Disk controller recommendations

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samuelmorris

Supreme [H]ardness
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Dec 20, 2010
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Hi,

I'm looking for a disk controller to run a large array of 3TB disks. RAID support is not required, although most of the controllers that meet the rest of the requirements seem to be RAID controllers.

Requirements list:

At least 16 internal SAS/SATA ports - preferably via 4xSFF8087, but SATA will do.
3TB+ disk size support mandatory on all ports
PCI Express bus (4x or above link speed)
SATA3 drive support



Case being used: XCase RM420 4U (basically a Norco 4220)
Drives being used: Mixture of the following:
WD20EARS
WD20EARX
WD30EZRX
WD30EFRX


My current setup includes a cheap 8-port Highpoint 2280, which I only discovered lacked 3TB drive support (despite advertising it on the box) when it wiped one of the disks once it crossed the 2.16TB limit.

I have been looking at various Areca and LSI controllers, but frustratingly none will advertise 3TB disk support except for a small number of high-end RAID controllers which cost in excess of £1000 - a level of expenditure I am trying to avoid. Manufacturers do not respond to requests for this information.

I'd be grateful for any ideas people have about what I can use for this system. I am not averse the idea of using a SAS expander to get the number of ports required if this proves a cheaper/better option, but I ideally want to avoid having to run an external cable between the controllers. Only one PCIe 16x slot is spare but several expansion slots are available.

Thanks

Sam
 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Adaptec-227...qid=1370205899&sr=8-1&keywords=adaptec+71605e

Would be super overkill but definitely supports 3TB and definitely costs less than 1000 funny munnies. (the specs on that amazon page seem kinda bullshit here are the real ones)

I don't know how much the M1015's are these days but I hear they're not as cheap as they used to be, and you'd need 2 of them, not sure if you have a strict "must fit in one slot" requirement or not.

Oh and I didn't look at anything highpoint because highpoint is garbage.
 
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Oh and I didn't look at anything highpoint because highpoint is garbage.
Click to expand...
So everybody tells me, and given my experience, I can see why they think that.

Card looks interesting, thanks for the link - but still no explicit mention of 3TB+ disk support anywhere on that page. You'd think it has it from SATA3, but that's a lot of money to drop to risk it not being the case.

As stated, I only have the one free 16x slot, otherwise it means using a 1x slot.
 
I don't think there's any more affordable 16 port cards out there since most RAID/HBA cards SAS chip are 8 port native so to get up to 16 they have to add an expander chip. The Adaptec 7 series apparently uses a 24 port SAS chip so there's no huge price jump from the 8 port to the 16 or 24 port cards, more a linear increase.
 
Yeah this is one of the reasons I was considering my own SAS expander, but even finding an 8-port card to meet the spec wasn't easy. The only downside to this Adaptec card is I have to spend an additional £80 on cables that convert its odd SFF-8643 connectors to the SFF-8087 standard the others all use - still seems to work out cheaper though.
 
They're not so much odd as new, supposedly most HBA vendors will be switching to them in the next year or so on all their new cards for density reasons (fitting 4x SFF-8087 on a low profile RAID card is a bit of a squeeze, and apparently HBA density is now a thing), but yeah it's a bummer if you had existing 8087 cables to use. If you are however like me and had to buy cables anyway, they're a little more expensive but not too much so.
 
Yeah I realised, having an SFF code they probably wouldn't be proprietary, it's just interesting that no other brand seems to use them yet. Unfortunately the case takes SFF-8087 connectors directly for the backplanes, so I have to use SFF-8087 for it - already have two cables from the 8-port Highpoint, will need two more of them of course for a 16-port card. I do take the point on density, but running several HBAs in a system - is it really that common? :confused:
 
Quite a few around here running multiple M1015's in ZFS or other such configurations. If you have the spare PCIe slots 2 or 3 M1015's is cheaper than one and an expander, and as you experienced getting a 16+ port card causes the cost to skyrocket.

I did find a 16 port LSI HBA but as you can see it's quite a bit more expensive, has absolutely no RAID support or cache RAM, and is FH instead of LP.
 
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Yeah that looks like one of the cards I was looking at originally, but ran up against the same 'support for 3TB drives not specified' issue as the others. I hear it's pretty much the same controller on a lot of these cards, but given the reason the Highpoint was no good was due to a BIOS version (supposedly), I wasn't willing to take the chance on it.
 
well if you go by newegg prices and comments that LSI HBA has 3TB support, but you might need to do a firmware upgrade to get it. LSI is also cheaper at newegg, not sure what kind of prices you can get on it over there. Save a few bucks on cables that you already have too
 
Yeah the firmware update utility not working is one of the main reasons for ditching the Highpoint, not trusting it :)

The Adaptec card looks like the best bet, just got to wait until I get paid now :rolleyes:
 
Just thought I'd post an update here - had the controller in for a couple of weeks now, and so far so good, running several 3TB disks off it without incident. Many thanks for the recommendation.

My only two criticisms:
- The controller temperature info only updates roughly every 24 hours, and even after that period, is only visible by enabling/disabling 'advanced statistics' - a live temperature feed would be useful (especially if the information going to the alarm is also only updated daily!)

- Because the controller supports SMART passthrough (which is what I wanted), I now have so many drives reporting SMART data that SpeedFan does not open :/ - Have tried a few other tools, but they don't seem to be able to recognise drives connected via the controller.
 
Yeah, I did see it coming though, SpeedFan was very dodgy reporting as few as 8 drives, so it not working with 15 reporting (of 17) is not exactly surprising.
 
What controller are you using?

Some controllers don't even allow SMART commands to pass through
 
The Adaptec 71605E Dragon recommended - the drives are definitely detectable as SpeedFan picks them up before it crashes on launch.
 
Month ago I setup ZFS system with 2xIBM1015 flashed to LSI9211-IT and 16 x Seagate ST4000DM000 4TB,works flawless for now.
 
The M1015's reign supreme, simple and FAST. Down side is they are only good as HBA's or RAID-0, 1 or 10. No RAID-5 or 6...

The Highpoints from what I have used were nothing but a low-point for me.



LOL @ Using SpeedFan....
 
I knew Highpoints were mediocre at best before I bought one. However at £80 for the 8-port 2680, it's all I could afford at the time - before discovering the £360 odd Adaptec (which ultimately was £440 due to spending £80 on SFF-8643 to SFF-8087 adapters to fit my case's backplanes) I was looking at a lot more than that.
It was actually fine, up until I discovered the lack of 3TB disk support.

LOL @ Using SpeedFan....
Click to expand...
If you have any recommendations for alternatives, I'm all ears ;)
 
samuelmorris said:
Yeah that looks like one of the cards I was looking at originally, but ran up against the same 'support for 3TB drives not specified' issue as the others. I hear it's pretty much the same controller on a lot of these cards, but given the reason the Highpoint was no good was due to a BIOS version (supposedly), I wasn't willing to take the chance on it.
Click to expand...

There are many 3TB drives listed as supported:
http://www.lsi.com/downloads/Public...s/LSI_6Gb_SAS_SATA_HBA_Compatibility_List.pdf

Sounds like you have a working card though grats. I was not so lucky with my 9240-8i. I just ordered my 9211-8i. It's a newer card and isn't raid by default as I understand it.

Side note I've had nothing but luck with a HighPoint card. Other than the fact that it didn't have Solaris drivers for it.
 
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