Hi again,
So I'm in the process of picking the missing parts for my build based on a supermicro X9DRH-7TF mother board. I'm missing memory, CPU and thinking on a SAS controller (IT mode without messing the mobo's one).
The choice of CPU should be a Xeon E5 2630v2 (SR1AM) 2.60GHz 6-Core LGA2011, and I've been watching some on ebay. From what I've found around the web, there could be some fakes around, so I'm looking into seller reputation and the actual pics of the CPUs, looking for something suspicious (hoping pics represent the actual product, but seller reputation also helps).
The CPU reference is SR1AM and I find some made in MALAY, COSTA RICA. I've also found some being sold as matched pairs, which I assume means simply they were pulled from the same server. There should be no problem in matching distinct CPUs from distinct lots, even one from malay and another from costa rica, am I correct?
- I think he was joking - to me at least - I followed the implied purpose.
- It is so easy though. My Schnauzer actually took over and flashed the 2nd one for me
- FYI - you'll be up and running before you can screw 12 HDDs into the caddies
- As an analogy, its like not using the 10 Gb NICs on board, but having the infra in place to do so
- If you screw up there is even a lsi2208fixer.zip floating about - that well - fixes your 2208
- And if you somehow managed to bork your controller (you won't), just buy an HBA (I'm a minimalist)
I was thinking going for an adapter instead of flashing the LSI 2208 onboard controller. But searching for a good one around is tricky. Since this controller will deal with my data, I need to find a solution I would be confident on buying.
So I've found a "Genuine LSI 6Gbps SAS HBA LSI 9200-8i = (9211-8I) IT Mode ZFS FreeNAS unRAID" as follows:
Genuine LSI 6Gbps SAS HBA LSI 9200-8i = (9211-8I) IT Mode ZFS FreeNAS unRAID | eBay
Now ... something tells me not to buy something as that from Hong Kong, China, ... but it seems a legit product from a seller with good reputation. From the description and if pictures represent a similar product from what I would receive, it seems to be a legit product.
So they have seemed to have picked up an LSI SAS 9211-8i and flashed it with the firmware of an LSI 9200-8i. Looking further into the product specs sheet, both cards seem to share the same controller chip (LSI SAS 2008), but one provides RAID functionality, the other does not:
LSI SAS 9211-8i
- The LSI SAS 9211-8i HBA has onboard Flash memory for the firmware, and BIOS and NVSRAM for Integrated RAID
support (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, and RAID 1E).
- Implements one LSI SAS 2008 eight-port 6Gb/s to PCIe 2.0 controller
- Supports Integrated RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, and RAID 1E)
LSI SAS 9200-8e
- The LSI SAS 9200-8e HBA has onboard Flash memory for the firmware and BIOS.
- Implements one LSI SAS 2008 eight-port 6Gb/s to PCIe 2.0 controller
- LSI documentation does not refer any RAID capabilities
Anyone can see something fishy in this product? Something that would put you away from buying it?
Again, this is my first server build, so I want to get it right, hence all these questions.
Thank you again.