Got A Really Good Deal On A Chasis, Don't Know What Cards To Get Now...

[TongyGX2]

Before I begin I currently have all my hard drives connected to SATA ports on my motherboard right now. This whole world of server racks is new to me, so please forgive me if I ask some really simple questions :/

So I recently got a used server rack and I'm not sure where to go from here:

Chenbro - Products

Now I want to move my SATA HDDs(which I have in a server running Windows 10 right now) to this rack. From my understanding, these connectors on the backplane are Mini-SAS:

Imgur

So what kind of controller card would you guys recommend to get to get these drives working? Right now I have 8 hard drives, but I'm looking to add more to this rack down the road. Not looking, to spend to much on these card(I don't need anything fancy, since I use software RAID in Windows rather than hardware). I'm still looking to run Windows 10, so it has to be compatible with Windows 10.

I was looking at getting two of these:

Fast-Boot No-MPT-BIOS 9207-8i PCI-E 3.0 LSI00301 IT Mode Card US-SameDayShip | eBay

Not sure if that's the best route for a beginner, so open to any suggestions...

Thanks!

 

[Marsh]

The 9207 card that you link is a HP H220 card , $35 SHIPPED , sometimes is even cheaper than $30
650933-B21 HP H220 6G SAS HOST BUS ADAPTER 886111525812 | eBay

Save $30 each by flashing the card yourself with IT firmware. The procedure takes about 5 min after you done the first time.

Lots of instruction on how to flash the card in this forum and web.

For cabling,
Search Ebay for "Mini SAS 36pin SFF-8087 to 8087" , check the length that you need.

 

[TongyGX2]

The 9207 card that you link is a HP H220 card , $35 SHIPPED , sometimes is even cheaper than $30
650933-B21 HP H220 6G SAS HOST BUS ADAPTER 886111525812 | eBay

Save $30 each by flashing the card yourself with IT firmware. The procedure takes about 5 min after you done the first time.

Lots of instruction on how to flash the card in this forum and web.

For cabling,
Search Ebay for "Mini SAS 36pin SFF-8087 to 8087" , check the length that you need.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm looking at grabbing two of these:

HP H220 9205-8I PCI-e 3.0 x8 Host Bus Adapter 660088-001 638834-001 Controller | eBay

The reason I wanted to get the card in my original post is due to it having a no MPT BIOS already(My server isn't on 24/7 and only gets turned on when needed, hence why the fast bootup would be nice).

From what I have gathered, is it difficult to flash these cards into IT mode and not include an MPT BIOS? After Googling there seems to be a lot of conflicting information.

 

[pricklypunter]

During the cross flashing procedure, you can decide to either include the bios, or not. It's all done at the same time as setting it to IT mode. There's nothing at all to be frightened of, these cards are almost bulletproof, 99% of the time you can recover them from a bad flash etc. Just a word of caution, a lot of these cards from the far east are actually knock off's, and not genuine. There are some good sellers in China, but there's also a lot of dodgy sellers openly flogging fake ones. My advice is buy from a reputable re-seller or recycler that has pulled them from a server during an upgrade etc

Welcome to the forums

 

[Spartacus]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm looking at grabbing two of these:

HP H220 9205-8I PCI-e 3.0 x8 Host Bus Adapter 660088-001 638834-001 Controller | eBay

The reason I wanted to get the card in my original post is due to it having a no MPT BIOS already(My server isn't on 24/7 and only gets turned on when needed, hence why the fast bootup would be nice).

From what I have gathered, is it difficult to flash these cards into IT mode and not include an MPT BIOS? After Googling there seems to be a lot of conflicting information.

Quite the opposite, all you do is exclude one line of about a 5 command flash process.
I've flashed several Dell PERC H310 and it would be easy to exclude the last line of the process.
I have the MPT BIOS on for mine, its only an extra 15 sec which is negligible on top of Supermicro's famously long boot.

If you want to pay the premium for the pre-flashed I don't blame ya, as prickly mentioned while there is nothing to be afraid of the task is daunting the first time.
If you're looking for a reputable seller check out ArtOfServer aka @BLinux here on the forums Items for sale by theartofserver | eBay
He costs a few dollars more, but stress tests all of the parts and ports before sending to ensure quality and he doesn't sell knock offs.
I'm sure you could ping him directly and work out a deal to have him remove the MPT.

 

[Marsh]

How to flash HP H200
Boot DOS , similar command if using UEFI

sas2flsh -list
save the output of list command to a text file , just in-case

sas2flsh.exe -o -e 6

Without BIOS
sas2flsh.exe -o -f 9207-8.bin

With BIOS
sas2flsh -o -f 9027-8.bin -b mptsas2.rom

sas2flsh -listall

See
https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/flashing-9207-lsi-card-it-mode.21796/

Probably takes longer to find the download site and download the file

 

[TongyGX2]

So I ended up getting two of these:

HP / LSI SAS 9205-8i H220 Host Bus adapter 660088-001 650933-B21 w/ tall bracket | eBay

Thanks for all your help guys. Been meaning to get this setup going for awhile and can't wait!

I'm sure if anything comes up, I'll ask for help again.