AOC-USAS-L4I question

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SinnerG

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Jul 13, 2010
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I'm after a low cost RAID card that can be use with the HP SAS Expander. It seems the AOC-USAS-L4I is confirmed working with the HP expander as indicated in the sas expander owners thread.

I'd just like to confirm from owners of the card whether it can either do RAID modes or JBOD modes only. I'd like the card to do RAID 1 or 10 on a pair of internal drives and a mix of JBOD and other RAID on drives attached to an expander. There are 2 different firmwares (IR and IT) for it, but is it definitely no JBOD support on the IR firmware?

I suppose for $130 card I might just be asking too much out of it. I'd love to have an Areca ARC-1680LP, but well out of my budget in new form and very rare to see on ebay (although I missed 2 of them this week which went for $180 each!!)
 
If the AOC-USAS-L4I works like the Intel SASUC8I, it also supports JBOD mode with the IR firmware. What I do not know is, if it can work with JBOD and RAID in parallel, but I would guess so. If you do not configure the card for RAID, it just passes all disks to the OS like a HBA.

I'd like to inform you that my HP SAS expander at firmware 2.02 seems not to work with the LSI cards at 3.0 Gbps link speed drive-side, it automatically sets all to 1.5 Gbps. Either my expander is broken or it is a problem with the 2.02 firmware.
 
Well if it won't do 3Gbps then I reckon I'll keep looking for a cheap used Areca 1680LP.

Have you tried using the 1.xx firmware on the expander? In the expander thread they have mentioned some other cards needed that expander firmware to work.

I know the Promise card I was looking at some time back could do JBOD and RAID in parrallel, but unfortunately I don't think it will work with the expander.
 
The expander had already 2.02 installed when it arrived. I do not know if I can even downgrade the firmware and I do not own a HP controller to try it.
 
I think it is useless to you now and no longer worth a penny. Send it to me!!! :D
 
You could also think about using multiple AOC-USAS-L4I cards with software RAID. My server uses 2 of the Intel controllers and I could fit in 2 additional ones for a total of 32 drives.
 
That'd work, but I still don't like that 1.5Gbps limitation you mention.

I guess I best just starting putting the cash aside for the Areca I initially wanted. I'll have a look and see if the Areca and mix 'n match RAID and JBOD off a single controller. Time for some more homework.
 
What I meant is to omit the expander and connect all drives to the controllers directly, that way the 1.5 Gbps limitation does not apply. On the other hand I would also have bought an ARC-1680 if the ARC-1880 wasn't on the horizon.

As far as I know the Areca controller is either in RAID or JBOD mode. You can however set single drives to passthrough in RAID mode. I guess you have to do that for each drive, which may be inconvenient.
 
I might not have anough PCI-e slots for that as it's a desktop board. Besides, if I could get 3 in it'd wind up costing as much as the Areca.

Really? The Areca does not do JBOD/RAID split? It seems cards that do this are few and far between and I swear the Promise I was looking at could handle it.

But as you say, software RAID might just be fine considering it'll just be a pair of main drives. If I could get the Areca on the cheap, then I suppose I could also just get a smaller RAID card for the main drives and keep them off the Areca. The expander will eat a PCI-e x8 slot, so with the Areca which leaves some x1 slots only. Don't think I'll be maxing a x1 slot on a pair of 7200rpm drives... I think.
 
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