ZFS port for windows?

I also need a sata expansion card. But this could be done.

This should work.

That ones does not say if it is PCIE 2.0 or 3.0, and it only is a PCIe 1x connector, so if it is PCIe 2.0 then it will have a max of 500mb/s, which might be a bit of a bottleneck for lots of drives. Depends on the drives though, some drives might have only 50mb/s throughput max, others might be 200mb/s.

I think the 3.0 applies to the SATA rather than the PCIe
image

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Your right that says 3.0 pcie not pcie 3.0.

I can’t find anything that isn’t chinese and that says it is pci e 3.0

That’s fine. Just get one that has a 4x slot (or 8x), not a 1x slot. 4x PCIe 2.0 will get you 2gb/s, which is plenty for 8x hard drives.

What I use is a LSI SAS2008 HBA. They are fairly cheap used, but only available at good prices used.

You might be able to shave a few dollars off if you buy the cables separately, and buy an adapter that needs to be flashed to the HBA IT mode firmware from a RAID card IR mode firmware.

Example:

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Just ordered it. Thanks much!

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You are welcome.

Should be plug and play, just like plugging in drives to the motherboard ports.

That might not be preflashed for IT mode. If not let me know and I’ll get you instructions on flashing.

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Also the LSI cards are set up for rack system levels of cooling. Since you’re gonna put it in a tower case, Id recommend a 40mm fan to attach to that heat sink. The noctua nf-a4x20 comes to mind.

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Says that is in IT mode in the title.

If not, flashing instructions are readily available.

I’ve noticed many sellers buzzword titles, especially chinese ones. You cant be sure unless its in the description of the listing anymore. That price is high for a non flashed one but low for a pre-flashed one. I’d say its probably not but like you said, no big deal. I’ve done it twice now so I have a decent grasp on how to help him if he needs it.

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It’s probably too late now, but I would give a plug to theartofserver.

The guy does youtube vids, and makes money off Ebay. (https://www.ebay.com/str/theartofserver)
I’m pretty sure if he sells something flashed, that it would the actually be flashed, and work…

I don’t know if his prices are like though. They look okay, but I’m not so sensitive to prices, and probably over pay on some stuff. Especially from a different currency

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My nose is long and I dont value my time so I buy the stock IBM M1015 and flash it to an LSI 9211-8i like a poor.

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Wait, do you mean to say, after all this time, that you are Pinnochio?

It’s okay buddy, One day you’ll grow up to be a Real Boy

#DataWasTheBestPinnochio

Whom ever thought I am a he? Or a she? I am an alien from another universe that lacks genders in it’s species. Lol jk.

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I think you are supposed to say something like:

Hey, stop trying to Assign a gender upon me!
I am a winged angel that reigns death from the skies; I identify as an Attack Helicopter

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This is a new Unraid convert?

Please, please make sure you watch some tutorials/vids before you make certain decisions regarding which drives you’re using (of your existing pool / might want to pick up a few new ones depending).

Make sure you understand how things work because adding discs as you go is fine - but they can’t be larger than your smallest parity drive. And with (at least) 8 discs… of varying ages… you probably want the dual parity set-up.

I actually use zfs on windows via WSL2. It works great for my usecase. If you upgrade to one of the more recent windows insider releases you can even pass whole disks directly through to the WSL2 virtual machine. From there you can access all of your media from windows over the plan9 server with some performance degredation, but it really isn’t that bad. You need to compile a custom kernel for WSL2, but there is a simple enough step by step guide for getting it set up here.
I would link it, but apparently I’m not allowed to post links.

I tried zfsin and hated it. i can’t tell if it’s because zfsin sucks, windows terminal syntax sucks or I suck, but no matter what the reason, I wouldn’t touch that thing with a 10 foot pole now that I got the native linux version of zfs running on WSL2.