Right storage controller for freenas

Joined
Aug 31, 2019
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So I bought a hp dl380e gen 8 and only 4 of the bays work (directly into the motherboard), so I need an add-in card.

The one officially recommended is this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-631670-B21-Smart-Array-P420-1GB-FBWC-DL380e-Gen-8-12-14-LFF-Kit-/143298056050?hash=item215d3acf72 1

I’m pretty sure that one would not work properly with freenas so I have been looking at other cards that should do the job as the backplane only has 2 sas connectors. (part number: 684886-001)

The closest I have found is https://www.ebay.ie/itm/8x-port-SATA-PCI-E-SAS2008-HBA-expansion-LSI-SAS-9201-8i-9211-8i-IT-mode-833/264420277837 2 but I think that it would only bring 8 of the bays online instead of all 12

Other people have suggested the hp h220 but I think that it has the same problem as the LSI up above

If any of the great people here can point to the correct card I would greatly appreciate it
 

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HoneyBadger

actually does care
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iXsystems
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Feb 6, 2014
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Hi there,

Many servers have a SAS expander built into their drive backplane - this allows a card with only two SAS SFF ports to be able to access all twelve (or more) drive bays simultaneously. Think of it like a network switch; you don't need a 1:1 relationship between your devices and the number of uplink ports, just sufficient bandwidth.

The H220 or another LSI card flashed to IT mode will be just fine.
 
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