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Controller for a fileserver

F

FnordMan

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 22, 2011
Messages
1,727
ok: so i've got a fileserver with 10 drives in it (2 4 drive ZFS arrays, one linux raid1 for /)

The problem? I've got two extra controllers in there and the thing's cabling mess that i'd love to get cleaned up. Hence i'm looking for one controller that'll drive at least 8 drives. (the two drives for / are fine on the motherboard.. may end up replacing both of those with an SSD given they're getting on in years)
I do have a full PCIe x16 slot available. gpu slot, currently has a x4 sata card in there.. the box is rocking some ancient PCI card just to get it to boot (the thing's headless)

I was eyeing this guy and a couple appropriate SATA breakout cables. Can that guy even run 8 drives in a non-RAID environment? How hard is it to get the thing flashed? (the arrays aren't critical to booting, I can boot linux without them)
If you've got other ideas for a controller let me know, ideally i'd like to keep this around $250-300 or less.

Am I insane for even considering this? (opinions vary there..)
 
That card is fine but ebay the IBM M1015 instead. Same card, half the price.
 
The LSI 9211-8i or equivalent rebranded LSI SAS 2008 controllers are pretty popular for ZFS. I personally have a Dell H200 (rebranded) and run a pair of striped mirrors off of it without any issues, with plans to add 2-4 SSDs on the controller for an additional pool.

Flashing the card was easy enough, with the caveat that I needed to use the UEFI version of sas2flash and boot into a UEFI shell to run it. I chose to flash Dell's SAS HBA firmware and remove the option roms to make it an unbootable dumb controller.

Like Aesma suggested, assuming you're fine with a used controller, I'd look on ebay or such for one of the OEM rebrands as they usually run around $100 last I checked.
 
Cool, thanks for the info both of you. I'll go see if I can find something then. Used doesn't bother me too much as long as it still works and will be reliable. Wonder if there's any used via amazon.. i'd feel a heck of a lot more comfortable buying something used there.

Not running a UEFI board in the box right now, didn't want to deal with the headache of upgrading to GRUB2 (of which i'm now going to have to anyway.. looks like it's time for a SSD for the root filesystem)

Are there other rebranded controllers I should keep and eye out for other than the Dell or IBM ones mentioned?
 
fantabulous said:
A listing of SAS 2008 controllers: http://www.servethehome.com/lsi-sas-2008-raid-controller-hba-information/

Not sure of prices/ease of flashing for things like the Cisco/HP rebrands.

Most of the reflashing information for the IBM M1015 is for non-UEFI systems, so that should be a slight benefit for you.
Click to expand...

Cool, thanks for the link, that'll help tons when I go to flash the thing (haven't even ordered it yet though)
Looks like I may have a winner with the IBM card, they're available reasonably cheaply from various sources.
 
I installed an m1015 yesterday i bought brand new from one of the china sellers on ebay for $115.

Got 2 SAS break out cables from monoprice via amazon for $20.

Flashing the firmware to IT mode was cake. I kept the option boot rom so I could boot from one of the drives connected to the M1015 if needed.

I was able to replace 8 SATA cables with 2 SAS break out cables. Very clean.
 
af22 said:
I installed an m1015 yesterday i bought brand new from one of the china sellers on ebay for $115.

Got 2 SAS break out cables from monoprice via amazon for $20.

Flashing the firmware to IT mode was cake. I kept the option boot rom so I could boot from one of the drives connected to the M1015 if needed.

I was able to replace 8 SATA cables with 2 SAS break out cables. Very clean.
Click to expand...

Nice, that's precisely my goal there, cleaning up the rat's nest of cables in the poor box. Temps are fine-ish right now but i'm still slightly concerned about airflow (*cough* yes, the proc in the fileserver is overclocked. used to be my desktop board/processor)
good to hear from another person that's actually done this.
 
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