SATA 3 Dumb Controller For 850 Pro

Misan · 20 Mar 2018 at 22:11

Hi guys - I'm looking for a SATA 3 controller (doesn't need to do RAID) for a couple of 850 Pro's which I'll be using as an ESXi 6.5 datastore.

My board only has SATA 2 ports onboard, hence the requirement for a card. I'll be using a PCIe x16 2.0 slot, and need something to get the best performance for these drives.

I had a look at buying a cheap M1015 and flashing it to IT mode - however I've heard people have had a lot of issues with LSI cards and Samsung 840/850.

I came across a Syba SI-PEX40062 which seems to provide two PCIe lanes. Any other suggestions much appreciated!

Misan · 21 Mar 2018 at 20:55

Cheers BongoHunter - I'm gonna go with Syba SI-PEX40062 as it's based on the Marvell 88SE9235 chipset which provides two PCIe lanes, so should hopefully provide pretty decent performance.

Thanks once again.

Misan · 22 Mar 2018 at 19:23

A 1TB NVMe drive was a little outside my budget - Managed to pickup a couple of 1TB 850 Pro's for cheap. Definitely something I'll be looking at for datastore usage down the line though.

Misan · 23 Mar 2018 at 23:30

Excellent site here https://www.v-front.de/2013/11/how-to-make-your-unsupported-sata-ahci.html which has custom VIB's for quite a few controllers so far. Marvell 88SE9235 is listed.