SOLVED think I bought wrong HBA (9200-8e)

[Chuck Remes]

All, working on my first FreeNAS build. I bought the LSI 9200-8e even though all of my drives will be in the same Fractal Design R5 case. While researching the correct cables to buy this mistake started to crystallize. I probably should have gotten a card with SFF-8087 ports (internal) rather than the SFF-8088 ports that are on this card.

I learned a lot from this thread: https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...imer-on-basic-sas-and-sata.26145/#post-184126

My question to the forum is "what do I do now?" Should I return this card for an IBM M1015 variant or can I salvage this situation and still use the 9200-8e for my internal drives?

If I can/should save this card, what cables do I need to attach to my 7 sata drives? My research indicates I would need 2 8088 to 8087 forward breakout cables. How should I plan to route this cable back inside the box?

Here I thought I did all the right research and now I feel like a doofus after making this mistake.

 

[joeschmuck]

Well you are correct, you made a doofus mistake but hey, we all do from time to time.

You have an option of buying a SFF-8088 to SATA cable (linked example) which will make 8 SATA ports on the end of a cable and then you could feed the cables back into the case through a slot or something. It's not ideal that is for certain.

The other option is to buy another board, this time ending with a letter "i" for internal and giving that a shot.

 

[Chuck Remes]

I bought a 9211-8i and will have it Wednesday. I don't want my new box to have any strange jury rigging like feeding external cables back inside.

 

[joeschmuck]

I bought a 9211-8i and will have it Wednesday. I don't want my new box to have any strange jury rigging like feeding external cables back inside.

Glad you did that, it was the better way to go.