Which HBA for 14x SATA SSD's

[Mila-melon]

14x2TB sata ssds (+2x samsung PM1725 3.2TB PCIe (gen3x8.0))

got a great deal on them + a SAS3-213A backplane and while that is a sas 3 backplane i think sata ssds would be fine even at sas2 speeds right?

looking at the LSI 9300-16i however people have said it gets pretty toasty as its just an 8i + expander
so i was now also considering the 9305-16i

Currently using skylake system - 6700 and asus z170 WS so it has plenty of pcie lanes but all at gen 3 speeds due to its plx chip

current layout looks to be
16x - gpu for hw transcoding
8x - pcie ssd 1
16x - HBA
8x - pcie ssd 2

theres also a 4x slot for either asus’s thunderbolt add in card or possibly a higher speed NIC

Could move to AM4 as i have a 3600 laying around from a previous build too if say moving to a gen 4 HBA might work more and then using m.2 to pcie adapters for the pcie ssds? (gen 4x4 giving the same bandwidth as gen 3x8?)

 

[Bert]

Use whatever you have but put good airflow on them if you are worried about terms.

Those SATA SSDs would not go any faster on SAS3 cards vs SAS2 but bandwidth of the card matters more.

so many options here, get what you need at the best price.

 

[Stephan]

• 1x IBM 2076-224 V7000 Storwize Expansion Enclosure
• 24x IBM 00AR034 Trays
• 2x Flextronics 1019194-01 Controller Module 12Gb/s SAS Raid Controller 0989198-06
• 2x LSI SAS 9400-8e SAS3408 1.7M IOPS 6840 MB/s
• 4x SFF-8644 to SFF-8644

 

[mattventura]

Slight correction: the 9300-16i is two 8i's and a PLX chip. An 8i and a standalone expander would probably still run cooler.

9305 should work. Sometimes the sideband management doesn't work right with some backplanes on the newer models like the 9400 and up.

Also note that you don't actually get 16/8/16/8 out of that motherboard, you get 8/8/8/8 if you're using all the slots.

 

[BLinux]

From a bandwidth standpoint, i think the 14 SATA SSDs will need about 70Gbps. And estimating they do about 100K IOPS each, that's 1.4M IOPS for all 14. With a PCIe x8 card, you would need a PCIe 4.0 x8 to match the 70Gbps of bandwidth. But if you're ok with PCIe 3.0 x8 limited around 60Gbps, then I would look at 9400-16i. My recent testing showed the 9400-8i can do 1.4M IOPS 4K-RR, so I think the 9400-16i should be able to do the same. If you want the PCIe 4.0 x8, then look at 9500-16i, which can hit 3M IOPS 4K-RR, and has 120Gbps of PCIe bandwidth. Both 9400-16i and 9500-16i will run much cooler than the 9300-16i card and perform better.

 

[bugacha]

Both 9400-16i and 9500-16i will run much cooler than the 9300-16i card

Altho this is true, but 9400 still runs hot like there is no tomorrow, hitting 70C easily.

Very advisable to put a fan on it

 

[BLinux]

Altho this is true, but 9400 still runs hot like there is no tomorrow, hitting 70C easily.

Very advisable to put a fan on it

The OP mentioned SAS3-213A, so I'm assuming they are using a 2U Supermicro server chassis. The chassis airflow will be enough to cool a 9400 card. It dissipates less than 10W. My recent measurement actually showed 7W under 1.4M IOPS load with 9400-8i.

 

[Mila-melon]

So the general concensus here is the 9400-16i so thanks! (with a Noctua strapped to it)

As for the backplane wellll... I managed to score it for £70 which was a pretty great deal and I'm using some custom mounting for it all to fit in an atx case... It is all incredibly jank and honestly I'm so excited to mess with it all and likely find it doesn't work so here's to messing around with hardware!

Also yes mattventura was absolutely correct I mislabedled, with all 4 slots it'd be 8*8*8*8 my bad!

While I'm gonna stick with the 9400 on pcie gen 3*8.0 I don't think it should be too much of a hit for overall usability, if it does affect too much I could always upscale to an am4 system with pcie 4.0 or probably something thread ripper based and migrate most of this over