Sanity check for a working HBA configuration adjustment

[MDKAOD]

Hey all, I'm rocking an older build that has been running perfectly for our needs, but I need to make a hardware adjustment and just want to make sure that I'm not running a risk of breaking things.

Current build:
Supermicro X9SCL-F
Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2
32gb ECC Memory
**3x M1015 controllers flashed to IT mode
Hosting 24 drives.

I would like to free up one of the PCIe lanes for a 10gbase-t ethernet card to make tape backups with my backup server less painful, so I wanted to order a LSI 9201-16i card to replace two of the M1015's, leaving the third to fill out my 24 devices.

1) Is this a bad idea? Why or why not?
2) Are there concerns when mixing HBA cards?
3) What would be the process for swapping out the HBA cards? i.e. is it really as simple as "pull the two cards, place the new one, plug everything in, tada!"?
4) The system works perfectly for our needs currently, does it need to be updated?

 

[ChrisRJ]

Theoretically, there could be a performance penalty when you run an additional 8 drives through a PCIe slot. On the other hand your system does not strike me as overly performance oriented.

Coming to think about it, I would probably be more concerned whether the system can actually saturate a 10 GB link for backup. I would think that is mostly influenced by your drives, their configuration, the typical file size, and the backup method. Esp. file system-level backup with many small files can be relatively slow. Large ones (e.g. virtual disks) would usually be much faster ...

 

[MDKAOD]

Just following up on this for anyone else who comes along. FreeNAS handled the HBA swap without any issues. I had one "phantom" reboot, I was in front of the device when the WebUI says it rebooted unexpectedly and I can assure that it did not reboot, so I'm not sure what that was all about, but it was in between flashing my HBA to P20. I've been up for a week now without issue.