Internal RAID card for Freenas, 8-ports

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DrStein99

If it does not exist ? I am probably building it.
Feb 3, 2018
115
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New Jersey, USA
I have an LSI 9211-8i. I just added another (8)-bay SAS internal cage to my HP DL380 G7. The upgraded internal bay requires (2) more SAS ports. The 9211-8i only has 2 ports. I went through some trouble when I set it up originally 1 or 2 other SAS cards did not play nice with Freenas, and took me some pain and gain to find the right one that worked (which is the LSI 9211-8i).

I am looking to replace the card with another low-profile card that does the same thing. I just want it to work with Freenas and cost < $30 +/- used. Can anyone suggest a card please?
 

gea

Well-Known Member
Dec 31, 2010
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DE
ZFS prefers HBAs with an LSI chipset 2008, 2307 or 3008 with an IT firmware (best) or an IR firmware (ok). There are adapters with a raid-5 firmware around that will only work after a (sometimes possible) firmware cross flash

Your 9211 is based on the 2008 chipset (quite old). Some newer systems ex ESXi lacks suppport in their newest versions. Free-BSD and Solarish will keep driver support for a long time to come as they are very common.

Look at Ebay for a used controller. Search for "lsi 2008 it mode". This will find oem adapters from IBM or Dell as well.
 

DrStein99

If it does not exist ? I am probably building it.
Feb 3, 2018
115
4
18
50
New Jersey, USA
I did a little research. Looks like the more modern controllers (which are expensive) will support 12gb SAS and need different cable connectors with the cage & backplane that goes with it. This will not work with my old existing DL380 g7 cage. I do not intent to upgrade to an array of SSD drives, with a 10gb network, would be too expensive and I have no need for that type of speed as of now.

I found few 4-port internal cards, but I do not think they are low-profile and would be a risk for me to buy & try. An easier solution for me can be to just buy another PCIe riser and add another 9211 2-port card which I know will work at the cost of lunch money.

This card appears to have 4 SAS PORTS: 9212-4i LSI SAS 2008
Confused. -4i? My 9122-8i has 2 SAS ports, connect to my 8-bank cage. I thought each of those SAS ports could support 4 drives each, which would make the card "-8i". By that logic, a "-16i" would have 4 ports. I searched for "-16i" and they are rare and expensive. When I found this "-4i" threw me off. I do not know if is a type on the listing.
 
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ske4za

Member
Feb 4, 2019
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Maybe I'm missing something, but is using an expander like an Intel RES2SV240 not an option? Other than you'll be lucky to find them at $30.
 

Spartacus

Well-Known Member
May 27, 2019
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Austin, TX
This card appears to have 4 SAS PORTS: 9212-4i LSI SAS 2008
Confused. -4i? My 9122-8i has 2 SAS ports, connect to my 8-bank cage. I thought each of those SAS ports could support 4 drives each, which would make the card "-8i". By that logic, a "-16i" would have 4 ports. I searched for "-16i" and they are rare and expensive. When I found this "-4i" threw me off. I do not know if is a type on the listing.
Look closer to the picture that has 4 SATA ports that are SAS capable, not 4 actual SAS SFF-8086 ports.

Not sure why multiple SAS cards wouldn't play nice as long as they were both in it-mode.
I'm using unraid, but I have no issue with multiple SAS cards ~ the Dell H310 I flashed myself (including a 3rd onboard SAS controller).

That said if you want 4 SAS ports (16 slots), you've either gotta pay more than $30 ~ 16i cards are several hundred.
Or do a expander like ske4za said, the Intel one he noted is the best low profile expander card it'll go for about $90-100
If you can stomach a full sized card you can grab a HP 468406-B21 expander for about $25: HP SAS Expander Card 468406-B21 for Smart Array P410 | eBay

If you wanted to try again, you can pickup a IBM m1015 or Dell H310 and flash them to it-mode yourself for about $25.
See the compendium list of cards and expanders here: https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...and-hba-complete-listing-plus-oem-models.599/
 

DrStein99

If it does not exist ? I am probably building it.
Feb 3, 2018
115
4
18
50
New Jersey, USA
If you wanted to try again, you can pickup a IBM m1015 or Dell H310 and flash them to it-mode yourself for about $25.
See the compendium list of cards and expanders here: https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...and-hba-complete-listing-plus-oem-models.599/
That is an idea. I have a few dell H700 cards. But the HP DL3800 has an SAS card built into the motherboard. I will look up and see if/how I can flash that to IT mode.

Look closer to the picture that has 4 SATA ports that are SAS capable, not 4 actual SAS SFF-8086 ports.
I thought something had to be wrong with that. Dirty eBay vendor selling something their trickery.
 
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Spartacus

Well-Known Member
May 27, 2019
788
328
63
Austin, TX
Haven't ever tried the H700s, the 9260 is a raid controller card though, not sure if that has an it-mode version.
Fyi you dont 'have' to use the onboard, you could easily use that one of the it-mode OEM cards and HP expander together if it can't be converted.
 
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