Recommended SAS HBA for Dell R720xd

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Navy2x

New Member
Sep 12, 2019
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Hey guys,

I'm still learning a lot in the field of self hosting and servers. I've been doing a lot of research but I still can't quite find a good answer. I have a Dell R720xd and I want to attach a JBOD supermicro chassis (something like this one). What would be the recommended SAS HBA controller to put in my Dell R720xd so these can communicate? I was thinking one of the LSI SAS 92xx external cards but I'm not sure. Which one of those in particular is recommended? Do I need to do anything special to it like flash the card to some other firmware? Thanks!
 

Navy2x

New Member
Sep 12, 2019
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0
1
Thanks! A few more questions...

Will the Dell recognize it automatically? Do I need to enable it or install drivers somehow in iDrac?

I plan on using software raid (mergerfs+snapRAOD) so I'll leave it in IT mode. I'm running ESXi as the host on the Dell. Once I plug everything in will the drives show up as new storage options in ESXi? Just trying to wrap my head around how all of this works...
 

gea

Well-Known Member
Dec 31, 2010
3,141
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DE
Some PCIe cards can have problems in some systems, but usually you plug it in and it works when drivers are available.

If you use ESXi as base, you usually pass-through the HBA to a guest storage OS that can access then HBA then with its own drivers. The HBA is invisible to ESXi then.