These are some interesting YouTube videos that explain a good bit about SAS (and other things) in an easy to consume format:

Dell H310 mini card with LSI IT mode firmware
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1Xi5NZRlXM&feature=youtu.be

How to fix: "Invalid PCIe card found in the Internal Storage slot!" error in Dell PowerEdge R710
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0AEHVdc_go

Explaining the IBM SAS-2 expander and how to do 24xHDD setup with only 2-port SAS controller
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qccpopxc_Uo

How to select SAS cables
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW419HwU7sg

Comparing HBA IT mode SAS controllers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeFJtjVvGyc

LSI SAS2308 performance benchmarks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMPq1B31cmE

LSI SAS2008 with IBM SAS expander performance benchmarks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvL70tEW3VU

LSI SAS2008 HBA performance benchmarks in 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=craKJRw4-9c

How i burn in and test large quantities of hard drives in Linux
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bh5ZK8z4ZA

SuperMicro X9DR3-LN4F+ secrets exposed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTLOraQ_SpQ

How to turn a LSI SAS2208 RAID into a SAS2308 IT mode HBA on Supermicro X9DRH-7F
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDatT8fn9KQ

How I test my IT mode HBA SAS controllers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWJNr7W6DK8

I did ask the creator of these videos if it was alright to share them on the forum before I posted them.