RAM: 16GB DDR3 (Non-ECC)(I know non-ECC is not recommended for ZFS but that is what I have now and I’m planning on upgrading my setup in the future. And AFAIK Ext4 w/o ECC isn’t more reliable than ZFS w/o ECC. In fact Ext4 won’t detect errors at all while ZFS will but won’t be able to correct them.)
OS: Rocky Linux 8.6
The problem is that the MB has only 6 SATA ports and I currently have 2 HDDs and 1 SATA SSD for OS and I’m adding another 4 HDDs (they’re gonna be in Raid-Z2).
So I need a PCIe card with additional SATA3 ports (4+) w/o RAID controller (ZFS will take care of it).
Any recommendation on which card to get? It has to be available on Amazon and it has to ship to Bulgaria.
I’ve had good experience with ASM1166 based Silverstonetek ECS06, there are many variants using this controller out in the wild.
The only bug I know of is that it can enumerate 32 ports but it’s only a cosmetic issue.
Some variants may use just fewer PCIe lanes
You can also go for the LSI based cards but these are usually more expensive and can be a bit quirky in non server hardware.
I’d stay away from Broadcom HBA 9400 and 9500 (couldn’t test the new 9600 ones yet) IF you want to use them in a system that might ever go to Sleep State (S3, suspend to RAM). Upon waking the system up it will crash after a short while (on Windows you’ll get a BSoD). Also happens with their NVMe PCIe Switch HBA P411W-32P.
Tried to solve this with Broadcom’s support, they don’t give a shit.
Just remembering the many wasted hours makes me angry again.
I guess I’ll get the Silverstone one because it’s cheapter (77€) than the StarTech one (95€) and the others I find with ASM1166 are some weird Chinese brands.
And I don’t wanna deal with SAS->SATA so no LSI.
Why don’t you want to deal with SAS->SATA? It should just be as simple as a 1->4 SAS breakout cable.
That said, you can get LSI 4i cards that have only SATA ports. They’re SAS cards, logically, but they have only one SAS in the form of 4 SATA ports.
Also, I wouldn’t discount the weird chinese brands, as they use the same parts and come from the same factory as the Startech or Silverstone ones. It’s just direct from the source.
You aren’t going to do any better than a LSI SAS2008- or SAS2308-based HBA and a couple breakout cables. Look for one with eight internal ports (8i) that’s been flashed to P20 IT and you’ll have a rock solid piece of kit that will probably outlive you. Something like this. Don’t spend a ton of money on something with an ASMedia SATA controller, it’s just not worth it.
IDK where you got that idea. I am just saying that SAS HBA’s are sold in the millions in servers every day. SATA only HBA’s sell far less. If i was looking for an HBA to connect drives I would pick the one with the largest install base which also happens to be cheaper because you can buy it used.
The protocol will be around for a long time, but not every implementation is created equal. I’ve had too many bad experiences with ASMedia SATA controllers in older motherboards to trust an expansion card based on one. But that’s just anecdotal, so YMMV.
SAS is not a proprietary interface and it will also be around for a long time. And as far as the specific implementation in SAS2008 and SAS2308… in 40 million years the mutant cockroaches that have taken over Earth will be running their storage arrays using these cards. And probably Westmere Xeon processors.
They’re broadly supported. The only compatibility issue might be with a Legacy or UEFI BIOS option ROM, but fortunately those can be flashed or erased entirely without affecting IT mode functionality.
The major disadvantage with these cards is that they won’t pass AHCI TRIM/DISCARD commands down to connected SATA SSDs. There are other TRIM/DISCARD commands that will work (e.g. SCSI UNMAP)—and certain volume managers like ZFS are smart enough to send these alternatives—but not all SATA SSDs understand them.
I questioned (challenged) @infinitevalence’s statement that AHCI (which is what “any new SATA card” in this discussion uses) is going away before LSI/Avago/Broadcom’s proprietary which he claimed.
We’re comparing SATA in AHCI mode to SAS. So yes, we’re talking about two different things. Because we’re comparing them.
That’s not what he said. Just because a protocol or a standard is going to be around for a long time doesn’t mean that a specific implementation of that protocol or standard is going to enjoy rich and stable driver support across a broad selection of hardware platforms and operating systems for a long time. Linux and Windows are riddled with abandoned drivers for specific Ethernet, SATA, USB, etc. controllers even though those standards are still common and widely used today.
And again, SAS is not proprietary. I don’t know why you keep using that word. It’s a standard.
AHCI is a controller (software) interface, which SAS isn’t and the reason is why there isn’t a generic SAS driver as it doesn’t define how to communicate with the controller. Given that AHCI is used in pretty much anything these days in terms of non HBA/SAS controllers it’s highly unlikely that it’s going to be scrapped before a proprietary controller that’s EOL.
Edit: Either will likely not occur within a normal targeted lifespan of OPs hardware however
Either way, OP didn’t ask for a SAS/HBA controller and trying to shoehorn your opinions doesn’t help.
You people are giving me an aneurism trying to read this thread.
If all you need is SATA III, just go pick up an LSI SAS2008- or SAS3008-based card and be done with it. They’re ubiquitous, are used + available cheaply from everywhere, and are supported by pretty much everything ever made because of those two reasons.
Not at all, im suggesting a SAS HBA because I know they have better and longer lasting support that SATA only implementations. AHCI has nothing to do with whether random X brand SATA card has detectable drivers or driver support in 5 years.
User wants SATA probably because they dont know that SAS is backwards compatible and better supported. What they asked for was specific, but maybe not informed.
What support are you talking about? AHCI isn’t going anywhere anytime soon and it’s a generic interface not vendor specific although there are some vendor specific variants. linux/drivers/ata at master · torvalds/linux · GitHub
I don’t know why you keep bringing up AHCI in this thread. It’s a register interface standard that defines the locations of register fields on a controller, it doesn’t mean that anything has to actually provide driver support for the device ID that’s behind that specification.
I could make an AHCI potato cannon but that doesn’t mean the Linux kernel will know what to do with it. The register interface is not an implementation.
The most widely used enterprise plug-in HBAs are going to be the most widely supported, which is why I recommend OP attempt to find one of those. The LSI 9211-8i is the defacto HBA for literally anything that needs SATA3 and can be had for so cheap that places like TheServerStore give them away with their systems if you request one in a configuration. This is already a solved problem by many other enterprise users.
The whole point of discussion in this thread should have been that OP didn’t realize that SAS HBAs will also do SATA, and they don’t need to specifically look for (and overpay for) a SATA-only controller.
You are, ASM1166 is a bog standard AHCI compatible controller and works ootb using mainline Linux, Windows, FreeBSD at least (I haven’t looked further but it most likely also works on other BSDs and apparently macOS according to various vendors.
@NorthernWing
I’m very curious what makes say that. There’s no documentation available unless under NDA (most likely doesn’t hand out new ones either) to my knowledge and since it’s EoL I wouldn’t bet on Broadcom spending much if any effort fixing issues since you can’t even download firmware, drivers and utilities from their site. Stable cards however they’re getting old (reliability) which should be taken into account as with any electronics.
