New HBA Storage Controller > I need some advice: Card / Cables

[danfer]

I have reached the limit of installable drives: I am pretty sure you know this situation 

My motherboard can handle 6 drives and I installed one SSD and five WD Reds. Due to the fact that my data appetite is still vast, I have to buy me my first storage controller 

I already read a lot of threads and reviews and decided to invest my money into a controller with a LSI chipset. By the way, I just need a "simple" storage controller, no RAID or other fancy functions are needed. I am fine in investing some extra money in the newest chipset generation, because I want to use the controller for a lot of years 

So far so good, I am completely new to SAS, HBA, JBOD etc., therefore I need an expert advice. I already figured out two potential storage controllers:

[1] Intel RAID Controller RS3WC080 | Specs > http://ark.intel.com/products/77345/ [sorry cannot link them]

[2] Intel RAID Controller RS3UC080 | Specs > http://ark.intel.com/products/76066/ [sorry cannot link them]

 

As far as I understood I have to look for a storage controller with JBOD mode, because I do not need the RAID functions and simply want to attach new drives.

Am I right that [2] is the right decision for my setup? Are there any issues/problems I might face in installing the storage controller? Do I you have to take something into account when I add the new drive into my (lovely) pool?

 

Thanks so much for your help and patience!

[danfer]

Could you try the 3100 build and see if that works?

 

 

And congrats on the purchase. Very nice price, and I hope it treats you well!

 

Already downgraded. Everything works with that build 

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Already downgraded. Everything works with that build 

Okay, good.

 

And if you notice the changelog, Windows 10 support requires us to recompile everything. Something didn't convert right, letting Alex know, as I can confirm this, on Windows 10 as well.

https://stablebit.com/Admin/IssueAnalysis/18774

[danfer]

Thanks for checking.

And yes, I read the changelog. You know me, I give every version a try 

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Thanks for checking.

And yes, I read the changelog. You know me, I give every version a try 

Well, the latest beta builds of StableBit CloudDrive work with Windows 10 already, with little/no issues. So weird that Scanner would (in fact, Scanner should be the easiest to add support for.... so this is odd).

 

And that's why it's an internal beta. There is a chance that things will break, completely.

[danfer]

I am aware of that "risk", but someone hast to do the Beta Testing 

Are you planning to release the new (final) versions of DrivePool and Scanner in the near future?

 

By the way: 3102 was released. Is this the fix? 

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Yes, to both.

 

THe 3102 build fixes the issue, and works (I can confirm this).

And we want to get a Windows 10 compatible version out as soon as possible (but we want to make sure it's stable, too).

[propergol]

Trying to find the right SAS/SATA card...

Can you tell me if this one is ok : http://www.ebay.fr/itm/IBM-ServeRaid-M1015-SATA-SAS-HBA-Controller-RAID-6Gbps-PCIe-x8-wie-9220-8i-/141741562185?hash=item2100749949

 

EDIT : I ended buying  a ServeRAID M1115 that is a newer version of the M1015 and was cheaper than M1015 : 100$ shipped to France.

I hope I would be able to run it on my home server that in fact has a "standard" motherboard and not a server class one.

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/technotes/tips0856.pdf

[Christopher (Drashna)]

The M1115 is fine.
Actually, that's what one of my cards was.  You should be able to crossflash it just the same as the M1015.

 

And yes, it should be able to run on a standard motherboard just fine.

I've seen plenty of people running LSI cards on consumer motherboards without any issues.

[propergol]

That is funny : as I was Googling thing like "M1115 flash IT" or things like that, I ended back here, reading some of your posts saying that you were running a M1115  .

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Well, see, you have confirmation that it definitely works

[hutchinsane_]

Hello
 

I'm sorry for reviving this year old thread (and I hope I don't get into trouble for that ) but I'm in a very similar situation. I am looking at Stablebit Scanner but neither Smart Data nor Disk Control (specifically spin down) is supported on my Fujitsu D3116C RAID controller (LSI 2208 based) so I was looking into alternatives that are compatible with Scanner as I do know that the drives themselves support spin down (little tool called HHD Scan told me, it also shows me Smart values for some of my drives but not all), so that should not be the limitation.

Before I buy, I wanted to ask if you @Christopher (Drashna) could confirm that for me since you've used M1015 in the past? Or do you have any other recommendations for cheap-ish HBA's that fulfill these criteria and work with Scanner? I think I saw the M1115 mentioned somewhere else in the thread as well, but again, I just want to be sure before I pull the trigger (sigh, student budget.. )

 Specifically being able to spin down the drives is extremely important to me. 

Thanks in advance

 

[Umfriend]

I got a 1015 in IT mode. If you find out how to get disks to spin down, let me know please.

I did at some stage edit the registry but that did not do anything for me.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

The Spin Down stuff is tricky at best.  I don't think that there is a perfect solution for that, regardless of what you try. 

 

As for the SMART data, have you tried the Unsafe Direct I/O option?  If not, that may work with your HBA.  If not, then you can get a M1015, but at this point, an LSI SAS 9207-8i card is about as expensive and doesn't require flashing any firmware. 

[hutchinsane_]

Ah that's a shame. I was always under the impression that an HBA in IT mode would pass all control of the drives to the OS, including power management, is that not correct?

I remember I have an older Fujitsu (D2616) somewhere where I did get spindown working, but not in JBOD mode so every drive has to be configured as a raid 0, which is annoying. Yes I've tried that option, didn't work unfortunately. Although I have now come to realise that since the drives are SAS, they don't report SMART, so I guess that Problem is solved.

The Motherboard I'm using also has an Intel SAS controller which I unfortunately cannot test with Scanner as it is locked to SATA mode without a key

So now my requirements are pretty much down to being able to use the Disk Control options in Scanner. I'll experiment a bit more and if I can find a combination/configuration that works I will post it here. 

[hutchinsane_]

 

On 11/8/2019 at 6:41 PM, Umfriend said:

I got a 1015 in IT mode. If you find out how to get disks to spin down, let me know please.

I did at some stage edit the registry but that did not do anything for me.

Little update: I managed to flash my Fujitsu D3116C which is based on the SAS2208 chipset to a 2308 IT mode firmware, but I still couldn't get the disks to spin down or get power management working. Turns out: It works fine with SATA disks. Seems that the SAS drives have it either disabled in firmware or something else is more likely going on, as HDD Scan is able to spin them down. I suspect Windows just might not be able to properly spin down SAS disks. Have you tried the registry hack that's floating around to enable idle power management?

[Umfriend]

I use SATA disks and I did try a (the?) registry hack but so far without success.