Recommended HBA to add SATA3 to a Supermicro X8DTL-iF MB (for SSDs)

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anomaly

Active Member
Jan 8, 2018
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I would like to add SATA3 to a X8DTL-iF MB that unfortunately only supports PCIe 2, and has no controller for SATA3. The reason is leveraging SSDs. I might consider ditching the MB but I keep it because the two Westmere CPUs in it were bought at retail prices years back, and they are perfectly fine even now for the kind of workloads I have.

What are my options for a cheap, eBay-plentiful HBA that can run on PCIe 2 8x and at least allow me to drive two SSDs at their rated speeds?
 

BlueFox

Legendary Member Spam Hunter Extraordinaire
Oct 26, 2015
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You really won't get much more benefit from having 6gbit vs 3gbit. SSDs shine thanks to their low latency and high IOPS. For most people, peak read/write speeds won't do much. I personally wouldn't buy another HBA.

If you're set on getting one however, generally LSI SAS HBAs are recommended. Quality tends to be considerably better than the cheap consumer SATA ones and prices are similar. IBM M1015 that you flash to the LSI firmware would be a good choice (or any other LSI 2008 based card).
 

anomaly

Active Member
Jan 8, 2018
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Understood, and agreed on the IOPS, especially for the workload it will have (cracking rig, assorted experiments). I have a SR-2 I might end up repurposing, since there is no equal in terms of PCIe 16x slots. Maybe I am missing some market options, but one year ago it seemed that way.

What model numbers would you specifically suggest besides the famed M1015? And how much should I pay for them off eBay/second hand sellers?
 

anomaly

Active Member
Jan 8, 2018
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Oh, forgot to ask: does the SED support in the M1015 include SSDs? (ex.OPAL). I would like to find a RAID card for another build that supports the SED functionality in its firmware, for OPAL-compatible SSDs. This is needed if they are not passed directly to the OS or booted from directly (which would allow you to use a custom PBA like sedutil to unlock them).