best 16x sata port controler?

[Mcavity]

I'm looking for the best 16 port sas/sata controller with out of box compatibility with freenas.
My system board only has 1 pcie slot [that's why I'm not looking at 2 8 port controllers. ]
any ideas?
I'm looking at the LSI SAS 9201 - any other suggestions?

 

[survive]

Hi Mcavity,

Here's my go-to list for SAS\SATA cards:

http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=10

-Will

 

[Nik]

Hi Mcavity,

Here's my go-to list for SAS\SATA cards:

http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=10

-Will

Excellent list. However I'm looking for a 16 Port HBA and I'm a bit struggling with the decision between the LSI SAS 9201-16i and the Highpoint RocketRAID 2740.
I tend to the RocketRAID 2740 as it seems to be the faster one but I could only find in the manual that it can be set to JBOD. Is it possible to use the RocketRAID 2740 in HBA only mode with RAID function switched off?
What's you experience with the two controllers?

- Nik

 

[Ericloewe]

Highpoints have a nasty reputation around here. Don't worry about supposed speed improvements, you won't get any worthwhile ones. Drives typically can't even saturate SATA 1,5Gb/s!

Is the LSI 9201-16i cheaper than a pair of M1015s or and M1015 plus an expander?

 

[Nik]

I have only one PCIe slot free so my existing 9211-8i has to be replaced. So the 9201-16i seems to be a good option.

 

[Ericloewe]

I have only one PCIe slot free so my existing 9211-8i has to be replaced. So the 9201-16i seems to be a good option.

Don't. I just checked, it's insanely overpriced. It's cheaper to just buy an expander. The Intel RES2SV240 is said to work well, and it's cheaper than a new, "larger" HBA. Just run two SAS cables from your 9211-8i to the expander and you get 16 SAS channels out (or you can run just one cable - four channels - and get 20 channels out). It can be powered by a normal molex plug or via PCI-e, so it's compatible with your scenario.

 

[Nik]

Hmmm, I didn't consider this option yet. Do I not build a bottleneck with a expander considering that I have two SSD as L2ARC (stripe)? Apparently the 9201-16i is not as fast as the 9211-8i but however I guess it's faster than a raid expander. Price wise it is cheaper (255 EUR vs. 300 EUR for a new 9201-16i) here in Germany. I think I could cope with the 45 EUR extra for a head solution, plus I could sell the 9211-8i or put it into my secondary NAS. What do you guys think?

 

[jgreco]

I have no comments on the specific choice of controller. But assuming you end up with an -8i and SAS expander of some sort:

Run a single SFF8087 to the expander and drives. Use the other SFF8087 on the HBA for your SSD's. Done.

The typical hard disk won't be pushing much past 1.5Gbps and that multilane is a 24Gbps. There's not going to be much of a bottleneck until you get out past at least 12 drives. Even then, it helps to remember that your network (even if just a virtual ESXi network interface) also represents a bottleneck that's much more severe.

 

[Ericloewe]

I have no comments on the specific choice of controller. But assuming you end up with an -8i and SAS expander of some sort:

Run a single SFF8087 to the expander and drives. Use the other SFF8087 on the HBA for your SSD's. Done.

The typical hard disk won't be pushing much past 1.5Gbps and that multilane is a 24Gbps. There's not going to be much of a bottleneck until you get out past at least 12 drives. Even then, it helps to remember that your network (even if just a virtual ESXi network interface) also represents a bottleneck that's much more severe.

My simplistic math suggests that with two 6Gb/s SSDs and 14 drives, running two SFF8087s allows for 6Gb/s to each SSD plus ~2,5Gb/s to each HDD, which sounds like it would most likely never present a bottleneck either to the HDDs or the SSDs. Is my logic too simplistic and/or am I missing something?

 

[cyberjock]

Your logic is completely correct, but probably wrong. Remember that your bottleneck is probably network throughput, so you're only going to get 1Gb/sec to/from your server. Yes, in theory your math accounts for possible theoretical bottlenecks while doing scrubs/resilvering. But in terms of performance you will see no change. I'm using that Intel Expander and I have no regrets.

 

[jgreco]

Might be a mistake to assume that a 24Gbps channel can actually successfully use it all. But really the limiting factor is the GbE links. So this is just an exercise in not unnecessarily introducing limiting factors.

 

[Ericloewe]

Your logic is completely correct, but probably wrong. Remember that your bottleneck is probably network throughput, so you're only going to get 1Gb/sec to/from your server. Yes, in theory your math accounts for possible theoretical bottlenecks while doing scrubs/resilvering. But in terms of performance you will see no change. I'm using that Intel Expander and I have no regrets.

Yeah, of course, the network will certainly be the limiting factor. I find some people get very nervous when they start thinking of disk bottlenecks (even if they're going to be limited by their network anyway), so I like to add some concrete data to ease their concerns.

 

[Nik]

Awesome, this is indeed the perfect solution. Last thing, since my case is kind of compact and space is an issue, can someone please let me know the physical size of the intel RES2SV240?

 

[Ericloewe]

It should be little longer than a PCI-e card that goes just to the end of a 16x slot, other dimensions are standard PCI/PCI-e half-height.

 

[panz]

Awesome, this is indeed the perfect solution. Last thing, since my case is kind of compact and space is an issue, can someone please let me know the physical size of the intel RES2SV240?

RES2SV240 is an half-height size card.

 

[jgreco]

Awesome, this is indeed the perfect solution. Last thing, since my case is kind of compact and space is an issue, can someone please let me know the physical size of the intel RES2SV240?

http://bit.ly/SSMr6y

 

[Nik]

Hi guys,
just wanted to thank you for the feedback. I decided for the Intel expander, and it's running like a charm.
btw. the expander come with two short (0.3m) SFF-8087 to SFF-8087 and four long(er) (0.6m) ones. Knowing this saves another few bucks on cables (I have to send my two ordered cables back).

Nik