LSI SAS 9211-8i replacement

[foxdoismil]

Back in 2013 the LSI SAS 9211-8i SAS/SATA PCIe RAID Controller was promoted in this forum as one of the best Hard disk controller for ZFS and nas4free.

One of my cards failled and I have to buy a new controller. My questions are:
1) Are there better controllers or should I still buy the LSI SAS 9211-8i and flash to IT?
2) Wich version of IT firmware? 19 or 20 for nas4free 10?
3) And for nas4free version 9 (which is still installed on my NAS server), version 18? older?

Thanks for the help

[b0ssman]

1) i am not aware of any.
2) there was a post recently about beeing version 20.
3) it will tell you during boot in the dmesg output.

[Jack Foobar]

The SAS 9311-8i will give you a speed bump(12Gbps). It's about $210 on ebay. Not sure it's worth it for spinning disks, but you asked for a better one.
http://www.avagotech.com/products/serve ... ifications
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R4 ... 8i&_sop=15

[b0ssman]

they use different connectors.
and its only 12gbps with sas drives. there are only sata 3 disks around.
so if you are willing to spend a fortune on sas drives then, yes its better.
if you are going to use sata drives there is no reason to go for it.

[apollo567]

Have a look @ an IBM M1015 or a Dell Perc H310, you might get them cheap on ebay.
Try them without flashing IT Software first, it might work.

[Jack Foobar]

they use different connectors.
and its only 12gbps with sas drives. there are only sata 3 disks around.
so if you are willing to spend a fortune on sas drives then, yes its better.
if you are going to use sata drives there is no reason to go for it.

SAS and SATA are interoperable. I know because I'm typing on that controller(6Gbps) with RAID 0 SSD's in Linux right now.
Also because I'm a Sysadmin.

SAS 3Gbps = SATA II = 300 MB/s
SAS 6Gbps = SATA III = 600 MB/s
SAS 12Gbps = SATA 3.2/M.2(SATA III by default) = 1200 & up MB/s

One thing I've never regretted, even though ZFS seems to be the filesystem flavor of the month(I'm more of a KISS person), is having a hardware controller. It'll work on any OS, recover from any userland breakage, and can do pass through(HBA aka JBOD) or RAID without taxing your computer in any way. It's the first thing I buy, even on a workstation(as you can see below). Never did like mdm/dmraid/software raid or the crap cards with software raid. There is always some dependency or hook that kicks you in the balls when you need it to work most.

Although ZFS is very mature, it's way too resource hungry for a NAS. Mathematically impossible to keep up with as data size increases. More RAM, more CPU's, and More RAM.. They made that RAID filesystem for mainframes with addon cards. Not really a great thing for a typically cheap low voltage workstation architected box that is constantly growing in data size. In any case, I'm getting off topic.

What you are looking at below is a HP SAS9212-4i that I got off ebay for $30. I flashed it with the original LSI/Avago SAS9212-4i4e firmware. In all honesty, the 3ware cards are easier to work with(only 1 bios instead of 3), but they don't make those any more- so.. just a heads up. It is an option. And the best option for the best price, in my humble opinion. The FreeNAS forums have detailed descriptions of these cards, and also how to flash them, configure them, etc.

PS- One comment on practicality. Spinning disk SATA drives can't typically go above SATA II(300 MB/s) speeds. So, there's really no reason to do SAS 12Gbps for this application. SAS 6 Gbps will be more than enough, unless there are some super fast SATA drives that I'm unaware of. Just food for thought.

[b0ssman]

not quite.

SAS 6Gbps = SATA III

there is no equivalent to sas 12gbps for sata yet.

[Jack Foobar]

not quite.

SAS 6Gbps = SATA III

there is no equivalent to sas 12gbps for sata yet.

You're right. I F'ed that up. Down-leveled.

[foxdoismil]

Based on your explanations I bought the LSI SAS 9211-8i. They are currently at US$ 75 on ebay.
Thanks for the support

[Jack Foobar]

Based on your explanations I bought the LSI SAS 9211-8i. They are currently at US$ 75 on ebay.
Thanks for the support

If you got a straight LSI card, you'll have a easier time of it than I did. Firmware updates will be directly done through the java interface that I posted, rather than the command line. It'll take you all of 10 minutes to upgrade the 3 bios/rom files.

[foxdoismil]

I went with the EFI boot on a USB flash drive and had a hard time learning that my mobo only worked with UEFI 1.0
Anyway it is done.
Thanks a lot for the help

[Lord Crc]

FWIW I just installed a LSI 9207-8i card, and the disks were found right away and seems to be working smoothly so far. The card came with firmware P20 FWIW. Running N4F 10.3.0.3.

edit: It seems earlier versions of the P20 firmware had issues. Mine came with 20.00.02.00 out of the box, which supposedly fixed the nasty issue.

[lux]

imho latest FW is 20.00.07.00