Picking PCI-E SATA controller

[ladal1]

Hi, I'm currently expanding my NAS a little bit and ran out of SATA ports. I'm trying to figure out how to best expand it and I'm looking into adding at least 2 more SATA ports, maybe up to 4, for a little futureproofing and wanted to run some of my options by someone more experienced. I was looking into getting a second hand server controller, but there really isn't anyone here selling them and the only seller has listings so confusing and I gave up. So I had to look into consumer ones, and even there my options are quite limited. I looked at 7 stores and all of them offer pretty much just these options:

PCES-SH4 PCIe 4/2x SATA 6G controller | Axagon

Four-channel SATA III 2-Lane PCI-Express controller with a bandwidth of 10 Gb/s and RAID 0/1/10.

www.axagon.eu

PCES-SA2 PCIe controller 2x SATA 6G | Axagon

Two-channel SATA III PCI-Express controller with two internal SATA ports.

axagon.eu

Kouwell PE-115 (couldn't find a decent listing)

I'm currently thinking about getting two of the Axagon PCES-SA2 since I have 2 PCI-E 1x slots open. I don't expect these to run anything important, one will be 100% just cache and the other one will be redundancy to a pool I already have connected. I have read about some problems with its controller (ASMedia ASM1061) but most of the threads I have seen are pretty old and some seem to suggest that the issue is resolved.

Thanks for any responses

 

[Alecmascot]

How valuable is your data ?
If it can easily be recreated then take the cheap and cheerful path.
If not buy a proper SAS/SATA HBA as per the Hardware Guide.

LSI 6Gbps SAS HBA LSI 9201-8i 9211-8i IT Mode ZFS FreeNAS unRAID +2x 8087 SATA | eBay

Fastest and safest way for making a. arrived at our warehouse. We are convinced you will.

www.ebay.co.uk

 

[ladal1]

How valuable is your data ?
If it can easily be recreated then take the cheap and cheerful path.
If not buy a proper SAS/SATA HBA as per the Hardware Guide.

LSI 6Gbps SAS HBA LSI 9201-8i 9211-8i IT Mode ZFS FreeNAS unRAID +2x 8087 SATA | eBay

Fastest and safest way for making a. arrived at our warehouse. We are convinced you will.

www.ebay.co.uk

Thanks a lot for this, I think I needed a link like this, because I'm not really that experienced in the server hardware world - quick question, how does a card like this work with SATA? I can see each of the two cables splits into three SATA, but no clue how that works can you point me to where I can read about it?

 

[ladal1]

I'll be buying the card you suggested as not only does it cost the same as I would spend for the cheaper controllers, but it also gives me more expandibility to the future for the small cost of having to wait just a few more days for shipping. Thanks

The data stored won't be anything important, but this seems like it will give me better mileage and easier work in the future for the same price

 

[colmconn]

As you can see from the picture of card on ebay there are only two ports on the internal side of the card. Those two ports can be directly connected to 4 drives each via an SFF-8087 cable. On one end there is a single Mini SAS connector which connects to the port on the card. On the other ends of the cable are 4 SATA connectors.

 

[jgreco]

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy ... a primer on basic SAS and SATA

With the introduction of SAS 12Gbps, seems like "it's time" to do a braindump on SAS. Work in progress, as usual. History By the late '90's, SCSI and PATA were the dominant technologies to attach disks. Both were parallel bus multiple drop topologies and this kind of sucked. SATA and Serial...

www.ixsystems.com

This was written for anyone in your situation.

 

[ladal1]

https://www.ixsystems.com/community...-sas-sy-a-primer-on-basic-sas-and-sata.26145/

This was written for anyone in your situation.

Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for

 

[jgreco]

I've actually been meaning to add two more sections about HBA's to the end of that for a long time now. You may wish to re-review it for the HBA Crossflashing and HBA Airflow sections.

 

[ladal1]

I've actually been meaning to add two more sections about HBA's to the end of that for a long time now. You may wish to re-review it for the HBA Crossflashing and HBA Airflow sections.

Well I'll add one more fan to the case, just to be sure thanks for the article

 

[markomo]

Hi guys, I am new here and just got my FreeNAS setup done with 6 drives. I got similar SATA controller with same chipset and I am not quiet sure if it's gonna work properly. This is what I have now: https://www.ebay.com/itm/124006838376

What would be best way to test this controller and see if it's gonna give any errors or something?

I did get Root mount waiting for: CAM and it's just stuck in the loop several times before I got to the point to boot properly and install TrueNAS-12.0-U4.1 Core.
It did happen when I connected all 6 drives (4 on MBO sata ports and 2 on this controller). I am not sure if it's related to power problem or some settings in the BIOS (enabled VT etc.).

Does anyone knows if this is "okey" card or I should better go with something like this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/124292701749

** Still don't know if that Fujitsu 9211-8i is a good choice. If you have something else to recommend I would appreciate that. Thanks in advance.

