SATA Controller Cards

Any recommendation for a "cheap" (but good) 4 ports SATA card?

What is the recommendation in terms of interface (PCI-e)  to use with SATA II or SATA III drives?

 

What is the impact for a SATA controller card being installed on a PCIe x1 vs PCIe x16?

 

Thanks

 

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124064

 

I am adding this to another one of my servers after reading numerous reviews. 

Hi guys n Gals,

 

Ive got to build a 24 Drive system for my company & was wondering if this  :- Intel RAID Twenty-four port Expander Card RES2SV240  -  http://www.newegg.com/global/uk/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816117207 -:

 

Would be ay good to use? on its own?...

 

i myself have several sata raid cards in my own system but would like to make it look neater

 

Kind Regards

 

Hi guys n Gals,

 

Ive got to build a 24 Drive system for my company & was wondering if this  :- Intel RAID Twenty-four port Expander Card RES2SV240  -  http://www.newegg.com/global/uk/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816117207 -:

 

Would be ay good to use? on its own?...

 

i myself have several sata raid cards in my own system but would like to make it look neater

 

Kind Regards

That is a SAS expander and does nothing on it's own.  You have to have a controller like an IBM M1015 connected to it to control the drives that would be connected to the SAS expander.

Hi guys n Gals,

 

Ive got to build a 24 Drive system for my company & was wondering if this  :- Intel RAID Twenty-four port Expander Card RES2SV240  -  http://www.newegg.com/global/uk/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816117207 -:

 

Would be ay good to use? on its own?...

 

i myself have several sata raid cards in my own system but would like to make it look neater

 

Kind Regards

That is a SAS expander and does nothing on it's own.  You have to have a controller like an IBM M1015 connected to it to control the drives that would be connected to the SAS expander.

 

Ok i get it now ... How would i hook up all 24 drives ? id hook the raid card to the expander, then hock 20 drives to the expander ... i take it the other 4 disks would hook to the last port on the raid card?

 

Expander, OK but:

 

1. While I'm not sure how the expander is working - what do the experts here say with regard to the bandwith provided by a single PCIe x8 to connect 24 drives? Isn't it a bit of a bottle neck?

 

2. I suppose you will use a server grade motherboard. If you manage to get one with 8 SATA slots and add 2 M1015 (or other 8x SAS adapters) you also have 24 slots. Depends on your enclosure of course.

 

Expander, OK but:

 

1. While I'm not sure how the expander is working - what do the experts here say with regard to the bandwith provided by a single PCIe x8 to connect 24 drives? Isn't it a bit of a bottle neck?

 

2. I suppose you will use a server grade motherboard. If you manage to get one with 8 SATA slots and add 2 M1015 (or other 8x SAS adapters) you also have 24 slots. Depends on your enclosure of course.

 

I just as much in the dark about the expander as you are my friend, this is the first i heard of one and thought id bring it to the forum, the Motherboard my company have atm - GA-7PESH1 -http://www.anandtech.com/show/6533/gigabyte-ga7pesh1-review-a-dual-processor-motherboard-through-a-scientists-eyes - .

 

This was pulled from one of our old servers that are nolonger needed, the system will have both "Intel® Xeon® E5-2600 V2 processors"  and max ram as it will be hosting unraid among other operating systems.

 

The enclosure will be completely custom built to fit in with our already existing server systems

im just trying to save money on the sata/sas controllers as most of our parts are recycled, id also not like to go down the rute i have with my own personal server ... 4 - 5 controllers

 

Having a short look at that board I see:

2 x Mini-SAS (for 8 x SAS 6Gb/s ports)

1 x Mini-SAS (for 4 x SATA II 3Gb/s ports)

2 x SATA III 6Gb/s ports

 

If you're lucky to use that onboard controller as HBA and unRAID has an apropriate driver, you already covered 14 Drives. You have to examine that! ("...onboard LSI SAS")

Install unRAID, get some forward breakout cables and plug the drives and see if they're available in unRAID.

