LSI 9207-8i for 16 drives, or continue to use HP Smart Array?

[deathstargunner]

Forgive me if these are dumb questions, as i'm completely new to storage. My employer has graciously gifted a couple of servers that have been sunset. These are HP Proliant DL380 Gen9s with the following config:

Processor (2) Intel® Xeon® E5-2609 v4 2 x 1.7 Ghz (8 cores)
Memory (GB) 128 GB
Memory (Type) Registered DIMMs, 2400 MHz
Storage (Total) (16) 1TB 6G SATA 7.2k 2.5in SC MDL HDD RAID 10 (1+0)
Storage (Available) 8 TB
Network HP Embedded 1Gb Ethernet 4-port 331i Adapter
Power (Supply) (2) HP 500W Flex Slot Platinum Power Supply
Display (1) VGA Rear
Ports
(1) USB 3.0 Front
(2) USB 3.0 Rear
(2) GbE Rear
(1) Dedicated iLO connector
Storage Controller:
HP Dynamic Smart Array B140i Controller
HP Smart Array P440ar/2G FIO Controller

I've been running TrueNAS CORE on one of them for over a year now, in RAID mode with zero issues. The 2nd one just got here, and after doing some reading it's been stated that HBA > RAID, so I started to look into it and the LSI 9207-8i is what was thrown around a bunch, but I want to make sure that it will fit my situation. The LSI card looks to be 2 ports, and each port handles 4 drives? Would one card be able to handle all 16 drives? would I need 2 cards? would it work in that config? HBA is apparently better for FreeBSD, but is this the same for Linux? This is where my confusion comes in and I can't seem to find a direct answer, so a post will have to do to try and consolidate all answers.

My end goal is to run SCALE on the new machine, move the data from the old one to the new one, and repurpose the "old" server to a hypervisor.

 

[Arwen]

There is no "HBA works better for FreeBSD, but is this the same for Linux".

The issue is RAID cards can and actually do on occasion corrupt data when used with ZFS. So, RAID cards are a non-starter for either TrueNAS Core or TrueNAS SCALE. Thus, HBA or plain SATA ports are the only reliable choice. See:

What's all the noise about HBAs, and why can't I use a RAID controller?

1) An HBA is a Host Bus Adapter. This is a controller that allows SAS and SATA devices to be attached to, and communicate directly with, a server. RAID controllers typically aggregate several disks into a Virtual Disk abstraction of some sort...

www.truenas.com

Remember, one of ZFS' strengths is the implementation of it's own software based RAID, (RAID-Zx, Mirroring, DRAID, etc...).

Whether a 2 x 4 lane SAS HBA card can support 16 disks, depends on the back plane of the disks. I don't have much knowledge of HP hardware.

Does the existing RAID controller have 4 x 4 lane SAS ports?
If so, are all 4 ports wired to the disk back plane?