SAS HBA recommendation for TrueNAS VM hosted via ESXi [SFF-8643 ports preferred]?

Aebian

Cadet
Joined
Oct 24, 2021
Messages
6
Greetings,

I currently have two servers running at home both with ESXi. I virtualize VMs on there and recently on my second host have setup a VM with TrueNAS.
My goal is to use my unused SAS drives (8x 8TB) in TrueNAS. However my current raid card (ADAPTEC Series 7 - ASR-71605 - 16 internal 6G SAS Port/PCIe 3.0 Adaptec ) is not a good card for this matter and even though I have passed-trough the card it is not detected by TrueNAS.

Since the forums anyway do not recommend hardware raid (which I wouldn't need anyway) I'm looking for alternatives.
My current card has 4X SFF-8643 connectors and I would really want the new HBA card to have the same so I can re-use the existing cables I already have.

--> https://storage.microsemi.com/nr/pdfs/Series7_ds.pdf (PDF showing my raid card, search for 71605)

Also since my server has the big PCIe configuration, so I have plenty of space for additional cards with ease.
ESX-02 is the server in question: https://aebian.org/hardware/aebian/network (details also down below):

SuperMicro X10 (2U) with 12x 3.5" Caddy:
- 2x Intel Xeon E5-2680 V4
- 256GB ECC 2133Mhz RAM
- X10DRU-i+ Motherboard
- ESXi on a stick
- 2TB SSD Datastore
- 64TB Backup Storage connected via Adaptec RAID controller

The 64TB drives are currently not in use, but the plan is to use the drives as temp-storage / backup storage.
Can you recommend any good HBA cards? Gone through eBay but before I buy anything that might not work for TrueNAS I ask here first.

Thank You.

Regards,

Alex
 

Etorix

Wizard
Joined
Dec 30, 2020
Messages
2,114
Basically anything based on LSI 2008 / 2308 / 3008 controllers. These come in a dizzying number of models and names (LSI/Broadcom/Avago), plus rebrands (IBM M1015, Dell H200/H300 and others), so look around for cards with your connectors of choice.
 

Etorix

Wizard
Joined
Dec 30, 2020
Messages
2,114
If this is the genuine thing and not a knock-off using second-grade components from some dark Shenzen back alley (as our resident grinch is fond of saying), this is indeed the kind of card you want.
 
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