If you wanna save money, then you're probably good with the 2x M1015 (or similar builds).

At my place the M1015 is about 50-70€ @ebay. Expander aren't that popular and you barely find them on ebay.

 

Nice board btw.!

 

20 drives and one connection to controller on the SAS expander - 4 drives directly attached to controller.  Just like you outlined.

 

 

I get a 25% speed reduction when using my SAS expanders but that makes the speed about what I get with my PCI-X controller (AOC-SAT2-MV8) which is about 90MB/s on outer cylinders with Seagate ST3000DM001 drives.

What is the application you are targeting? How important is performance vs cost? Why the 24 drive limit? (I would think you might say you need to space for XX terabytes instead of XX drives). 6T drives are becoming affordable and may be a direction to look if starting a new array and might reduce your drive count needs.

 

With some of those answers I might advise differently, but I have read of some heat and reliability issues with some of the SAS expanders. And the cost is not much if at all less than than separate controllers. Bob has had good luck with his and not saying it is a bad idea, but in general I would tend to favor using a motherboard + addon controllers and adding each drive directly to a real port. We are seeing magnetics continue to grow in size and speed, and SSDs, which are dramatically faster, also grow in size and reduce in cost. With separate ports for each drive you'd be more future proof. Since this is for a business purpose, there are a variety of controllers that are costly for a home user which might fit the bill for a business.

What is the application you are targeting? How important is performance vs cost? Why the 24 drive limit? (I would think you might say you need to space for XX terabytes instead of XX drives). 6T drives are becoming affordable and may be a direction to look if starting a new array and might reduce your drive count needs.

 

With some of those answers I might advise differently, but I have read of some heat and reliability issues with some of the SAS expanders. And the cost is not much if at all less than than separate controllers. Bob has had good luck with his and not saying it is a bad idea, but in general I would tend to favor using a motherboard + addon controllers and adding each drive directly to a real port. We are seeing magnetics continue to grow in size and speed, and SSDs, which are dramatically faster, also grow in size and reduce in cost. With separate ports for each drive you'd be more future proof. Since this is for a business purpose, there are a variety of controllers that are costly for a home user which might fit the bill for a business.

I agree with this.  I haven't noticed a heat problem but my case has good ventilation.  I wouldn't be using SAS expanders if I didn't want the PCIe slots for tuners and this allows me to only have one slot used for unRAID hard drive control and the rest of the slots can be used for other devices and VMs.

@ Mr_Gamecase

I noticed you're running the Highpoint 1740 cards.

They are PCI 32bit cards with 4 SATA II ports.

 

How are your parity check speeds? Must be a bottle neck or not?

You have even 4 running on your PCI bus...

 

I would like to add the information to the wiki, so please be accurate.

Hi -

 

I'm getting ready to add additional drives and my motherboard SATA ports are full. I'd like to be able to add 4 more drives for now.  My current motherboard is older and only support PCI Express 1.x.  It has 3 x1 slots and an x16 slot, which will hopefully work for a SATA controller.

 

I think my options are:

• Use a couple of x1 2 port adaptors, for instance Monoprice or Rosewill.  These seem more like desktop cards than server cards?
  
• Use an x1 adaptor with 4 ports like this Syba.  Wouldn't that create bandwidth issues?
  
• Use an x4 card with 4 ports in the x16 slot like this Highpoint.  I'm least comfortable in this space though - I haven't been able to find recent recommendations.
  
• Go all the way up to an 8 port card card like the SuperMicro for future expandability.
  

I've reviewed recommendations here on the forum but it's a little hard to figure out what is current.  For instance, LSI cards seem to be very expensive and many of the IBM M1015 cards ship from China.  My personal inclination is to go with the SuperMicro even though it is overkill unless I can find a recommendation for a good 4 port card.  Any feedback or other ideas?

