Temperature Comparison: LSI SAS2008 vs. SAS2308

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AnotherGeek12

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Hey!

Does any of you know which of the above-mentioned chipset runs cooler/hotter in a medium airflow environment?

I need a new HBA for my FreeNAS home server and since the cards with these two are almost priced identically now (used on ebay) I would rather go with SAS2308 since it’s PCIe 3.0 and newer(?) hardware often tends to run cooler in my experience. But according to an article on this site from 2012, the (older?) SAS2008 chipset seems to consume less power; does this also mean it will run cooler? (see: https://www.servethehome.com/lsi-host-bus-adapter-hba-power-consumption-comparison/)

Since by NAS/Server only gets started on demand and then shut off again, I don’t really care that much about power usage. I use a repurposed Workstation case with 2 front intakes (120mm) and a slow-spinning side intake (120mm) directly blowing on the PCIe cards, which will give the card a little airflow, but probably not the amount they have been designed for... So my main concern here are the temperatures (and of cause thereby also the reliability) of the cards/Chipsets - Although being a little more ‘future proof’ with a PCIe 3.0 card that would probably also work better with SSDs would be nice of cause…

Thank in advance!
 
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Spartacus

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The 2308 has a dual controller so it may be XX% more power/heat efficient, but it has twice as many controller chips generating heat.
That said, it doesn't matter much as long as you have some kind of airflow, they're designed to run pretty hot.

If you have more than 4 SSD go with the 2308 model otherwise the controller will likely bottleneck you.
 

EffrafaxOfWug

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Feb 12, 2015
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Temperature is the wrong metric to measure against, total heat output is. The higher power draw a device has, the more heat it'll produce. Moving data from a to b is one of the most expensive things you can do in computing power-wise, so faster interfaces means more power draw. Efficiency savings with new process nodes don't really make up for that any more, so if total heat production is a limiting factor then go for the 2008-based chip.

As Spartacus points out, if you're using SSDs you're potentially bottlenecking yourself for SSD use however.
 
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BLinux

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SAS2308/2208 does run hotter than SAS2008, SAS2308 has higher clock (I think 533Mhz vs 800Mhz or something like that), and therefor higher performance to handle more IOPS, and generates more heat and uses more power. Keep in mind not all SAS2308/2208 chips support PCIe 3.0; there are some "rev B0" SAS2308 that are PCIe 2.0 only, so if you're really after the PCIe 3.0, make sure to get "rev D1" or something like that.

if your NAS is mostly mechanical HDDs, SAS2308 provides almost 0 benefits over SAS2008; but generates more heat and consumes more power - so go with SAS2008. If you have SSDs that are fast enough to use most of the 6Gbps, then SAS2308 is better choice.
 
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kapone

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The 2308 does have 8x MSI-X interrupts vs a single one on the 2008. It can spread the IO across it's cores more efficiently, especially in a virtualized scenario.
 

AnotherGeek12

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Ok, since I am only using spinning hard drives for now, I’ll go with a SAS2008 card then!

Thanks!

Do you have any recommendations or experience with the different custom designs of the OEM cards? I need 2 internal connectors and I’d prefer the ports to be at the back (basically a 9211-8i type of card), so I can see 3 options here:

Fujitsu D2607 (I am running a repurposed Fujitsu Workstation as a base platform for my NAS, so this would probably be the logical choise. The card seems to be a custom design with a rather small heatsink, but it is cheap and maybe a little less common so the risk of getting a knockoff is probably quite low)

Dell Perc H310 (costs around 10 bucks more - not that it matters - but I read some (I think 2) reports that this one runs a little cooler than the original LSI design - of course I have no way to verify that. Unfortunately, I'd have to modify the heatsink since my airflow comes from above the card... but simply cutting the fins vertically with a dremmeln to get a grid layout, should to the trick. The offers for this card on ebay are also not that many, so the counterfeit-situation might also be good here)

Or should I take the risk and try to find a genuine LSI card with the original/reference design (but this might be challenging or even next to impossible judging by the reports about counterfeits and knockoffs I read)


As far as I could find, the IBM branded cards all seem to have the ports on the side, so these would not be my first choice - but if there is a truly compelling why I SHOULD get one of these, please tell me :)
 
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kapone

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We're talking a watt or two of difference here...

I would not buy a 2008 based card in 2019.
 

