SAS drives & controller

mushtafa · 4 Jun 2020 at 22:15

I'm looking for some HDDs for a home server build.

Noticed SAS drives are cheap on eBay.

I also noticed there seems to be 3 different speeds of drive.

What do I need to look out for? Will they just plug & play? Are all controllers similar?

mushtafa · 4 Jun 2020 at 23:25

I think the plan will be to use unraid from my little research this week.

Will be used for data backup, Plex server, and if possible a small Minecraft server

mushtafa · 5 Jun 2020 at 21:02

bremen1874 said:
Take a look at this video about IT mode HBAs. It'll give you a good overview of what's available out there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTbKzQZk21w

Also, look at the Unraid guides for lists of adapters that are known to work.

I use a Dell H310 and a Fujitsu D2607 (both flashed to IT mode). They're both LSI SAS2008 based cards. The Fujitsu tends to be cheaper, and in my experience doesn't suffer from the SMBus compatibility issues the Dell does (Google H310 tape mod).

Excellent video, thanks a lot. It's a minefield all this server stuff. But is't nice to learn, something new and different to the usual PC stuff

mushtafa · 15 Jun 2020 at 08:45

Stumbled across a LSI 9200-8i.

I can't find any info on these a all. (Found the 8e version).

I'm guessing they're a fake/copy? Does anyone know?

mushtafa · 15 Jun 2020 at 16:28

bremen1874 said:
They're a standard card SAS2008 based card. The same one that many manufacturers have made clones of (e.g. Dell H200).

Should work ok for my needs than. Might take a punt, seems to be the cheapest I can find

mushtafa · 15 Jun 2020 at 21:02

Not found any for under £25. The cheap ones have very vague descriptions and not sure if they're right for the job.

Buying one that's already been flashed for IT mode would be nice, but I don't want to pay too much for the privilege. I'd rather muck around for a few hours one evening.

I need a full height card. Feel free to point me in the right direction. I assume eBay is the best/cheapest place?

mushtafa · 15 Jun 2020 at 22:34

bremen1874 said:
Look for a seller called 'xuanwen-2011' item 124168996493 on eBay. They're selling various pre-flashed SAS2008 based cards.

I purchased my D2607-8I from them very recently and it arrived in about 10 days from somewhere in/near China.

Thank you, I'll have a look later. I dismissed anything from China. Didn't know if the postal service was up and running properly again