Broadcom 9600W-16e not supported (yet)?

bbott

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I have expressed myself in a misleading way.
I am planning a new server with a new LSI HBA controller for ZFS. I have seen a controller eHBA 9600-24i on offer, which I could get cheaper than a 9400-16i. That's why I'm asking.

Is it technically possible to upgrade the 9400-16i?
I could not find any expansion cards.
 

Ericloewe

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Is it technically possible to upgrade the 9400-16i?
You mean more ports? Same as all SAS HBAs, just use an expander, SAS3 has ample bandwidth for a lot of spinning rust.
 

bbott

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An expander requires a PCIe slot? Unfortunately there are none available. Does this only work with SAS or also with SATA disks?
 

Ericloewe

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An expander requires a PCIe slot? Unfortunately there are none available. Does this only work with SAS or also with SATA disks?
No, but some can use a PCIe slot for power, as a convenience - though typically they're integrated with the chassis backplane. And yes, they work with SATA disks.
 

dak180

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Half the point of NVMe was to get rid of anything between the PCIe bus and the SSD controller and the other half was to cut latency by removing crufty layers of software needed to support the SCSI command set and SAS HBAs.
Which is why I use a Linkreal LRNV9324-4I for connecting additional NVMe drives, basically a PLX8725 on a board.

No, but some can use a PCIe slot for power, as a convenience - though typically they're integrated with the chassis backplane.
For example the Adaptec Expander Card 82885T can be powered via PCIe or Molex
 

Ericloewe

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Probably don't want Adaptec though, they're not super popular and it's not clear that they work well - just the other day, someone showed up with one and couldn't get their SAS stuff to work properly.
 
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Is there a non-PCIe slot powered SAS expander (powered by Molex or SATA connector) that's known to work well with LSI 9206-16e cards?
 

Ericloewe

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The Intel SAS2 expander has an AMP Mate-n-Lok connector that can be used for power as an alternative to the PCIe slot.
 
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