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Need Advice On SATA Controller Purchase


PossumsDad

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Hi all,

 

I've been using DrivePool and Scanner for quite some time. Everything has been running great.

 

It's now time to upgrade some of my hardware. I am taking the plunge and am going to replace the tiring old Core 2 Duo 6420 2.13ghz with a modern i7 6700 3.4ghz processor and motherboard. I am looking at the H170-PRO/CSM LGA1151 ATX Motherboard from ASUS.

 

I am now running 2 PCI-x 8 port sata cards. Super Micro SAT2-MV8. Of course they will not run at full speed in a regular PCI slot but they do run. The new motherboard does have 2 PCI slots. So I can run the old controller cards if necessary.

 

So I am thinking about replacing both of them with: The SI-PEX40097 is the SYBA IOCrest 16-Port SATA III 6G PCI-Express Controller Card. This card, a x4 slot card from IOCREST, uses the newest Marvell 9215 Chipset to add up to 16 drives to your system for an overall massive storage capacity boost.

 

I guess what I'm asking is will this card will work with DrivePool and Scanner or am I better off using my old Super Micro controller cards?

 

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

Phil

 

P.S. I'm running Windows 8.1

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I would recommend an LSI based card, over the marvell based cards. The main reason, is that the Marvell based cards may have issues with SAS Expanders. 

 

SAS expanders allow you to add MANY more drives. 

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/servers/raid/raid-controller-res2sv240.html

 

You can use an "8 port" card to add 20 or 40 drives (with one or two Expanders, respectively). 

 

 

That said, adding more than 8 drives is definitely an investment, and not really cheap. 

 

 

The card you linked should work just fine, though. 

 

As for the older card, these are not supported on the PCI-e ports, IIRC. So you'd need to find a board that supported them.  Upgrading the card may get you better performance (as the PCI-X card is actually only SATA 2, and not SATA 3). 

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Thank you for your reply. I'll probably go with the newer card. Then I won't have to worry about getting a motherboard with regular PCI slots.

 

I'm now looking at a Generation 7 i7-7700K with a z270 motherboard. Gonna be much faster than my old computer.. lol

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I would recommend an LSI based card, over the marvell based cards. The main reason, is that the Marvell based cards may have issues with SAS Expanders. 

 

SAS expanders allow you to add MANY more drives. 

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/servers/raid/raid-controller-res2sv240.html

 

You can use an "8 port" card to add 20 or 40 drives (with one or two Expanders, respectively). 

 

 

That said, adding more than 8 drives is definitely an investment, and not really cheap. 

 

 

The card you linked should work just fine, though. 

 

As for the older card, these are not supported on the PCI-e ports, IIRC. So you'd need to find a board that supported them.  Upgrading the card may get you better performance (as the PCI-X card is actually only SATA 2, and not SATA 3). 

 

Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.

 

I gonna go with the:  LSI Logic SAS 9207-8i Storage Controller.

 

With the Intel 24 Port Sas Expander.

 

Looks like a winning combo with growth potential.

 

Now on to the search for the right motherboard.

 

Again thanks for your help.

 

Phil

 

 

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Well, the LSI SAS 9207-8i is a very good card.  So I'm sure you'll be happy with it. ;) 

 

And yeah, plenty of bandwidth to handle a LOT of drives. :)

 

As for the motherboard, I can't really help you there. That is very much dependant on what you plan on doing with it, and personal preferences. 

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I sure do thank you Christopher for your help.

 

I think I have settled on all of the parts for my new server build. Any and all suggestions are welcome. It's been a while since I built a whole new machine.

 

Here are the parts:

 

 

Corsair RMx Series, RM850x, 850W, Fully Modular Power Supply, 80+ Gold Certified by Corsair

 

Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 DRAM 2133MHz (PC4-17000) C13 Memory Kit - Black by Corsair

 

 

 

 

Thanks everyone for looking at my parts list. If anyone has any suggestions or changes that I should make please let me know. I want this machine to run for a long time. My current server is on it's 10th year. Time for a new one..

 

Thanks

 

Phil

 

P.S. I'm also going to order the 120mm 3 fan replacement board for the backplanes.

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Hi

 

Couple of things to check

 

Does the LSI card provide Sata @ 3g or 6g and does the Intel expander provide 3g or 6g for sata also - IIRC as i looked at those cards along with others i think they "only" give 3g Sata - if you are using DP then it wont be an issue as you are not going to max it out anyway. This is moot if you are using SAS drives.

 

Cheaper alternatives for the LSI - look for 9211-8i ~$60 and the HP Expander will do 24 drives for approx ~$30 on second hand market (have two :))

 

Another thing to check is the power per rail that the PSU provides - depending on the number of drives you will be running check the amount of power that can be provided to the HDD - some cheaper lines of PSU are geared to providing most of the power to the GPU(s) and M/B and the HDD get whats left

 

I have a MX300 (750gb) and they are ok had no issues but the Samsung 850 Pro are a bit faster and you get a better warranty - so you get what you pay for :)

 

Dont forget your CPU cooler - i would look at the AIO water cooling units from Coolermaster - although you might have a challenge mounting the radiator with in the Norco case - possibly on the new fan wall?

 

Have fun

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Hi Spider99,

 

Both the LSI card and the expander are 6g.

 

The power supply is a single rail 12v unit. Here are the specs:

 

  • +3.3V@25A, +5V@25A, +12V@70.8A, -12V@0.8A, +5VSB@3A

 

It also has a 10 year warranty.

 

I'll take a look at the Samsung ssd. 

 

The processor comes with a fan and heatsink. Was thinking about using that one.

 

Thank you for the suggestions.

 

Phil

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I was looking at the Samsung ssd drives. Then I saw something that I never knew existed. M.2 NVME SSD drives. Faster than fast. It turns out that the motherboard that I listed above has 2 of these slots. I can even run 2 of these cards in raid 0 for even faster read speeds.

 

I'm looking at: Samsung 960 EVO Series - 250GB PCIe NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD

 

It is rated at: Read speeds of up to 3,200 MB/s and write speeds of up to 1,500 MB/s.

 

That knocks the socks off of a regular ssd. That is 3x faster write speeds than the ssd I listed above. It is also a little over 6x the read speed. That should make a Plex database fly.

 

Thank you Spider99 for getting me to look at Samsung Drives.

 

Phil

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lol - yes have three of the 950 Pro's

 

doubt you need to raid 0 them as you are unlikely to have anything that will stress them :)

 

Make sure you get Samsung Magician and the Samsung NVME drivers as Windows 10 only has a basic driver

 

IIRC scanner might have issues with getting the SMART info off the drives - but it will get fixed im sure

 

Make sure the NVME drives are very well cooled as the run very hot 60-80c in operation and can easily overheat - then they throttle their speed 

 

Enjoy

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