Rec. for inexp. port expander

D

dd0512

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 14, 2009
Messages
145
So, building up (possibly) into a 10+ drive fserver with flexraid and I could use recommendations for port expander cards. I've got free pci-e and free pci slots
(MSI 79fx-gd70 mobo http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130223
)

So, I'm thinking at a minimum a 4 port expander card, which I think I can find fairly easily and cheaply. The question becomes, what are some options (an older, but still solid card is fine with me) for 8 and more port expansions that could be found (used too) with good enough current compatability (Win7 drivers / anything else) while being probably <$120
 
check out IBM M1015's on ebay, they are the current hot cards, can be had for about 80 new
 
Yes it can be flashed into IT mode. That's generally what people on here are doing.
 
I should note that I couldn't get the M1015 to spindown hard drives in Windows 7 + FlexRAID snapshot combo, and one of the biggest pluses for FlexRAID is that data is not striped accross drives so it'll only access the drive you want. I ended up buying the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 which does allow hard drive spindown; AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 does NOT spindown drives though, I emailed Supermicro and they confirmed this with me.

If someone is able to get the M1015 to spindown hard drives with Windows 7 + FlexRAID, I'd love to know because mine is collecting dust until I move to ZFS.
 
I wonder if you could have had the drives spindown themselves. I mean by using hdparm to send the ATA command that sets the desired spindown period and the drive firmware takes care of the spindown without OS or controller interaction. I use this method on linux all the time for my drives with great success.
 
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