low(er) power SAS?

[norbs]

I noticed that my 9207-8i SAS card runs pretty hot and where there is heat there is power usage. All the other components in my server are very efficient except my SAS card. I actually had to modify the cooling so that it could exist in my quiet server, the stock heatsink was just not intended for a low airflow server. Even after adding a big custom heatsink to the 9207, it still hovers around 51C while everything else in the server is around 35C (including the CPU and Chipset).

So I'm thinking of going to the 9211-8i but it's not only a downgrade in performance but also not that much of a difference in power consumption.

TLDR; Are there any better alternatives for low power freenas compatible SAS cards? Is 9211-8i the best for efficiency/reliability?

 

[SweetAndLow]

Motherboard ports would just eliminate the need for a card. You didn't provide hardware info so I have no clue if that's an option.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[joeschmuck]

You didn't provide hardware info so I have no clue if that's an option.

What? You expect that type of information from a posting like this :D

I agree, post your system specs, for all we know you are running ESXi and need a passthrough or maybe you have 8 hard drives but only 6 SATA ports on your motherboard. If your system does not need to be a spead demon then there are several options available.

 

[norbs]

Sorry, I do need a PCIE card with 8 Sata.

I am in fact on ESXi and require VT-D.

9207-8i connected to: 6 X 4TB WD Green and 1X SSD LOG (intel S3700).

Running on:
X11SMM-F
E3-1230v5
64GB ECC (32GB assigned to freenas)

Using 2 of the 8 Sata ports on the motherboard.

 

[norbs]

@joeschmuck - ha, just noticed my build pretty similar to your "ESXi system 1".

 

[joeschmuck]

Hum, well you are not making it easy. If you cannot find a way to cool the LSI card then you could go with a different card like what I'm using but they do make an 8 SATA port version. My 4 port version cards do not generate much heat but they are not cool either. If you would like a temperature from them I could get that for you. But if you were to go this route I suspect that the overall throughput of your drives would slow down compared to your current card, not sure if it would be seen in the real world use. Also it would cost more money.

Before rushing for a new controller I would start asking for some temperatures form various cards. Tell you what i'll do, I'll start a survey thread, hopefully some folks post some data. i'll toss the link here.

 

[joeschmuck]

Here is the link to the survey. You can add your two cents as well.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/hba-card-temperatures-data-requested.50087/

 

[Kevin Horton]

LSI claims that the 9207-8i can operate in an ambient environment of up to 55°C, which implies that the actual components would be quite a bit warmer than 55°C. Are you really sure you have a cooling problem that must be solved?

 

[norbs]

The issue is not the temperatures being too high, I've got them under control with the bigger heatsink.

I'm just trying to find a card that uses less overall power.

If something gets that hot it generally means it's using a lot of power and this card is the hottest running thing in my system.

 

[Kevin Horton]

Are you interested in low power consumption to save money? If so, what is the required pay back time to offset the cost of the new lower power card? How much money would be saved in the system lifetime if you could reduce power consumption by 10W?

 

[joeschmuck]

Are you interested in low power consumption to save money? If so, what is the required pay back time to offset the cost of the new lower power card? How much money would be saved in the system lifetime if you could reduce power consumption by 10W?

This is a very good question because sometimes you will never recoup the costs for a single system. If you ran a server farm where air conditioning were a factor then you would be in a different situation.

Also, I thought the question was more about heat, not specifically power savings.