internal SATA (C246) or LSI

[metebalci]

Is there a performance, stability or other difference between using internal SATA ports of Intel C246 chipset and using an HBA like LSI 9207 ? Specifically talking about using them with 8x SATA disks.

 

[sretalla]

Not of any substantial nature.

Onboard SATA (particularly if it's Intel chipset integrated) is fine if you have enough ports.

 

[jgreco]

Is there a performance, stability or other difference between using internal SATA ports of Intel C246 chipset and using an HBA like LSI 9207 ? Specifically talking about using them with 8x SATA disks.

The C246 should be marginally faster; data traversing an HBA has to be "handled" twice, once by your host CPU and then again by the HBA CPU. The C246 is, IIRC, limited to SATA 6Gbps, and therefore cannot support stuff like an SAS expander, while an inexpensive LSI SAS3008 can do either SATA 6Gbps or SAS 12Gbps, and of course can handle an SAS expander. So if you are looking at future expansion, consider the HBA. Otherwise, C246.

 

[ChrisRJ]

Also, using the built-in SATA ports will save power. According to what others have written, an LSI HBA will consume between 10 and 20 W.

 

[metebalci]

All very helpful, thank you.