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Can i use drive pool with many hdds connected to an hba card?


billis777

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I read hba cards come with their own software, can i skip that and keep using the drive pool software or i need to use the hba software to see the drives in my system?

Also what hba card should i get for 14-24 hdds range?(i have couple 8tb hdds too, i heard some hba cards dont support more than 3tb hdds.)

I thought i would need at least something like the LSI Logic Controller Card 9305-24i 24-Port and then i came across this much cheaper card

LSI Logic SAS 9207-8i 

that says it supports up to 256 sata devices.

Also my motherboard is the p8 z77 v lk paired with the i7 3770k, will i have problems, do i need to mess with the bios or are those hba cards plug and play?

I also have a 2080ti will i loose gaming performance if i add an hba card to my system?

Help a noob out guys and thanks in advance for any advice you can give me!

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AFAIK, the cheaper may support up to 256 sata devices but you will need some sort of expander card.

I think you just need to ensure that the card comes (or is upgraded to) HBA firmware as opposed to RAID firmware.

I have a IBM 1015/DELL H310, which is a LSI SAS 9208-8i I think. 2nd hand, seller loaded it with HBA firmware for me. Just runs out of the box, no issues at all.

One thing to check is, if the card is passively cooled, you may want to screw a small fan on top of the heatsink (screw goes between the fins) as these are made for servers with lots of airflow and they tend to get rather hot.

On the 8TB support, I am quite sure it will support it (and higher). The chip may be from a time when 3TB was most there could be had so that is what they listed.

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Yes, absolutely! 

And yes, the limit is the number of devices, including the expander, IIRC. So you'd need a lot of drives, and expanders to max out the controller (which is entirely possible in an enterprise setup, actually). 

And actually, I use the LSI SAS 9211-8i card (well, an OEM version of it), and a couple of expanders to host almost 30 disks, now. 

 

As for gaming performance, that depends on the motherboard and chipset.  But if you have 2x dedicated 16x PCI-e slots (eg, the lanes are not split between the cards), then you should have ZERO impact to performance. 

 

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As to the pcie lanes, your board spec is -

2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8) *2
1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode, black) *3
2 x PCIe 2.0 x1
2 x PCI

*2: PCIe 3.0 speed is supported by Intel® 3rd generation Core™ processors.
*3: The PCIe x16_3 slot shares bandwidth with PCIe x1_2 slot. The default setting is x2 mode. Go to the BIOS setup to change the settings.

(https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8Z77V_LK/specifications/)

- so with an 8x pcie card in as well then the 2080ti will be limited to 8 lanes.

That said, the difference in gaming performance is in the order of 2-3% - see https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_RTX_2080_Ti_PCI-Express_Scaling/6.html as an example.

 

Unless you've got an odd usage, you could also look at the 9260-8i raid card as they're often pretty cheap now on eBay - though I believe that some of the rebrands can have odd limitations so personally would go for the genuine article...

...or a 9272-8i would be another fairly cheap alternative if you're happy getting one from China or HK.

 

+1 to sticking a fan on the h/s - the Noctua NF-40 range are very good imho, though you'll need some self tapping screws.

 

& I would have recommended the Chenbro CK23601 as an expander - but a quick check & it's EOL..

…& whilst YMMV, I had nothing but hassle with the 24 port HP expander that I tried before.

 

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Thank you so much for the help guys!

I'm looking to get the LSI 9305-24i to be future proof.

I was thinking to add it to the 2nd pcie x16 slot as they told me from newegg that the one on the bottom is x4 and will lose even more performance.

If i understand your post correctly PocketDemon i can go to the bios and increase the lanes the 3rd pcie x16 slot uses?

I would also like to add a fan to the LSI 9305-24i but the guys at newegg couldnt tell me what size of a fan it supports.

Can i use the Noctua NF-40 on it?

 

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