*** I have installed ASM106x controller and would it be easy to switch to 9211-8i if and when I get it? - I don't see why not but just want to check as you guys know more than I do.

 

[BR14]

Does anyone knows if this is "okey" card

On this forum they are unlikely to recommend non-LSI controller, especially an unknown brand. ASM-106x chipset does work - I have used an ASM-based card for boot SSD without any apparent problems. Still, the LSI flashed to IT mode is a much preferred solution. Remember to consider 4i and 4i4e versions when upgrading - the Fujitsu looks a bit overkill, not to mention that people have received fakes from China. Also, you need to take into account the rest of the system - think of choosing tires for Fiat or Ferrari.

would it be easy to switch to 9211-8i

I belive so. I myself am in the process of setting up a server using a cheap Marvell card for boot SSD but plan to upgrade to LSI eventually and (hopefully) uneventfully.

 

[b_ridgehomesvr]

Funny you should say that, I've recently been using truenas with i think is an ASM chipset card and got the 'waiting for : CAM' errors, since i've removed it they've gone, but I do need to find a decent card to work with freenas as the mobo has 4 ports but I need and extra 3. Any suggestions for a reasonably priced card that work with BSD be great.

 

[jgreco]

If you have an ASM chipset card with a SATA port multiplier on it, this article is for you:

Multiply your problems with SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers

In the last year or two, we've had a resurgence of users asking about SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers. Please, do NOT use port multipliers, and use cheap SATA controllers only after extensive research. SATA controllers and SATA...

www.truenas.com

If you have an ASM chipset card without a SATA port multiplier on it, it could still be a knockoff.

In both cases, if you wish to use an ASM based card, legit ASM non-port-multiplier cards are expected to work, but be prepared to pay $$$ for them. In general, the LSI HBA's can be found cheaper.

 

[adorobis]

I have an ASM1064 chip based card - mostly because the my motherboard does not support PCIE x4 which is the size of my LSI card (it supports x16 but not x4). I've just read that it is a four port controller with port multiplier (it has 8 SATA ports on the card) so need to double check how to connect the drives so they are connected without the port multiplier but so far it works all good with four HDDs.

 

[joeschmuck]

my motherboard does not support PCIE x4 which is the size of my LSI card (it supports x16 but not x4)

Actually the PCIE x16 supports x16, x8, x4, and x1 automatically because it will only use the lanes physically connected, in this instance 4 lanes of the 16 will be used.

 

[jgreco]

I have an ASM1064 chip based card - mostly because the my motherboard does not support PCIE x4 which is the size of my LSI card (it supports x16 but not x4). I've just read that it is a four port controller with port multiplier (it has 8 SATA ports on the card) so need to double check how to connect the drives so they are connected without the port multiplier but so far it works all good with four HDDs.

On an 8 port card, it is likely that three ports are directly connected to the 4-port SATA controller, and then one port of the SATA controller is attached to a five-port port multiplier. It is important that you not use ANY of those ports on the port multiplier. But this is asking for trouble in the future when you forget this and hook something up to those extra ports, so you are better off getting a different card.

As someone else pointed out, you can plug the LSI card, which is an x8 card, by the way, into an x16 slot.

 

[adorobis]

Actually the PCIE x16 supports x16, x8, x4, and x1 automatically because it will only use the lanes physically connected, in this instance 4 lanes of the 16 will be used.

Well I know that this should be the case but does not work with my motherboard. I think I was searching for the specs of it and it was stating that that is not going to work...

 

[adorobis]

On an 8 port card, it is likely that three ports are directly connected to the 4-port SATA controller, and then one port of the SATA controller is attached to a five-port port multiplier. It is important that you not use ANY of those ports on the port multiplier. But this is asking for trouble in the future when you forget this and hook something up to those extra ports, so you are better off getting a different card.

As someone else pointed out, you can plug the LSI card, which is an x8 card, by the way, into an x16 slot.

Thanks, just is there a way to tell which ports are which? Could not find any specs that would describe it. Any x16 or x1 cards recommendations? I could only find some that cost over 1000 USD, which is more than my entire server and a few other things together. The server is not heavily used so no super performance is expected, file transfers are anyway on the limit of 1GB network connection.

 

[jgreco]

There's probably a way to tell by looking at the information presented in the dmesg, since I'm pretty sure the driver is AWARE of the port multiplier, and therefore likely reports on it, but I do not have this info handy at my fingertips, since I don't use port multipliers because they suck bigtime.

 

[b_ridgehomesvr]

As far as I'm aware it's not a multiplier, don't know the brand as I think I bought it cheap off amazon, but I wacked it in my win pc it worked and identified it as an ASM 106x chipset sata controller. I re-tried it back in the truenas as I thought I might have plugged the boot drive into it and that might be why it didn't but but no deal, if I use it for any data disks I get the same error.