Hi all,
i would like to upgrade the HBA of my virtualized ZFS-fileserver at home. At the moment, a Supermicro AOC-S3008L-L8i is doing its job with one pool build with 7x 3,5" HDDs in a RAID-Z2 Setup. I would like to keep this pool for cold data to allow the drives to spin down if not used, but I would like to add a second SSD based ZFS-pool to store hot data. The SSD pool should be build with NVMe-drives if possible.
Because all drivebays in the server housing are in use, I would remove the existing seven drives and put these into a external HDD enclusure and connect these with some external mini SAS connectors to the main server housing. Once this is done, I would like to place the new SSD drives in the server housing.
The system itself is a Ryzen 7 4650G Pro on a ASRock Rack X570D4U-2L2T and 128G of Ram in a SilverStone CS381 case, but there is no space and PCIe-slot left to add a second HBA. Thats the reason, why I need to replace the existing HBA with a bigger one.
So, i need some clarifications and remommendations please.
First:
My initial idea was to use a card with connectors for 8 internal and 8 external drives because it would meet my requirements perfect. But then i noticed, that its not 100% clear from my understanding, if these cards are true HBAs , Raid-Controllers, or a hybrid which can be used as HBA with the right firmware or setup.
I found the LSI 9400-8i8e, the 9580-8i8e and the 9600-8i8e card with both, internal and external connectors. It seems that LSI/Broadcom is the only vendor with 8i8e cards, right?
9400 series:
My first idea was, to use a 9400-8i8e but then i noticed, that this is a SAS3516 based card which seems to be a Raid-Chipset. On the other side, this card is listed with "no cache" here.
So, is this SAS3516 a hybrid chip which can be used as a true HBA and as Raid controller? Is it possible to flash any SAS3516 based card to HBA/IT-Mode?
9500 series:
There is also a 8i8e-card in the 9500 series called 9580-8i8e, but its only listed in the PDF for Raidcontrollers. Also, the listing in the STH-thread is without "no cache". So it seems to be a bit clearer here that this is a raid only chip, right?
9600 serie:
For the 9600 series, everything seems to be clear again, because all cards which are described as "eHBA" come with the same chipset, which is SAS4016.
It seems, that these cards are brand new. Therefore, they are not easy to get in the retail market and expensive as far as i can see.
So, the first question is: Which of these cards are true HBAs and which are not?
Second:
If there is no 8i8e card which can be used as true HBA, is it possible to use a 16i HBA-card and use some kind of slot bracket adapter to adapt internal connector types to external connector types?
There are a many different SFF-connector types and i dont have the experience to understand which one is used for what kind of scenario in detail.
All i can say is, that
9400-16i is equipped with 4x SFF-8643
9500-16i and 9600-16i is equipped with two x8 SFF-8654
Into play comes, that (as far as i know), these new type of interfaces which are designed for U.3 / Tri-Mode support SATA/SAS and NVMe/PCIe, which is different to the older interfaces which are made for SATA/SAS only. I gues, there are also some traps one has to pay attention to, right?
Third:
My Server housing comes with a backplane and the connectors are described as " Mini-SAS HD SFF-8643 36 pin connector x 2*/** ". At the moment, I have two cables from the HBA to the backplane with SFF-8643 connectors on each side and there are eight hot-swapable drive bays with eight trays which are compatible to 2,5" and 3,5" SATA or SAS drives.
So, i would say, that 9400 series card would fit if it comes down to connector types and if I would use drives with SATA or SAS.
But what about the compatibility between Tri-Mode controller cards like 9500 and 9600 when it comes down to old fashioned backplanes? I dont really understand what can be compared with what to be honest.
Thanks for your support.
i would like to upgrade the HBA of my virtualized ZFS-fileserver at home. At the moment, a Supermicro AOC-S3008L-L8i is doing its job with one pool build with 7x 3,5" HDDs in a RAID-Z2 Setup. I would like to keep this pool for cold data to allow the drives to spin down if not used, but I would like to add a second SSD based ZFS-pool to store hot data. The SSD pool should be build with NVMe-drives if possible.
Because all drivebays in the server housing are in use, I would remove the existing seven drives and put these into a external HDD enclusure and connect these with some external mini SAS connectors to the main server housing. Once this is done, I would like to place the new SSD drives in the server housing.
The system itself is a Ryzen 7 4650G Pro on a ASRock Rack X570D4U-2L2T and 128G of Ram in a SilverStone CS381 case, but there is no space and PCIe-slot left to add a second HBA. Thats the reason, why I need to replace the existing HBA with a bigger one.
So, i need some clarifications and remommendations please.
First:
My initial idea was to use a card with connectors for 8 internal and 8 external drives because it would meet my requirements perfect. But then i noticed, that its not 100% clear from my understanding, if these cards are true HBAs , Raid-Controllers, or a hybrid which can be used as HBA with the right firmware or setup.
I found the LSI 9400-8i8e, the 9580-8i8e and the 9600-8i8e card with both, internal and external connectors. It seems that LSI/Broadcom is the only vendor with 8i8e cards, right?
9400 series:
My first idea was, to use a 9400-8i8e but then i noticed, that this is a SAS3516 based card which seems to be a Raid-Chipset. On the other side, this card is listed with "no cache" here.
So, is this SAS3516 a hybrid chip which can be used as a true HBA and as Raid controller? Is it possible to flash any SAS3516 based card to HBA/IT-Mode?
9500 series:
There is also a 8i8e-card in the 9500 series called 9580-8i8e, but its only listed in the PDF for Raidcontrollers. Also, the listing in the STH-thread is without "no cache". So it seems to be a bit clearer here that this is a raid only chip, right?
9600 serie:
For the 9600 series, everything seems to be clear again, because all cards which are described as "eHBA" come with the same chipset, which is SAS4016.
It seems, that these cards are brand new. Therefore, they are not easy to get in the retail market and expensive as far as i can see.
So, the first question is: Which of these cards are true HBAs and which are not?
Second:
If there is no 8i8e card which can be used as true HBA, is it possible to use a 16i HBA-card and use some kind of slot bracket adapter to adapt internal connector types to external connector types?
There are a many different SFF-connector types and i dont have the experience to understand which one is used for what kind of scenario in detail.
All i can say is, that
9400-16i is equipped with 4x SFF-8643
9500-16i and 9600-16i is equipped with two x8 SFF-8654
Into play comes, that (as far as i know), these new type of interfaces which are designed for U.3 / Tri-Mode support SATA/SAS and NVMe/PCIe, which is different to the older interfaces which are made for SATA/SAS only. I gues, there are also some traps one has to pay attention to, right?
Third:
My Server housing comes with a backplane and the connectors are described as " Mini-SAS HD SFF-8643 36 pin connector x 2*/** ". At the moment, I have two cables from the HBA to the backplane with SFF-8643 connectors on each side and there are eight hot-swapable drive bays with eight trays which are compatible to 2,5" and 3,5" SATA or SAS drives.
So, i would say, that 9400 series card would fit if it comes down to connector types and if I would use drives with SATA or SAS.
But what about the compatibility between Tri-Mode controller cards like 9500 and 9600 when it comes down to old fashioned backplanes? I dont really understand what can be compared with what to be honest.
Thanks for your support.
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