Cheap SAS HBA that is 4TB compatible?

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Guldan

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I have a Dell 1950 attached to an MD1000 enclosure

The MD1000 is agnostic, if I put a proper sas hba in the server it should see 4TB disks.

Anyone have suggestions on which one? I only need 1 external path
 
Thanks guys, I can see the MD1000 on the LSI PDF as well.

Price is a big factor, the $250 LSI is probably my upper limit. Only because I don't need to do what i'm doing, I just can't help myself.

Will most likely do a 4 disk raidz1 to start
 
Get a rebranded LSI card like the IBM ServeRAID's or the Dell Perc's. Check here for any of the SAS2008-based or newer models.
 
mikehunt114 said:
Get a rebranded LSI card like the IBM ServeRAID's or the Dell Perc's. Check here for any of the SAS2008-based or newer models.
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Some of those Dell models have firmware restrictions and won't allow crossflashing. I think the H310 is one, but I'm not sure what else.
 
Perc6 is a raid card not an HBA, I intend on using Freenas/ZFS (Software raid). The Dell equivalent is a SAS 6/E which may or may not see 4TB

I've heard people recommend IBM ServeRAID will look into them as well
 
Guldan said:
Perc6 is a raid card not an HBA, I intend on using Freenas/ZFS (Software raid). The Dell equivalent is a SAS 6/E which may or may not see 4TB
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Only 6Gbps+ LSI cards will do >2TB. Do not touch a SAS 6. It's a billion years old and won't do >2TB.
 
Guldan said:
Perc6 is a raid card not an HBA
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If I'm not mistaken Dell Percs can be flashed to a non-RAID mode (IT or IR) just like any other LSI SAS2008 based cards. You can read more about flashing in the thread I linked. Rebranded cards are usually found to be much cheaper than their LSI counterparts.
 
Get a LSI 9211-8i or better yet, IBM M1015 (which is rebranded 9211-8i) I bought a IBM M1015 on ebay used for $50 dollars flat just the other day. I have bought several of these in he past there great. I know you need an external path but I'm not sure if you could beat this price for an adapter. I use a HP SAS (12GB backbone bridged) expander myself so thats how I have my external ports . . . . .
 
geant90 said:
Get a LSI 9211-8i or better yet, IBM M1015 (which is rebranded 9211-8i)
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Totally agreed. You could get the newer 9207-8i or the even newer 9300-8i, but they have no real advantage if used with HDDs, they only consume more power. The only advantage (if used for HDDs) I see in the newer controllers is that they are PCIe 3.0, so you can get away with a x4 port even when you have a lot of drives connected and accessed simultaneously.
 
geant90 said:
Get a LSI 9211-8i or better yet, IBM M1015 (which is rebranded 9211-8i) I bought a IBM M1015 on ebay used for $50 dollars flat just the other day. I have bought several of these in he past there great. I know you need an external path but I'm not sure if you could beat this price for an adapter. I use a HP SAS (12GB backbone bridged) expander myself so thats how I have my external ports . . . . .
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Did you even read the thread? He's using an EXTERNAL enclosure.
 
dandragonrage said:
Did you even read the thread? He's using an EXTERNAL enclosure.
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internal to external adapters are dirt cheap, like 12$. and work fine if the cost of the controllers is drastically different.

also the dell H310 have access to a dell branded IT firmware so crossflash is not necessary. even in IR mode they support native pass-through so really their is very minimal benefit to using either the dell or the LSI IT firmware.
 
M1015. I've tried getting cheaper ones, and I always regret it. This thing works great in any sort of ZFS or linux based NAS.

I've probably built/repurosed a dozen pieces of hardware at work, probably tried half a dozen different cards, and the M1015 is the cheapest and generally the most hardware compatible.

If you're super serious about hardware RAID, pony up and get an better LSI (9240 or the newer version of that), adaptec or Areca card.
 
hotcrandel said:
M1015. I've tried getting cheaper ones, and I always regret it. This thing works great in any sort of ZFS or linux based NAS.

I've probably built/repurosed a dozen pieces of hardware at work, probably tried half a dozen different cards, and the M1015 is the cheapest and generally the most hardware compatible.

If you're super serious about hardware RAID, pony up and get an better LSI (9240 or the newer version of that), adaptec or Areca card.
Click to expand...

He didn't say he wanted hardware RAID at ALL - he asked for an HBA. Why are you assuming he is "super serious" about hardware RAID? Hopefully he's doing ZFS.

M1015 works as an HBA, sure, and I use one that way. It's an option with the external adapter (though I looked for such adapters a couple years ago and did not find them as cheap as $12). Just more of a pain to get working on OpenSolaris-based stuff (unless LSI's latest driver makes it easy again - their Solaris driver releases seem to be very hit-or-miss).
 
dandragonrage said:
He didn't say he wanted hardware RAID at ALL - he asked for an HBA. Why are you assuming he is "super serious" about hardware RAID? Hopefully he's doing ZFS.

M1015 works as an HBA, sure, and I use one that way. It's an option with the external adapter (though I looked for such adapters a couple years ago and did not find them as cheap as $12). Just more of a pain to get working on OpenSolaris-based stuff (unless LSI's latest driver makes it easy again - their Solaris driver releases seem to be very hit-or-miss).
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I missed the 4th post about him using RAIDZ1. I've had pretty good luck with solaris on the M1015.
 
Digging up a couple year old thread, but I want to connect a Dell R220 server to an MD1000 that I am going to get off Ebay. Plan to also use 4TB WD Red Sata drives.

I want to use Windows Server 2012 Essentials with ReFS and Storage Spaces (so basically software raid) on the data set. The MD1000 supports 15 drives and can daisy chain two more enclosures for up to 45 drives total so I would like to be able to support that many drives from the HBA.


What is a current HBA that I should get?
 
I don't think anything has changed in the HBA landscape for home servers.

Go with an LSI 2008 based card still.
 
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