Markess

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Does any of you know which of the above-mentioned chipset runs cooler/hotter in a medium airflow environment?
If I understand your question, its less a question of how hot the Chip runs, but overall how well the card itself cools? A "hotter" chip with superior cooling may be a better choice than a "cooler"one with an awful heatsink. For that, it may come down to individual manufacturers implementations; i.e. who has the biggest heatsinks.

But, as @Spartacus says, they are designed to run pretty hot.

Oh, and if any of the 2308s you are looking at is Intel, you may want to check some of the posts here. Some, like the RMS25KB080 (which has a really nice heatsink by the way), are very inexpensive, but only work with certain Intel boards. If, on the other hand, you have one of those Intel boards, they are a great value.
 

AnotherGeek12

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Aug 6, 2019
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Basically you are right @Markess , but technically, even if the heat is transported away from the chip itself, my case interior will get hotter – although probably not that much. I all boils down to the effort I’d have to put into keeping the card cool.

The SAS2308 based controller I had in mind was the HP H220, which essentially seems to be just a rebranded LSI card.

Thanks for the tipp with the Intel one; I did not know Intel uses LSI chips in their controllers! Unfortunately, I don’t have an Intel board at all: I am using a repurposed Fujitsu Celsius m470-2 workstation, which has a custom OEM mainboard (Fujitsu D2778 I believe).


Like I wrote in my first post, my first impulse is always to get the newer stuff - maybe that’s why part of me is still hesitating :(. But since my current board only supports PCIe 2.0 and I am also running a ZFS pool that entirely consists of spinning disc drives for now, everything beyond the SAS2008 would be just ‘future proofing’. This would be nice of cause, but if that results in increased temperatures and - along with it - more fan noise and probably even potential instabilities or data corruption (I read about some cases of data errors when these chips go above the 90-100 C threshold), I don’t think it’s worth it. Since the benefits of the newer cards would be no use for me at the moment, I’ll probably go for the well-tested, cooler and therefore probably also more stable solution – although it kinda hurts me as a tech guy, to buy almost 10 year old hardware (I feel you @kapone )… But then again, I’d only be paying around 40€ for it ^^


What are your thought about the cards I mentioned in my last post (basically Fujitsu D2607 vs. Dell Perc H310)?
 

BLinux

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What are your thought about the cards I mentioned in my last post (basically Fujitsu D2607 vs. Dell Perc H310)?
I have both of those. The Fujitsu card seems to have a lot less components and looks to be a custom design using the same SAS2008 chip that is much cleaner. Dell does have slightly larger heatsink.

The Fujitsu card has a Heartbeat and Error LEDs. The Dell only has a heartbeat LED. The original LSI 9211-8i or 9201-8i has many more LEDs: heartbeat, activity/fault for SAS port A and B, activity LED for each of the 8 SAS lanes. If you like blinky lights, the original LSI 9201-8i is a good choice.

Dell H310 has SMBus I2C signal that conflicts with some systems, requiring workaround by taping pins on the PCIe connector. I don't think Fujitsu card has this problem, and definitely not the LSI 9201-8i.
 
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Markess

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What are your thought about the cards I mentioned in my last post (basically Fujitsu D2607 vs. Dell Perc H310)?

I have both of those.
The good news seems to be that no matter how esoteric the hardware, somebody here owns one!

I have neither, but one of my SAS2008 chip cards is the Supermicro AOC-USAS2-L8i, which along with being "backward" (the components are on the "back" side of the card), it has what has to be the worst heatsink ever. I attached a 40x10mm PWM fan on it (as with your system, this one is transplanted into a tower case with 120mm fans, so I had a spare header). You can't hear the fan from outside the case, and the controller stays cool. I wouldn't recommend the Supermicro card because of the layout (there's a reason they go for about $10 new on Ebay), but a small thin fan for point cooling may help with your heat concerns.
 
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AnotherGeek12

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Aug 6, 2019
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Oh, tanks for the hint to the SMBus I2C thing! I now remember reading a lot about it concerning the IBM ServeRAID variants of the card, but I completely forgot about that since this was some years ago.

Then I’ll go with the Fujitsu D2607! I do hope is does not have this problem, but even if: I just saw in the spec sheet for card, that the CELSIUM series workstations are even mentioned in the compatibility list. I’m pretty sure it’s not meant to be used in my specific model, but this should still be the safest bet. Also, having an error LED is always a good thing to have!


Thank you all for your help! :)