PCI-E SCSI HBA for FreeNAS - Looking for recomendations

[zimmerru]

I have a PowerEdge 6850 Server with 16GB RAM I am working on setting up with FreeNAS. I have Adaptec HBA cards to use in its PCI-X slots but do not have any PCI-E SCSI HBA cards handy and am looking to buy some, preferably dual channel.

There are a ton out there, but if anyone has a model they have used successfully I would love to know what it is.

 

[Veti]

is it really scsi that you want. scsi is a very outdated technology and there arent any high capacity drives available for it.

in most server cases you can actually remove an existing backplane and that way use normal sata drives in the server, but you will loose the hotplug functionality.

 

[zimmerru]

Yes, I need SCSI to be able to connect the PowerVault 220S Disk arrays that I have. I know SCSI is outdated, but I'm working with the disks I have at the moment, and I have 10+ PV220S arrays full of disks to put to use.

 

[Veti]

what about
http://www.adaptec.com/en-us/products/scsi/asc-29320lpe/
if you can still find it.

 

[zimmerru]

That would work, though I am hoping for a dual channel adapter. I also posted this thread in hopes that someone else had setup something similar and would share what controller they used. I can find controllers that should work in theory, but I was hoping someone would share what they had already used.

 

[cyberjock]

Are there even many(any?) SCSI controller drivers included with FreeNAS?

In all seriousness, you can probably buy a 3TB drive and save yourself a lot of electrical costs just by using 1 drive instead of 10. I know one person was able to buy a 3TB drive and throw out his whole array of hand-me-down drives and the electricity savings alone made it a break-even in a little less than a year.

 

[zimmerru]

This isn't for my personal use, this is a sandbox VM lab where I work, and electricity is not a concern. I wouldn't get the performance out of a single drive, let alone the redundancy that I'll get with the arrays.

As for drivers there are quite a few controllers supported, including the Adaptec 39160's i'm using in the current (older) FreeNAS system. The one linked earlier is also supported by FreeNAS.