebay.com/itm/F13-004-3200-CS-0001-FUSION-IO-3-2TB-FUDHION-IO-PCI-E-MLC-SOLID-STATE-DRIVE/

 

[itronin]

@Jonnyswboy When I click on your links - I just get an error.

IIRC (reading) you need to add the driver to proxmox for fusion IO. I'm not sure what the current state is.
Make note that you have a 2U server (you spec'ed an 826 backplane) so you are limited to HH cards.

Personally I'm a fan of the intel p3605, HH, x4, 8+PB endurance @ 1.6TB and it uses the OS's nvme drivers (Linux, FreeBSD/TNC, Windows). Certainly not the fastest nvme out there but typically they just work. Not too long ago these were going for about 169-179USD but it looks like these are about 300USD now. If you had the time you could wait a bit and see if another dump of the p3605's occurs.

There are also the samsung pm1725 / Sun/Oracle F320's... those seem to be running about 500USD again straight up nvme drive.

 

[Jonnyswboy]

@Jonnyswboy When I click on your links - I just get an error.

IIRC (reading) you need to add the driver to proxmox for fusion IO. I'm not sure what the current state is.
Make note that you have a 2U server (you spec'ed an 826 backplane) so you are limited to HH cards.

Personally I'm a fan of the intel p3605, HH, x4, 8+PB endurance @ 1.6TB and it uses the OS's nvme drivers (Linux, FreeBSD/TNC, Windows). Certainly not the fastest nvme out there but typically they just work. Not too long ago these were going for about 169-179USD but it looks like these are about 300USD now. If you had the time you could wait a bit and see if another dump of the p3605's occurs.

There are also the samsung pm1725 / Sun/Oracle F320's... those seem to be running about 500USD again straight up nvme drive.

I've decided against the PCIe SSD and am thinking of getting
(RAID 5) 5x 1TB SAS HDD's (something like this Dell 400-ALQF - Dell 1TB 3.5" Nearline SAS 7.2K 12Gb/s Hard Drive - Newegg.com)
(RAID 5) 7x 128GB SSD's for some fast storage. (Already own these)

For RAID card I am torn between an LSI 4/8i RAID Card or a cheap HBA card with software raid. I am not sure what the headroom of software raid will be and if it will significantly effect my speed. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the potential bandwidth limitations of some RAID/HBA cards. I should be okay with a 4i card w/ single HD Mini-SAS port at 4800MB/s, but part of me wants an 8i for 'future proofing'.

Also I should have no issue running SAS and SATA disks at once right?

Would having two RAID arrays cause issues either HW or SW raid?