RAID/HBA Recomendations

S

Solarnet

n00b
Joined
Jan 11, 2010
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Looking for a RAID/HBA card that will work with my motherboard. My current system is as follows:

Motherboard: MSI 790FX-GD70
CPU: AMD Phenom X6
Memory: 16GB DDR3
Hard Drives: 16 - 2 TB, 1 - 1TB , 8 - 3TB
RAID: Highpoint RR3560 ( Not compatable with 3TB Drives or Expander - Will be selling)
RAID: 4 - IBM M1015 G6 Raid (Not compatible with motherboard - Will be selling)
Expander - Intel RES2SV240 24-port SAS2 Expander
Case: Norco RPC-4224
OS: Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Home Server 2011

What I'm looking to do is connect the RAID/HBA to the expander then to the norco backplane. Drives will be presented as individual drive.

Thanks

Richard
 
I suggest the LSI SAS 9201-16i. It has 4 SFF-8087 ports, each of which handles 4 drives, for a total of 16 drives. It is a HBA, and runs the standard LSI BIOS and firmware (in IT mode no less). It works fantastically in Windows (2003 or above), Solaris (Open-variants included), and BSD.

It costs $400 from Newegg or Amazon.
 
Gigas-VII said:
I suggest the LSI SAS 9201-16i. It has 4 SFF-8087 ports, each of which handles 4 drives, for a total of 16 drives. It is a HBA, and runs the standard LSI BIOS and firmware (in IT mode no less). It works fantastically in Windows (2003 or above), Solaris (Open-variants included), and BSD.

It costs $400 from Newegg or Amazon.
Click to expand...

Look just like what I need, Was hopping for something a little cheeper but I guess for 16 ports it is worth it.

Thanks

Richard
 
Something to keep in mind about HBAs: a single HBA with the right number of ports is always going to be cheaper than an HBA with an insufficient port-count plus an expander. Also, I suggest that you stick with a single brand, if possible.

As for 3TB drives, I haven't used one on my 9201-16i, but I would assume that the SAS2 protocols were designed with large drives in mind, even when running SATA encapsulation. Does anyone else have any experience with this?
 
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