replacement raid card

[marauder 17]

So my raid card died on me today. Good thing was it was while I was building out my new system. So glad it died before i had everything setup. I'm looking for a replacement and looking for ideas.

Looking for something that has at least 2 SAS ports, and can handle 3+ TB drives. My current card is adaptec ASR-5805. The plan is to use the card for UnRaid and drive pooling. Not looking to go over $100. Needs to have good linux support. As I am planning on doing unraid and drive pooling i was was thinking about just a sata extender card, but I've always felt like those were cheap and cause issues. Currently need to be able to connect 8 drives to it, hence the 2 SaS ports to do fanout cables, but having 3-4 ports would be nice for further expansion.

Thanks.

[Guest asrequested]

An HBA. Use drivepooling But you may have to downgrade the firmware. @@mediacowboy can help you figure that out.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-IT-Mode-Genuine-LSI-9211-8i-8-port-PCI-E-Card-Bulk-pack-US-SameDayShipping/291641245650?hash=item43e72c3fd2:g:hboAAOSwOgdYxx1I:sc:USPSFirstClass!94975!US!-1

[marauder 17]

Thanks. I don’t want to run windows. Linux is my first choice but I don’t love lvm and I looked into flexraid but the forums were worthless for help so not doing that. So that puts me with unraid.

 

Why would I need to downgrade the firmware?

[Guest asrequested]

Why would I need to downgrade the firmware?

 

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/57883-not-really-hardware-but/?p=587449

[marauder 17]

Thanks.

Also forgot to mention that the card will connect directly to the rices. There’s no backplane.

[Guest asrequested]

That's why it's better to have an HBA. I have three of those controllers, using breakout cables. They work really well. But that card is in IT mode. If you want to use it as a RAID controller, buy one on IR mode. But I recommend using drivepooling. Then as an HBA in IT, that controller works very well.

[mediacowboy 438]

The cards works in windows. It also works with Linux. I have that card running 6 - 8 tb drives in Ubuntu 18.04. Using mergerfs to pool the drives so emby and all other applications see one drive. Whem in reality all my media is balanced across the drives. I posted to some articles that will really help you out. If you have questions ask and I'll see what I can do.

[Swynol 375]

some cards come as standard in IT mode. i think the IBM M1015   (LSI9211) comes in IT Mode, no need to flash it

[marauder 17]

I ended up picking up the LSi 9211

[marauder 17]

So new card came today. Issue is I can’t get the card to read any of my drives. My system detects the card but no drives. I tried in my Linux and windows machine and same results. I’ve tried about 10 different hard drives. I checked the raid bios and it too doesn’t read any drives. I’m using sas to sata breakout cables. But I’d be surprised if all 3’that I tried were bad.

[naeonline 27]

Your cables need to be specifically SAS to Sata "Forward Breakout" cables.

[Guest asrequested]

And the card has Firmware version 20. If you read what @@mediacowboy said, you need to back it down to 16. 

[marauder 17]

People said on the unraid forums, which is the OS I’m probably going with that version 20 works.

Version 20 works on windows 8.1? I tried on that system too and it didn’t work.

I’ll doible check my cables

[mediacowboy 438]

People said on the unraid forums, which is the OS I’m probably going with that version 20 works.

Version 20 works on windows 8.1? I tried on that system too and it didn’t work.

I’ll doible check my cables

I don't see why it would work on 8.1 I had it working with windows 10 before I jumped to Linux.

[marauder 17]

You think firmware 20 is to new for windows 8.1? I was going to upgrade windows to 10 so I could do that. That would tell me if it’s the card or firmware issue.

[mediacowboy 438]

Maybe?

 

Edit: some lite reading

https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?url=https%3A%2F%2Femby%2Emedia%2Fcommunity%2Findex%2Ephp%3F%2Ftopic%2F43050-Flashing-an-LSI-SAS-card-to-IT&share_tid=43050&share_fid=77624&share_type=t

Edited September 22, 2018 by mediacowboy

[marauder 17]

I upgraded to windows 10 latest release. No luck, so then I flashed the card to firmware 16 as mentioned and still no nothing. I’ve got new cables coming from amazon. If that doesn’t work I’ll have to return it. Unless people have other ideas.

[Guest asrequested]

That's a shame. Either you've got the wrong cables, or the card has failed

[marauder 17]

That’s my thinking. So new cables come monday. I doubt it’s fhe cables at this point as they were used in a machine previously. They have been sitting in a box for 4 years. So maybe they got damaged or something but I doubt it. Just bought new ones to make sure.

[marauder 17]

Well amazon is awesome and the cables I ordered yesterday afternoon, came this morning. Put the new cables in and it worked. Now going to upgrade the firmware back to f20 and see if it still works.