SERVERAID M1015 vs M1115 which one to get?

[Johev]

Setup:
Dell T20 E3-1225v3 / 12GB ECC / 3 x Seagate Surveillance 4TB HDDs + 1TB HDD that came with the server.

I have been searching on ebay for some M1015 server raid cards. I have found a few m1015 and a m1115 card. I have read that both cards can be cross flashed to IT mode.

Which one should I get?

1. IBM ServeRAID M1115 SAS/SATA Controller 81Y4448 FRU: 46C8928
2. IBM SERVERAID M1015 8CHANNEL PCI-E X8 SAS/SATA RAID CONTROLLER 46c8933

Many thanks.

 

[Ericloewe]

The cheaper one.

 

[Johev]

The cheaper one.

Thanks Ericloewe, they are both the exact same price from the exact same seller :).

 

[Ericloewe]

In that case, flip a coin. They're the same thing, plus or minus a RAID5/50/whatever license.

 

[marbus90]

You don't profit from such a controller. The onboard SATA is fine.

 

[Johev]

@marbus90 thank you for your reply. You are right, with 4 HDD's are just the amount of SATA ports on the Dell T20 (by the way tank you for recommending it). However my inner Geek is thinking about ESXi and that would require an HBA :).

I'll maybe first play with the Virtualbox jail and see how that works, maybe it'll be enough. I have tried to see some videos on it's use with FreeNAS however nothing that would clearly explain if it's a viable alternative.

 

[marbus90]

ESXi doesn't require a HBA... it works with standard Intel SATA as well. just no raid possible with that.

 

[Tripleflix]

i got a m1115 works liek a charm, jsut be sure to not install version 20 of the it firmware if you are planning on doing that, it seems to have a bug where speeds are drastically slowed sometimes

 

[Ericloewe]

Do not flash any version other than P16, as plastered all over the forum.
The driver and the firmware MUST be matched and FreeNAS uses the P16 driver for now.

 

[Johev]

Thank you all for all the advice. Everything has been noted ;).