LSI card differences? (and a sas3 raid5/6 lsi card)

[james23]

First off, while i have a few LSI HW raid cards in use, i mainly use (and know well) adaptec raid cards, so i had a few questions on LSI cards.

I'm looking to get an LSI Hardware raid card for 2x of my esxi 6.5 hosts. I will be using 6 or 8x SAS3 HGST SSDs in raid5 or r6- so i know i need to consider the HW raid performance carefully. both hosts have 12-bay SAS 3 expander backplanes (supermicro sas3 el1).

I'm having some difficulties figuring out the differences between some lsi cards from their PDF spec sheets (beyond the obvious).

I am trying to save money, so probably will be getting an sas 2 card vs a sas3. I plan on running 6 or 8x SAS 3 hgst ssds, in raid 5 or Raid 6.

Comparing the: 9271-8i , 9285cv-8i, 9286cv-8i :

Besides the obvious internal / external ports on the card, I'm not seeing much difference at all between these cards on their PDF spec sheets, Beyond that the 9285cv is the only one that is pcie 2.0 (other 2= pcie 3.0).

Does anyone know of any other differences between these three cards? is performance just about identical assuming that you're using cachevault on all 3x to protect the cache. (assuming raid5 or raid6 with enterprise ssds). there has to be some other differences i would think?

Or (ideally) can anyone suggest a LSI SAS3 raid card capable of raid 5 and 6 out of the box, for a reasonable price (ie around 200 maybe $300). I had looked at some of the IBM oem lsi SAS 3 raid card but got a bit scared as it seems there are paid upgrades to get to raid 5 or 6 so I have no way of knowing what I'm getting from an eBay card at that price. So im thinking I would like to stick to Pure LSi and not an oem card.

another example / ?:
ie lets say i was comparing a 9361-4i (sas3) , vs a 9271-8i:
assume card is going to my 12bay sas3 expander backplane with 10x sas3 hgst ssds

should i expect similar (not exact) raid5 / 6 performance between the sas3 9361-4i and the sas2 9271-8i, assuming that the 9361 has only 1x sas3 x4lane/cables connected to my 12 bay backplane, VS with the 9271-8i having 2x sas2 x4lanes/cables connected to my 12 bay backplane?


I have read (many times), and often reference, this great thread:
https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...and-hba-complete-listing-plus-oem-models.599/

for ref, here are the PDF spec sheets on the 4x cards i mentioned above:
https://advdownload.blob.core.windows.net/productfile/PIS/96RC-SAS-8P-PE-LS3/Product - Datasheet/96RC-SAS-8P-PE-LS3_DATASHEET20170119115301.pdf

https://www.broadcom.com/docs-and-d...ntrollers-common-files/LSI_MR9286CV-8e_PB.pdf

https://cdn.cnetcontent.com/8a/10/8a100315-827b-435e-803b-dcd64882ecd0.pdf

9361-4i:
https://www.thomas-krenn.com/redx/t...33748f8b8e/PB_LSI-MR_SAS_9361-4i_20150220.pdf

Thanks

EDIT: or another example, what is the difference between the 9271-8i and the 9270-8i ? both are same cpu and pcie 3.0, only difference i see is rear mounted ports, vs mid-card mounted ports. nothing different in the PDF specs i can see. tks

 

[nthu9280]

My understanding on the numbering system is that the 0 / 1 on the last digit denotes the orientation of the ports Horizontal or Vertical. For example 9210-8i vs 9211-8i etc

Have you looked at Dell H730 Raid Cards or IBM/Lenovo M5210 etc? IIRC they are based on LSI SAS3108 chip with Cache and BBU. I think you can easily get a used card with Cache & BBU under your budget.

There may be other OEMs as well and they are usually cheaper than LSI brand and advantage of used is that you avoid counterfeit ones.

 

[james23]

thanks, that actually helps alot (1 or 0 = port orientation). There is almost always a method to tech's modeling scheme- its just often hard to find the naming decoder doc (as its buried in some old manual somewhere).

Thanks