Anyone use LSI SAS-SATA3 RAID controllers?

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Vega

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I have a ASRock Extreme 11 motherboard inbound that has a LSI 2308 integrated RAID controller. I've only dealt with the easy to use Intel RAID controller that comes up before the BIOS.

How do you set up and implement RAID as a boot-up disk with LSI controller? I have eight Vertex 4's inbound to RAID 0 up and would rather know the process now instead of when I get it.

So far I can find that LSI has a floppy driver (which I'm sure you use during windows 7 install after you have created the array), a LSI MegaRaid utility which looks like it is used once Win 7 is installed. I guess the grey area would be how do you set up the RAID array and set it as the boot disk.

This is what I can find so far:

http://www.lsi.com/downloads/Public...Files/SAS_SATA_6G_P12/SAS2IRCU_User_Guide.pdf
 
for me, megaraid was automatically detected by windows 7 and I didn't have to do anything. I created the raid array in the web bios, booted with a windows cd, and that was it.

for windows xp, I had to slipstream. maybe you have to do that for windows 7.
 
Oh cool, so LSI uses a same BIOS type screen (webBIOS?) to setup the raid as the Intel RAID screen on computer start up? That's what I was curious about, never used an LSI RAID before.
 
Yes. I wonder what the performance will be with that entry level chip, not sure it will be better than the intel chipset.
 
Aesma said:
Yes. I wonder what the performance will be with that entry level chip, not sure it will be better than the intel chipset.
Click to expand...

Entry level chip, lol? It's still a $300 card if you were to buy a 9207-8i, it's not like we're talking marvell here. It doesn't have onboard cache, which you're not going to use in a RAID 0 SSD array anyway, you're just going to use write through.

OP, just put the driver on a usb drive so you can use it for the OS install. Do a ctrl-c when it pops up in the boot process and configure your array from there.
 
Cool.

Ya, I was thinking the same thing on the "entry level' chip. The chip costs more than most motherboards. ;)
 
Well, the price is high, the cost not so much, or you wouldn't be able to find it on an "affordable" motherboard. But the point is not there, it's that just like a Marvell controller, it's connected through PCIe, and so will add latencies compared to a drive directly connected to the chipset. We'll see how much when you test it.
 
Aesma said:
Well, the price is high, the cost not so much, or you wouldn't be able to find it on an "affordable" motherboard. But the point is not there, it's that just like a Marvell controller, it's connected through PCIe, and so will add latencies compared to a drive directly connected to the chipset. We'll see how much when you test it.
Click to expand...

Check out the reviews for 9207-8i, it out performs the Intel even in a single M4 drive setup. It's also connected using 8 PCIe 3.0 lanes, which are directly connected to the processor, it's not like it has to flow through the X79 chipset and through the DMI link like a Marvell controller would. The same LSI controller is used on the current Tyan and Supermicro C602 Xeon boards.
 
Should be interesting but a floppy driver?

AAR I have a 9260-4i with 3 Crucial SSDs in RAID and the only way to beat the Intel chipset was to get the optional (150.00) FastPath software.

Personally, I wouldn't expect an integrated chipset to outperform a quality add-in card but I wish you well!

Good Luck!
 
I found only the ssdreviews test which doesn't really compare to the intel except with one meager CDM.
 
ND40oz said:
Entry level chip, lol? It's still a $300 card if you were to buy a 9207-8i, it's not like we're talking marvell here. It doesn't have onboard cache, which you're not going to use in a RAID 0 SSD array anyway, you're just going to use write through.
Click to expand...
I didn't know that 9207-8i had hardware raid option, since its supposed to be a HBA. But why wouldn't you use onboard cache (if it had it)?
(offtopic) I need a hw raid10 controler for esxi with 4 ssd. If I don't need the cache, then a simple ibm m1015 in IR would be ok for the job?
 
If you don't have a BBU, you use the cache and it goes offline without getting a chance to write to disk, you're going to have some serious issues. The M1015 will be fine, but the 9207 will be faster, it's a newer card with a better processor. Won't matter with ESXi though, 4 SSDs in RAID 0 should handle a bunch of guests.
 
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