LSI 9300-16i $129 obo

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vvu

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Just an update... I plugged it into my supermicro c2550 8x slot. It seems it is delivering enough power not to require the external power. Your mileage may vary since the card will draw the 25 watts max that is allowed for 8x slot. If you have a 16x slot it should provide up to 75 and you won't have to worry about it.

Its "overkill" sas3 speeds for spinning rusts but just enough for home labber. I was able to retire my sas expander...
 
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jbrukardt

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Just an update... I plugged it into my supermicro c2550 8x slot. It seems it is delivering enough power not to require the external power. Your mileage may vary since the card will draw the 25 watts max that is allowed for 8x slot. If you have a 16x slot it should provide up to 75 and you won't have to worry about it.

Its "overkill" sas3 speeds for spinning rusts but just enough for home labber. I was able to retire my sas expander...
I actually couldnt find a SAS2 16i controller any cheaper.
 
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vvu

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Ive had bad luck with sas cables.. Pick your vendor carefully. I bought SAS-HD to sata break out cables for my case and they worked fine. My buddy needed SAS-HD to 8087 and well hes ordering another set.

Strike this :p I didnt realize the 9300 take SAS-HD connectors. all my current gear is 8087, gotta get new cables.
 
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jbrukardt

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nabsltd

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If you have issues, these have been working fine for several months.

The ZFS guys frown on any non-straight HBA though... although i think theyre a little curmudgeoney and that fear isnt fully data backed.
I've never understood the claim that ZFS seeing the raw disk is actually useful. Other than having a one-stop-shop for error reporting, I don't think it buys you anything, since these days disks themselves are very much "black boxes" that do a lot under the hood. As long as you have something that can monitor SMART errors on the raw drives, passing virtualized drives (either through hardware RAID or actual virtualization) isn't really a big deal.

There are many, many implementations of ZFS that sit atop LUNs that are provided by SAN, which is about as "virtual" as you can get.
 
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Samir

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My array has survived 3 motherboards and a few controllers in the 11 years. The direct disk access is mostly for portability. It very nerve wrecking but i can vouch for zfs import.
Hence why an array is not a backup. ;) I learned this back in the 1990s. Gotta have that 3-2-1 backup.
 
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llowrey

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I don't get the Adaptec hate. I have a 71605 and a 72405 plus a hodgepodge of LSI HBAs (IT). I can't tell that it's not 'raw', presuming of course that it isn't (it is). I move drives (mostly SAS but some SATA) between the Adaptecs and the LSIs all the time and have never had a problem or seen anything behave differently. I'm not part of the ZFS cult so maybe there is something that only ZFS notices.

So long as you have an ample supply of liquid helium to keep them cool and a 20A circuit to keep them fed, the Adaptecs work great and you can't beat the price.

(please excuse my 'humor')
 

Sean Ho

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Adaptec in HBA mode is raw, SMART and sg_format and all. And no need to reflash firmware to IT mode; there's just one firmware train, with an easy config switch for HBA mode. You can toggle it from Linux using arcconf. Adaptec cards do tend to run hot, but otherwise they're very viable alternatives to LSI.
 
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Samir

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Back in the day, Adaptec was leader in SCSI. In fact, the ASPI drivers original acronym was Adaptec SCSI Programming Interface vs Advanced SCSI Programming Interface since Adaptec invented it. LSI was found on enterprise solutions involving multiple channels, physical write cache modules and other things that were 'exotic' at the time.

I don't remember exactly what happened to Adaptec, but I know sata had a lot to do with their demise. Sata became as fast as scsi or even faster and was easier to implement on consumer and prosumer systems that typically would use an Adaptec controller and SCSI drives. I'm not sure when SAS came around, but by that time, LSI was the major name in controllers for SAS as I never saw anything from Adaptec anymore.

It doesn't surprise me at all that Adaptec adapters are just as robust as LSI. In recent years, the standards for SAS and SATA have become very conformed by everyone so incompatibility is rare (SSDs aren't so lucky it seems though--growing pains I guess). So it's also not surprising that drives can move from Adaptec to LSI controllers without issues.
 
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vvu

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SATA adopted the scsi commands and apple switched to IDE. There became no reason to use a separate controller for personal computers this left the successor to sas (serial attached scsi) the successor to scsi to the server market. LSI bought the controller business from American megatrends, this is why they are still known as megaraid controllers. LSI rolled up to avago then Broadcom.

The reason Broadcom is basically the only serious player is their scale. They can book wafer capacity and switch between products. It can cost tens to hundreds of millions to book capacity at a fab. Doing a run and not selling them all could sink a company.

This is compounded on by server manufacturers wanting contracts that allow them to purchase the same product for the next 10 years. Unfortunately for us this means there is really just one vendor which is Broadcom. Even if you wanted to use adaptec I seriously doubt you can get enough cards.

I just wish someone would come along and build a new HBA from the ground up and skip all the raid logic. It could be sold for less since it would take less die size and consume a lot less power. I think they closest we got was some highpoint controllers a few years ago.


Back in the day, Adaptec was leader in SCSI. In fact, the ASPI drivers original acronym was Adaptec SCSI Programming Interface vs Advanced SCSI Programming Interface since Adaptec invented it. LSI was found on enterprise solutions involving multiple channels, physical write cache modules and other things that were 'exotic' at the time.

I don't remember exactly what happened to Adaptec, but I know sata had a lot to do with their demise. Sata became as fast as scsi or even faster and was easier to implement on consumer and prosumer systems that typically would use an Adaptec controller and SCSI drives. I'm not sure when SAS came around, but by that time, LSI was the major name in controllers for SAS as I never saw anything from Adaptec anymore.

It doesn't surprise me at all that Adaptec adapters are just as robust as LSI. In recent years, the standards for SAS and SATA have become very conformed by everyone so incompatibility is rare (SSDs aren't so lucky it seems though--growing pains I guess). So it's also not surprising that drives can move from Adaptec to LSI controllers without issues.
 
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i386

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Back in the day, Adaptec was leader in SCSI. In fact, the ASPI drivers original acronym was Adaptec SCSI Programming Interface vs Advanced SCSI Programming Interface since Adaptec invented it.
The first drivers that were loaded during the windows xp instalation are adaptec drivers :D
(And not because the name started with "a", there were also some 3ware drivers)
 
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jbrukardt

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This LSI HBA is my first card thats not an enterprise RAID card ever. Ive run Arecas (1280, 1280ml, 1882ix-24i) for decades with zero failures, zero data loss. Just the concept of hardware RAID itself is getting deprecated
 
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Fritz

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OK, I'm in for one. I have a SC836 with a TQ backplane and this will turn it into a 12G box.
 
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