SATA card for PCIe 2.0 x1 slot with 8 ports (or at least 4)

Hi all,

I have a NAS with a Norco RCP-4220 20 bay rackmount case.  Currently has 14 drives installed (6 on motherboard and 8 on SUPERMICRO AOC-USASLP-L8I card).  The server works brilliantly but I have 6 bays left with no SATA card to drive them, and the NAS is full.  I'd prefer not to ditch the 2TB drives and move to 4TB, so adding another card would be simpler.

The motherboard is an Intel DH55TC board, with Intel LAN, and two PCIe x1 sockets spare (the x16 is being used by the 8 port card).

Image below:

http://motherboards-reviews.com/Intel/socket_1156/DH55TC/Intel_DH55TC_top.jpg

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/motherboards/desktop-motherboards/desktop-board-dh55tc.html

I was looking at getting a Syba SI-PEX40071 but I'm not sure if this card works on PCIe x1 slots, will PCIe x2 cards work on slower slots?

Would the current Corsair TX650W power supply handle the 4-6 extra 5400RPM drives?

Does unraid work reliably with this card or is there better options out there?

Thanks for any advice

Looks like SY-PEX40013 might be the go, I think the other card only supports PCIe x2 speeds and higher   Can anyone confirm?

The card appears to be a PCIe x2 card and you only have x1 slots. Not sure it will fit??? (I've never seen an x2 card before).

Slot two of these in there: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124064

For $100 why not just stick with the tried and true sas 2008 cards?

PS:  ANY pci-e card will work in ANY pci-e slot.  Even if its a 16x video card, it you knotch out that wee bit of plastic on the end of the pci-e 1x slot, it will fit.

The first section of the slot is the power and first talking lane, and its all you need.  The rest of the 4x/8x/16x slot is just addition lanes.

Cheers guys   Might get 2 of those 4 port cards. 

Which SAS2008 card are you referring to?

What 2008 model should I get? So I can find it

All OK, just consider this:

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...

When connecting 8 drives to a PCIe2.0 x1 you will have a bottleneck when doing parity checks.

A list of SAS2008 cards is here.

According to that list the SAS 2008 cards need PCIe x8 or higher, mine are only PCIe 2.0 x1, would they work?  Still 500MB/sec on that one lane right? 

As long as the cards fit in the slot (mechanically) they will work (electrically), but as x1 of course.

Your might want to consider this card:

Addonics AD4SA6GPX2 ( 6G 4-port SATA PCIe 2X controller, Marvell 88SE9230 chipset), $55+$8 shipping at Addonics online store. It supports 4 drives directly or in RAID configuration, or up to 7 drives with use of a 4-drives port multiplier.

I've installed this card for experiments in my unRAID 6-beta2 server (Supermicro H8DME-2 mobo), configured 2-disks RAID-0 for cache drive - it worked right away. I've reconfigured it as 2-disks RAID-0 for parity drive - it's working, rebuilding parity right now.

Next experiment will be to check if unRAID will see individual drives via this card, and eventually, a 4-disks  RAID-0 for cache drive.

Next experiment will be to check if unRAID will see individual drives via this card, and eventually, a 4-disks  RAID-0 for cache drive.

Please update us when you find out what works.

Next experiment will be to check if unRAID will see individual drives via this card, and eventually, a 4-disks  RAID-0 for cache drive.

 

 

Please update us when you find out what works.

Sure, but please note that the Wiki is still locked 

Next experiment will be to check if unRAID will see individual drives via this card, and eventually, a 4-disks  RAID-0 for cache drive.

 

 

Please update us when you find out what works.

Sure, but please note that the Wiki is still locked 

They are going to redo it with the unRAID 6 release.

Next experiment will be to check if unRAID will see individual drives via this card, and eventually, a 4-disks  RAID-0 for cache drive.

 

 

Please update us when you find out what works.

Reported in this topic.

Next experiment will be to check if unRAID will see individual drives via this card, and eventually, a 4-disks  RAID-0 for cache drive.

 

Please update us when you find out what works.

Reported in this topic.

Awesome! Thanks!

Picked up one of these:

http://www.dx.com/p/iocrest-marvell-88se9215-chipset-sata-iii-6gbps-4-port-pci-express-controller-card-green-282997

Iocrest 88SE9215 Marvell card, has 4 6Gbit SATA ports, worked with Unraid right out of the box, no bios/flashing/drivers/fiddling needed.

Thanks for everyone's help

Picked up one of these:

 

http://www.dx.com/p/iocrest-marvell-88se9215-chipset-sata-iii-6gbps-4-port-pci-express-controller-card-green-282997

 

Iocrest 88SE9215 Marvell card, has 4 6Gbit SATA ports, worked with Unraid right out of the box, no bios/flashing/drivers/fiddling needed.

 

Thanks for everyone's help

I bought the SYBA SI-PEX40064 with same chipset as you... and have had nothing but problems with it... If I have 4 drives connected to it, one random drive (different each time) will fail Smart and then show in drive list as Invalid Disk. Never mind the max 10mb/s read speeds on any drive connected via it.

Sorry to hear that. Maybe a bad card?

Unsure... I only have two drives connected at the moment and its now failing smart on both and only lasting 10 minutes before the drives disappear... Ordered an AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 today. Its defiantly the card as I have removed and running using two of my drives off the motherboard with no parity currently. and had been solid for a few hours.

Amazon have agreed to RMA it, and patiently awaiting on the MV8 (Mon or Tue)

I bought the SYBA SI-PEX40064 with same chipset as you... and have had nothing but problems with it... If I have 4 drives connected to it, one random drive (different each time) will fail Smart and then show in drive list as Invalid Disk. Never mind the max 10mb/s read speeds on any drive connected via it.

hello, sorry for my english.

i have the same problem with a new marvell  88SE9215 , 1 or 2 drive disappear randomly.

a replacement resolve this trouble ?

thanks

Picked up one of these:

 

http://www.dx.com/p/iocrest-marvell-88se9215-chipset-sata-iii-6gbps-4-port-pci-express-controller-card-green-282997

 

Iocrest 88SE9215 Marvell card, has 4 6Gbit SATA ports, worked with Unraid right out of the box, no bios/flashing/drivers/fiddling needed.

 

Thanks for everyone's help

Good choice -- but be aware that you're bandwidth limiting the drives attached to this card when you're using more than 2-at-a-time (e.g. parity checks; rebuilds; etc.)

Not a big deal ... just something to consider, as you wouldn't want to have your parity or cache drives connected to one of the drive slots using these cards.

I can recommend LSI SAS 9201 16i, which is available in various port configs (internal+external) but key benefits are:

It's an HBA not a RAID card.

PCIe x8 (which will fit in any std PCIe x16 slot)

This version has 4x SAS adapters, which can also be used with 4way SAS-SATA fan-out cables (circa £10ea on Amazon)

Supports up to 512 SAS devices

Supports SATA III (6Gb/s) spec.

Supports large disks >8Tb disks

Costs ~ £330 

Hope this helps

Costs ~ £330 

If your limited in PCIe ports maybe you have to bite the bullet.

I bought and still buy my H310 by occasion for not more than 30-40€.

Before spending the money for a 16-port card I'd rather swap out the mobo

and use 2 of those 8-port adaptors, saving at least 100€

I know its an old topic but i just want to say that i bought the same card 2years ago and i'm having same issues parity disk corrupt or invalid etc.

bought an lsi card with it mode since