Recommended HBAs for Windows Server 2019

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burdell

New Member
Jun 30, 2020
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Hi, I'm new to the forum was hoping someone could help me with this. I'm trying to find an HBA with driver support for Windows Server 2019 that I can use for storage spaces. I just need an HBA obviously, don't need any RAID support. Is the HP H240 a good choice, it seems to have 2019 drivers on the HP website. Are there other good choices that are inexpensive on ebay?

Thanks,
Brian
 

Evan

Well-Known Member
Jan 6, 2016
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Nothing wrong with a H240, but what’s it going into a HPE gen9 system then great, it’s gen10 I would go to once in the new HBA’s same age as gen10.
whitebox server I am not sure sure I would use it, probably better with vanilla LSI HBA
 

burdell

New Member
Jun 30, 2020
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This is just a whitebox server, home NAS setup. I'm using Windows Server 2019 though and so I need a card with driver support. Are there drivers for some of the vanilla LSA HBA cards?
 

burdell

New Member
Jun 30, 2020
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Thanks, I'll check out the LSI cards. I would like to get a 16-port card if possible as well as a newer chipset with pci-e 3.0, is there one you'd recommend? If they aren't readily available, I think I can get by with an 8-port and the ports on the mobo. Can you use two 8-port cards in the same system?
 

burdell

New Member
Jun 30, 2020
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Awesome, thanks for the info. I have a full height case and am fine with using two cards but I'll check all of those options out. Do you know if Windows Server 2019 will recognize all/any of those cards? My main concern is I don't want to buy a card and find out there are only Windows 2012 drivers or something.
 

burdell

New Member
Jun 30, 2020
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Thanks for the help! I bought an Adaptec off eBay from a US seller that includes 4x 8643 to SATA cables, we'll see how it works.
 

kapone

Well-Known Member
May 23, 2015
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@Sleyk - Minor correction. The Adaptec 71605 is a 6gbps card from a SAS perspective, bit it is certainly PCI-e 3.0 x8.

Look at the "Host Bus Speed" attribute in the attached screenshot. 8000MHz = PCI-e 3.0

Screen Shot 2020-07-08 at 6.03.45 AM.png
 
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kapone

Well-Known Member
May 23, 2015
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Ah! Yes, you are right! It is so wonky when a controller can only do 6Gbps, but PCI bus is rated for 3.0 speeds. I suppose it will allow the drives to better approach the limit of 6Gbps.
Yup, however, keep in mind it is a natively 16 port card. Adaptec/Microsemi/WhatIsItNow? cannot possibly know what drives you'll connect to it.

If you connected 16x 6gbps SSDs to it...they can certainly do 6gbps sustained each. Which means you are looking at 96gbps sustained.

And you'll hit the PCIe 3.0 x8 bus limit at that point. 3.0 x8 cannot do 96gbps. (The theoretical bandwidth for PCIe 3.0 is 8gbps per lane, so 8x lanes gives you 64gbps MAX. With protocol/encoding overhead, it's gonna be lower, )

You know all those dual 40gbps cards on 3.0 x8 bus...they can't do full bandwidth either, if you max them out. Will top out at roughly 30gbps sustained at full throttle.
 
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vanfront

Member
Jun 5, 2020
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I am using Adaptec HBA 1000-16i on Windows Server 2019 without any issues, having 12 SAS and 4 SSD drives connected and configured with two Storage Spaces volumes. Using ReFS with deduplication on top.
 

burdell

New Member
Jun 30, 2020
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Thanks vanfront! That is almost exactly what I'm intending to do, though with SATA drives instead of SAS. I was intending to do tiering with the SSDs but not sure if you can do tiering with a parity setup or not. I'll be experimenting with it after I get the card.
 
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burdell

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Jun 30, 2020
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Thanks again for the help everyone, got an Adaptec 16i card off ebay that came with the SATA cables and it works perfectly!
 
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burdell

New Member
Jun 30, 2020
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Well I spoke too soon it seems. It looked good at first but I quickly started getting errors of "Lost Connection". It happens randomly to different drives, has anyone seen this before? I have 7 3TB drives that I've been using for a few years without any problem. Using them with the Adaptec card I get these popping up randomly. I reboot, they go away and when I start trying to write data to the virtualdisk, they start popping up. It seems to be completely random, it happens to drives connected with either cable to either port I'm using on the Adaptec. I pulled the Adaptec out and reconnected my drives the way they were originally and no problems.
 

vanfront

Member
Jun 5, 2020
36
14
8
Well I spoke too soon it seems. It looked good at first but I quickly started getting errors of "Lost Connection". It happens randomly to different drives, has anyone seen this before? I have 7 3TB drives that I've been using for a few years without any problem. Using them with the Adaptec card I get these popping up randomly. I reboot, they go away and when I start trying to write data to the virtualdisk, they start popping up. It seems to be completely random, it happens to drives connected with either cable to either port I'm using on the Adaptec. I pulled the Adaptec out and reconnected my drives the way they were originally and no problems.
This is the driver and firmware versions of my Adaptec HBA 1000-16i:

--------------------------------------------------------
Controller Version Information
--------------------------------------------------------
Firmware : 4.80[0]
Driver : 7.5.0.58012
Hardware Revision : B


OS and motherboard info:

1596293400577.png

Has been stable so far, no issues with HDDs. The drives I'm using are HGST 4TB SAS 12 Gbit drives, bought used from eBay, and a couple Intel SSDs.
 

burdell

New Member
Jun 30, 2020
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Thanks, I'll check the firmware version when I get a chance to reconnect the card. The cables I am using that were included with the card are 1m long, I wonder if that has anything to do with it. I am using Toshiba 3TB SATA drives.
 

burdell

New Member
Jun 30, 2020
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I updated the firmware but it just doesn't work. I keep getting lost connection errors, corrupted pool, etc. I would like to have had all my drives on one card but I'll just see if I can return this and get an 8 port LSI card.