 

Also, is there any reason to get the older SuperMicro SASLP at this point?

 

Thanks.

Hi tdallen,

for the bandwidth issue:

              PCIe 1.0/1.1 (2003)  PCIe 2.0/2.1 (2007)  PCIe 3.0 (20012)    PCIe 4.0 (~2015?)

per lane    250 MB/s                    500 MB/s                    985 MB/s                  1969 MB/s

 

Nominal values incl. overhead...

So going with a PCIe x1 2.0/2.1 and 4 drives is "on the edge" but still OK IMHO.

 

If you studied the wiki you find the confirmed working cards. The list is of course not exhausting

but you can check at least some cards.

Sure, some of them are outdated but you may find them on ebay?

The next hurdle you will find is that some models can be found only in some regions for reasonable prices.

In Europe you will rarely find cheap Supermicros but you can often find DELL and IBM on ebay that people

pull from their servers. Just make sure to get the pulled cards and don't buy them from china.

They sell for about 50-70€ over here.

If you plan to expand further you're probably best off with an 8-port card - check the price/port.

 

Thanks, I've been through the Wiki but I went through it again in detail.  Unfortunately the 4 port x4 section doesn't have many cards that are still available.  The only three cards that are still available new are the Highpoint RocketRAID 640 ($190), the LSI SAS9211-4i ($173), and the SYBA SD-PEX40054 (cheap, but doesn't work with unRAID on large drives).  I think the first two cards are expensive because they are in limited supply.  I'm interested in buying new so that I can return the purchase if necessary - my older motherboard may or may not accept a non-video card in the x16 slot.

 

I guess my options are a reasonably priced but untested 4 port x4 card, or an 8 port card.  The occasionally available on eBay IBM M1015 for < $100 or the SuperMicro for $112 certainly have a better price/port than the 4 port options.

 

 

In limited testing, I've found ASMedia ASM1061 based cards to be quick - given the limitation of PCIe 2.0 x1 - and (most importantly) reliable (or at least better than all the Marvell ones I've used).

 

Has anyone seen any problems with these?

 

I think there's scope to create an open design controller card which uses a bunch of these and a PCIe switch chip to create a multi port card - e.g. 12 port SATA, with a PCIe 2.0 x4 host interface - if the price is reasonably low (e.g. sub $200) would anyone here be interested in such a design?

Hi Folks,

 

Has anyone tried the latest Supermicro AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 card (3rd generation, now supporting 6Gbps x 8 SAS/SATA drives, requires PCIe x8 slot)?

 

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101792

http://www.ncix.com/detail/supermicro-aoc-sas2lp-mv8-8-channel-6gb-s-bf-62032.htm

 

I'm just waiting for them to come into stock in Canada, but thought I would check.

 

I did a search and came up with slightly older threads - am I mistaken, or has this 3rd generation card been around for a while (Newegg reviews show 2013, but I thought maybe they was because they migrated their SKU from 2nd generation or something)... I still see the 2nd generation low-profile 3Gbps card as in stock, but would rather stick with the newer card if possible.

 

Currently have an Antec P182 case with Gigabyte X58 Chipset Board, Core i7 920, 12GB RAM, OCZ Modstream 700W PSU, 6 x 1TB 7200RPM Seagate Drives and 1 x C300 SSD for Cache... hobbled unRAID together and tested using ESXi 5.1 with other VM's (using RDM for the drives)... worked great so I am using it baremetal now and figured I would try to scale a little and update the controller now and drives as they fail (to 2-3TB drives).

 

Also considering the Icy Dock 3 to 5 as I've got only 1 DVD-ROM and 4 x 5.25" Spaces (this case is a pain in the butt to see which HDD's are which and cable with stock mounting).

