I don’t want to speak to your specific use case, as it’s outside of my wheelhouse. My main point was that SATA cards are a problem.
As for LSi SAS cards, there’s a lot of details that probably don’t (but could) matter to you. PCIe generation, connectors, lanes, etc. There are threads on various other homelab forums, truenas, unraid, etc. Some models (like the 9212-4i4e, meaning it has 4 internal and 4 external lanes) have native SATA ports that are convenient, but most will have a SAS connector or two. You’d need a matching (forward) breakout cable to connect to SATA. Note that there are several common connectors, with internal and external versions of each.
You can use the external connectors (e.g. SFF-8088) as long as you have a matching (e.g. SFF-8088 SAS-SATA) breakout cable, and are willing to route the cable accordingly. Internal connectors are simpler, but might be in lower supply.
If you just need a simple controller card to handle a few drives without major speed concerns, and it will not be the boot drive, here are the things you need to watch for:
- MUST be LSi, but it can be rebranded LSi. This includes certain cards from Dell and IBM, but not all.
- Must support Initiator Target (IT) mode. The alternative is Initiator RAID (IR) mode. This is nearly all, since most can be flashed to IT mode regardless
- Watch for counterfeits! There are a bunch of these out there. My best advice is to find IT recyclers on eBay. These cards are a dime a dozen in old, decommissioned servers. They’re eager to sell them to whomever wants them.
Also, make sure you can point a fan at it. They’re designed for rackmount server chassis, so desktop-style cases don’t usually have the airflow needed.
fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
If it’s an LSI card then make sure it’s either been flashed into IT mode, is capable of being flashed into IT mode, or is relatively modern and has that option built in.
What you really want is an HBA, but HBAs can be expensive, a raid card flashed to act as an HBA is typically much cheaper. A 6 gbit SAS card will do 3gbit sata, and no hard drive should be writing more than 3gbit. If you want to do SSDs then find a relatively more modern 12 gbit SAS card which will do 6gb sata.
I guess also look out for the REALLY old ones that won’t do over like 3tb. But I bought one of those for $20 almost 10 years ago so that shouldn’t be a concern. Those are probably all in the trash by now.
thelemonalex@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Thank you very much for the info. In the case of Raid Cards that can be flashed, is there something I need to look out for, besides the speed? Only HDDs will be used, so speed isn’t a priority.