Looking for Disk Controller recommendations

[taqka1]

Looking for Disk Controller recommendations.

I am repurposing an old Dell PowerEdge R510 8 bay server, and a Supemicro 12 bay chassis to run Freenas. The plan is to have the R510 act as the head and the Supermicro as a JBOD. The R510 comes with a PERC6/i card, which is no good for Freenas, so I am looking for 2 HBAs with both internal and external ports.

Supermicro comes with a SAS expander, and I am planning to attach the controller to a CPU-less motherboard.

Hope it makes sense. Has anyone got any disk controller recommendations that should work in my scenario?

Thanks

 

[krikboh]

The good ole' IBM M1015 with an internal to external SAS adapter.

 

[Ericloewe]

How the hell would a controller work on a motherboard that doesn't even have a CPU? You're probably a bit confused.

All controllers will have to reside inside the server proper. You can use (relatively) cheap passive adapters to convert internal into external SAS cabling. Switch back to internal cabling in the Supermicro chassis and connect to the expander. For controller duty, use M1015s or similar.

Now, problems:

• You need to basically hotwire the PSU on the Supermicro chassis to keep it running, or hack something together to hotwire it if the server is powered on.
• You need to get the fans to work. This may mean wiring them directly to the PSU, foregoing speed control and monitoring.

 

[cyberjock]

You can get an M1015 with a converter card like this: View: http://www.amazon.com/Dual-SFF-8088-SFF-8087-adapter-bracket/dp/B00DGFIMQK


I have used these in the past and they work very well. Just be warned that the M1015 is expecting internal wiring and such, which is typically shorter than external wiring. So if you plan to hook up 3m of external cabling this will probably not work for the best. Try to keep your total cable length to a minimum. ;)

As for a card with actually external connectors, I'm sure LSI has one based on the SAS 2008 chip, but I don't know the model number off the top of my head.

 

[Ericloewe]

You can get an M1015 with a converter card like this: View: http://www.amazon.com/Dual-SFF-8088-SFF-8087-adapter-bracket/dp/B00DGFIMQK


I have used these in the past and they work very well. Just be warned that the M1015 is expecting internal wiring and such, which is typically shorter than external wiring. So if you plan to hook up 3m of external cabling this will probably not work for the best. Try to keep your total cable length to a minimum. ;)

As for a card with actually external connectors, I'm sure LSI has one based on the SAS 2008 chip, but I don't know the model number off the top of my head.

LSI SAS 9211-8e, or 4i4e for the one external, one internal version. However, it seems to have been discontinued and mostly unavailable.

There's the 9207-8e, which uses the LSI SAS 2308 controller, which I'd assume is the current external SAS 6Gb/s product.