Other alternative (for less cost) would be just change the case to a Fractal Design Define R4 and reuse this case for a new ESXi 5.5 build once the latest consumer E5's come out with DDR4:

 

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352020

 

Feel free to just comment on the SAS Card - I can post the rest in the general Server Building forum if it's a hassle to talk about the case / Icy Dock... just figured it was to do with HDD mounting.

 

Thanks!

 

Best Regards,

 

Derek

For the price of the supermicro card you can almost buy 3 Dell H310's on ebay. I bought 3 for $150 in the last month, one sold for $34 a few days ago. 10 Minutes with sas2flsh program and you have a very cheap LSI 9211-8i.

I have the Supermicro AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 card in my newest server and it seems to be working fine out of the box. Remember it does not come with cables, so you will need 2 SAS breakout cables which run around $15 each: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FBYS2U/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

In limited testing, I've found ASMedia ASM1061 based cards to be quick - given the limitation of PCIe 2.0 x1 - and (most importantly) reliable (or at least better than all the Marvell ones I've used).

 

Has anyone seen any problems with these?

 

I have been able to get my Vantec UGT-ST622 (ASMedia 106x chipset) to work reliably once I applied the 3.70 firmware. 

 

This is based on the following build, where the ASRock motherboard also employs the ASMedia chipset with no issues out of the box.

 

AMD 5350 AM1 socket CPU

ASRock AM1B-ITX Motherboard

 

 

 

Hi guys, I just got a

"Delock  89270 PCI Express Card - 2 x internal SATA 6Gb"

 

It has a Marvel 88SE9128 chipset, PCIE 2.0x1, 2 internal SATA ports and a bundled low profile bracket. It cost me 38 €, but at least it has 3 years of warranty.

 

It seems to be working right out of the box, without any mod/script/etc to my unRAID installation. I've only put a single 3TB WD RED on it, which was precleared on the motherboard controller.

 

The speed seems to be in the same ballpark as with the MB controller, which is 35-45MB/s sustained. Note that I do not have an i7 CPU, only a 1st gen AMD Fusion A8-3870.  Anyways, hdparam -tT gives ~145MB/sec, so the controller seems to be A-OK for the time being. (Oh, and I'm still running 5.0-rc8a, lazyness, you see.)

 

Adaptec 2241000-R PCI Express x4 SATA II (3.0Gb/s) 1430SA SGL

 

I'm after picking up one of these off ebay for £25 (i think thats a good deal, I cant find much to compare it to)

 

I know its supposedly plug and play but I was just wondering is this still true?.

Or if anyone has this card , do you have any tips when using it.

 

 

 

It's listed

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Hardware_Compatibility#PCI_SATA_Controllers

 

Works out of the box.

 

Adaptec 2241000-R PCI Express x4 SATA II (3.0Gb/s) 1430SA SGL

 

I'm after picking up one of these off ebay for £25 (i think thats a good deal, I cant find much to compare it to)

 

I know its supposedly plug and play but I was just wondering is this still true?.

Or if anyone has this card , do you have any tips when using it.

I used one of these for a while without issue. You might check the firmware to make sure it is up to date. The release notes for the latest firmware says it added support for drives larger than 2TB.

Thanks trurl

 

I want to go back to messing around with kvm on unRAID.

Unfortunately the chipset on my MoBo held me back and I could not see drives plugged into 2 SATA ports.

 

I am getting this to replace those 2 from my MoBo.

 

In your opinion will this card be sufficient to do so?

I'd hate for it to arrive and not be able to pass my drives through to my VM  (again  ) I  for unRAID to not see all drives connected

Thanks trurl

 

I want to go back to messing around with kvm on unRAID.

Unfortunately the chipset on my MoBo held me back and I could not see drives plugged into 2 SATA ports.

 

I am getting this to replace those 2 from my MoBo.

 

In your opinion will this card be sufficient to do so?

I'd hate for it to arrive and not be able to pass my drives through to my VM  (again  ) I  for unRAID to not see all drives connected

Sorry, no experience with using this for VM