Hello,
I only have 3 PCIe 4.0 slots on my server’s motherboard: 16x, 8x, and 1x.
I need to connect up to 16 SAS 2.5" enterprise SSDs, and want to be able to do that without sacrificing any performance even if they’re all, in some theoretical scenario, going full blast.
Connection into the card needs to be mini-SAS, since I’ve already got the cables and they were expensive. 
Compatibility: TrueNAS Core needs to be able to see the drives.
I’d like to use the 8x slot if possible, to keep the 16x slot free. What LSI card/rebranded LSI card should I pick?
I’m aware of the LSI 9201-16i, but I’m not experienced enough to know if it will impose any bandwidth constraints, and if I should thus be looking elsewhere. This is a PCI 2.0x8 card, with a max bandwidth of 4 GB/s each way. Given the theoretical read/write speeds of SAS SSDs, I’m not sure this is enough. I would prefer PCI 3.0, which I think means I need to be looking at this: LSI 9300-16I PCIe 3.0 SAS/Sata 12Gb/s Host Bus Adapter - ServerSupply.com, but I’m not entirely certain.
I’d really appreciate some advice. I’m getting close to being done with this build, and this is one of the last things. Thanks!