All
Been rocking a pair of Supermicro x10sl7-f for several years now. Reliable as the day they were purchased. One of my boards is used for our file server and another for a deployment server/Hyper-V Test environment where I work on Windows deployment (MDT) and test Windows 10/Windows Server VMs. This box also hosts ManageEngine Desktop Central for Windows patching and I am planning a virtual AD install on Win Server Core.
This month I am rebuilding the deployment box with Windows Server 2019 and decided I wanted to try the LSI 2308 controller on this board. When I first put these boards into service - I simply used the INTEL SATA ports and left it like that. This time I wanted to build the machine up around the LSI controller and the first thing I did was flash it to IT mode so I could present the control as JBOD to the Win Server install.
This weekend I built out the box. There was a number of annoying UEFI hoops I had to go thru to get this thing to boot off a Samsung SSD but it's finally working - I have the Samsung on SAS0 and two Seagate NAS drives on SAS1 and SAS2.
Given the hassle factor and obscure data I had to scrape to get this thing working - I got to wondering if there is any actual advantage to using the LSI for the long term vs simply sticking with the Intel SATA ports for the drive connections and simplifying the overall storage scene.
Given my intended use of this thing - is it worth it to deal with the LSI controller? Is there a marked increase in performance by using the SAS ports vs just plugging into the normal Intel SATA ports. I am not using anything "enterprise" or fancy by any means - standard Samsung EVO 860 for the Boot drive, a pair of Seagate Ironwolf 2TB for local MDT/Imaging storage and a pair of 500GB Samsung EVo 860's for the Hyper-V environment. The Ironwolfs and the pair of EVO's are being handled by DrivePool to display each pair as D: and V:.
Appreciate any comments of suggestions on how to ensure I am getting the best from these boards and the drives using Win Server 2019.
Cheers
VP
Been rocking a pair of Supermicro x10sl7-f for several years now. Reliable as the day they were purchased. One of my boards is used for our file server and another for a deployment server/Hyper-V Test environment where I work on Windows deployment (MDT) and test Windows 10/Windows Server VMs. This box also hosts ManageEngine Desktop Central for Windows patching and I am planning a virtual AD install on Win Server Core.
This month I am rebuilding the deployment box with Windows Server 2019 and decided I wanted to try the LSI 2308 controller on this board. When I first put these boards into service - I simply used the INTEL SATA ports and left it like that. This time I wanted to build the machine up around the LSI controller and the first thing I did was flash it to IT mode so I could present the control as JBOD to the Win Server install.
This weekend I built out the box. There was a number of annoying UEFI hoops I had to go thru to get this thing to boot off a Samsung SSD but it's finally working - I have the Samsung on SAS0 and two Seagate NAS drives on SAS1 and SAS2.
Given the hassle factor and obscure data I had to scrape to get this thing working - I got to wondering if there is any actual advantage to using the LSI for the long term vs simply sticking with the Intel SATA ports for the drive connections and simplifying the overall storage scene.
Given my intended use of this thing - is it worth it to deal with the LSI controller? Is there a marked increase in performance by using the SAS ports vs just plugging into the normal Intel SATA ports. I am not using anything "enterprise" or fancy by any means - standard Samsung EVO 860 for the Boot drive, a pair of Seagate Ironwolf 2TB for local MDT/Imaging storage and a pair of 500GB Samsung EVo 860's for the Hyper-V environment. The Ironwolfs and the pair of EVO's are being handled by DrivePool to display each pair as D: and V:.
Appreciate any comments of suggestions on how to ensure I am getting the best from these boards and the drives using Win Server 2019.
Cheers
VP