PCI-Express 2.0 x4 SATA card supported by FreeNAS/FreeBSD?

[Daisuke]

Hi guys,

I need to add one SSD drive to my current ZFS array in FreeNAS, currently using all 6 SATA ports available on the X7SPA-HF-D525-O motherboard. I was wondering if you can recommend a PCI-E 2.0 x4 card model supported by FreeNAS/BSD.

Thanks.

 

[Bohs Hansen]

the cheapest working ones are prolly the LSI PCIe x4 cards (even though you'll only run one drive, you should make sure its atleast x4 electrical.
Once flashed with IT Firmware they run like a charm. Several posts about them here on the forums and prolly a whole list of them in the official FreeBSD hardware compatible list. I got one myself for around 35€ refurbished on ebay, but haven't gotten around to testing it yet (SAS3041-E)

 

[Daisuke]

Thanks for the info. I think the card you mentioned will not fit properly into our cases, we have the same model. :)
From my measurements, the card should not longer that 5.5inch, or else it will touch the disks cage.
I was looking at the HighPoint Rocket line for the 620 model. Unfortunately that is a PCI-E x1 card, so the card could be a bottleneck for the cache. The main issue with 620 is a HUGE bottleneck you get when you connect 2 drives. Still, that is not my case, as I only plan to use one SSD drive on it. There is the RocketRAID 640 model, that uses the same Marvel chips like the RocketRAID 620, without the crazy bottleneck. I found an interesting review that explains well the differences between 620 and 640.

I guess, what I need to find out is how much the performance is affected with a x1 card, compared to the real x4 SATA3 one. There are plenty of options for the PCI-E x1, at very affordable prices. The question is: should I stick with a x4?