G+_Ben Tyger Posted October 12, 2014 Share Posted October 12, 2014 I'm looking for SATA III controller recommendations. I don't need any RAID support since I use Linux software RAID and LVM. I'm going to be using for running local VMs so performance is important but stability is even more important. I have 2 x8, 1 x4, and 2 x1 slots available. Here are the important features I'm looking for in priority order. * Support in Linux with stock kernel. No binary blobs. * PCI-Express interface that doesn't limit the choke the controller if it is fully loaded. * On card controller that doesn't fall over fully loaded. * 4 or more SATA III ports per a card * Ability to run more than one of the same card in the same system. I've been looking around but most of the cards I have seen have an issue with one of these requirements. Does anyone have a recommendation? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Luke Militello Posted October 12, 2014 Share Posted October 12, 2014 I would have a look at LSI HBA's. They have excellent Linux support. For a cheaper solution, StarTech makes some decent cards and have Linux support. However, you might be required to compile a kernel module for the latter. Not sure on your budget, but I would have a look at the LSI 9201-16i. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Ben Tyger Posted October 12, 2014 Author Share Posted October 12, 2014 Yea. I'm looking a 8 port card at most. I don't have enough case space to warrant a 16 port. My motherboard already supports 6 SATA III connectors. I like the LSI stuff but they're pricey. I'll look into the StarTech stuff. I'm not afraid of compiling my own kernel. I've been doing it since Linux 2.0... :-) Also funds are slim. So having two lower cost cards would probably be more desirable to one card that is more cost effective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Luke Militello Posted October 12, 2014 Share Posted October 12, 2014 If SATA rev. 2 would be sufficient, I would recommend procuring some older 3ware cards off of EBay. Specifically the 9650SE line, you can get them in 2, 4, 8, 12, 16 or 24 port models. They are RAID cards, but you can use them in JBOD mode and 3ware support has been outstanding in Linux. They even have the CLI utility 'tw_cli' to manage the cards from the OS. The support is so good, 'smartctl' can even see past the controller viewing each drive as well. They also support drives greater than 2TB with the latest firmware. More than one card can be used in the same system. The other reason I mention this is because you can pickup the 8 port model for around $80. LSI purchased 3ware a while back and still carry some of that line as well...for example, the 3ware 9750-8i retails for about $550 while the 3ware 9650SE-8LPML goes for less than $100 used on EBay. The major differences are only SATA rev. 2 vs. rev. 3. and the 9750-8i supports SAS. Unless you are dead set on a brand new card, this, might be a good alternative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Luke Militello Posted October 12, 2014 Share Posted October 12, 2014 I should also note, the LSI and 3ware cards can 'switch' their controller ID number in tw_cli between reboots when modprobe loads the module depending on the order they are detected. There is a fix though, one just needs to include a few modules in the initramfs modules file; 3w_9xxx, ahci, pata_atiixp. Then, regenerate your kernel initrd with initramfs tools.? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Luke Militello Posted October 12, 2014 Share Posted October 12, 2014 I haven't had the need to upgrade to SATA rev. 3 yet since rev. 2 provides enough bandwidth for mechanical drives. That being said, I have 4 - 9550SXU's and 5 - 9650SE's still in use. No complaints.? Two of the 9550SXU's are even running WD purples; continuous writes. And on the 9650SE's with WD reds, I can pull 343 MB/s continuous read; RAID-6 using 8 - 4TB drives.? I have a script to tweak a few kernel options to help get this performance. If you opt to take this route, I'll gladly share said changes. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Ben Tyger Posted October 12, 2014 Author Share Posted October 12, 2014 If was going to use any RAID functionality at all it would only level 1. Then I'd stitch the RAIDed logical drives together with LVM. This lets me have disk redundancy but can scale out with non-similar sized disks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Ben Tyger Posted October 12, 2014 Author Share Posted October 12, 2014 Luke Militello I'm very familiar with 3ware products. I own a 7508 and a 8002. Those are too long in the tooth now. I didn't consider them for a while because they were having Linux driver problems in the early days of the 9xxx series. Then there was the LSI buyout. Then I sort of forgot about them. I'm glad they are still a great Linux product. I'm very familiar with the tw_cli. I even wrote a nagios check for 3ware card using it. The more I think about it, a SATA II capable card may be fine. I can move all of the mechanical drives to the SATA II HBA and then use the onboard SATA III interfaces for the SSD drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Ben Tyger Posted October 12, 2014 Author Share Posted October 12, 2014 Hopefully by the time I run out of onboard interfaces, the selection of SATA III HBAs for Linux will be better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Luke Militello Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 Ben Tyger I did the same thing with Nagios and tw_cli. :) I agree that if you can get away with SATA rev. 2 for now, perhaps in time the SATA rev. 3 9700 series and the LSI models will come down in price. I am sure you will agree that a lot of the cheaper brands, although touting Linux support, most of the time have stability issues under load. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_bryant thompson Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 I bit the big bullet and bought the LSI (sorry but I'm blanking on the model) SAS/SATA 8 port controller and put 8 3tb 7200 rpm Seagates in my Windows Home Server thats (mostly media, I love 50cent dvds at the pawn shoppe) all in JBOD Mode at first and now I'm looking to pair them in raid0 and if they get critical data on them I'll mirror 0+1 (all the controller can do) It replaced a Promise 8350 RAID6 controller that started with 5 320's, then 500's, then 8 1tb drives... I've been handing down the drives as I've been upgrading... Next step I think is a Drobo and migrate the drives into those cabinets with a gigabyte i7 brix running plex and Maybe PlayOm/Playto Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Ben Tyger Posted October 16, 2014 Author Share Posted October 16, 2014 Honestly why do people have their panties in a twist about boot times? Especially on server level parts ? I'm not just talking about this thread. Boot times are such a small portion of your daily usage of your computer. The only place where I see boot times are important is with laptops /desktop where you're coming in and out of hibernation often. That's definitely not a case with server level cards like this. Most servers stay up for months sometimes years. If adding a few minutes to a boot time is going to be that catastrophic to you're work, you need to invest in HA clustering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_bryant thompson Posted October 16, 2014 Share Posted October 16, 2014 Actually what I bought was: SAS9211-8I 8PORT Int 6GB Sata+sas Pcie 2.0 2 of 3WARE Cable Multi-lane Internal Cable (SFF-8087) And I put that into a Fractal case with 10 drive bays with a Z68 Gigabyte mobo with 2600k and 16gb of rammies, 14 hds and its a scambled data mess, I'm slowly cleaning that up in my spare time :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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