Recommendations for an 8 port RAID card

[ces160]

Hi all, 

 

I'm looking in to get an 8 port raid card for an up coming home server build.

 

I have been looking around and have found three that seem to be OK.

 

Adaptec RAID 7805 SATA/SAS Controller - http://www.scorptec.com.au/product/Controllers/SATA_&_SAS/48309-ASAR7805KIT

 

LSI MegaRAID SAS 9271-8i Controller - http://www.scorptec.com.au/product/Controllers/SATA_&_SAS/50852-9271-8i?utm_source=myshopping&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=HDD+Accessories&utm_term=LSI+MegaRAID+SAS+9271+8i+Controller+8+Port+Internal+PCI+E+3+0+

 

Intel RAID Controller RS3DC080 - http://www.scorptec.com.au/product/Controllers/SATA_&_SAS/55025-RS3DC080

 

Does any one have any experence with these cards? or any suggestions or recommendations. 

 

I like high res movies and I want to rip my bluRay collection at full quality, nightly backups of house hold PC's and personal cloud storage.

 

Thanks

[Shroomster]

The LSI one is quite excellent.

[MikkoP]

The LSI 9271-8i is a great card. I don't have it yet but it's already in the shopping cart to be ordered.

If you are connecting eight drives, you don't have any room for expansion. For regular HDDs you could get the 4i variant and Intel RES2SV240 expander. This way you can connect up to 20 drives without losing any performance. This performance thing is in theory of course. But in case of 20 drives it's your network that holds back the process.

BTW those are ridiculously expensive there.

[ces160]

The LSI 9271-8i is a great card. I don't have it yet but it's already in the shopping cart to be ordered. If you are connecting eight drives, you don't have any room for expansion. For regular HDDs you could get the 4i variant and Intel RES2SV240 expander. This way you can connect up to 20 drives without losing any performance. This performance thing is in theory of course. But in case of 20 drives it's your network that holds back the process. BTW those are ridiculously expensive there.

Thanks.

I want to set up two arrays of 4 drives in RAID 5 using WD Reds.

Not sure on the size of drives at the moment but I am considering the 4Tb ones.

 

Do you think I would be better going with two 4 port cards instead of 1 8 port?

 

Yeh, the price is a killer. Everything is expensive here, and they can get away with it because Aus is so far away, if you buy cheaper stuff overseas you will end up paying the difference just shipping it here.

[MikkoP]

Thanks.

I want to set up two arrays of 4 drives in RAID 5 using WD Reds.

Not sure on the size of drives at the moment but I am considering the 4Tb ones.

 

Do you think I would be better going with two 4 port cards instead of 1 8 port?

 

Yeh, the price is a killer. Everything is expensive here, and they can get away with it because Aus is so far away, if you buy cheaper stuff overseas you will end up paying the difference just shipping it here.

 

Don't get two 4i cards. I was just saying that if you want more expansion space, get 4i and a SAS expander. That way you can connect 20 drives without losing any performance, in theory. 

 

You could get an expander for the 8i too in the future, if you are not satisfied with the eight ports. The Intel RES2SV240 has 24 ports (six SFF-8087, but you can connect four SATA drives in each of them), but four of these are used as an uplink to the controller if used with 4i, eight with 8i.

 

Prices are very high in Finland too. I am ordering from Germany, I'll save about 1000 € with my next order.

[alpenwasser]

- snip -

Yup, 4i + SAS expander would work quite well indeed, if you can get

hold of a SAS expander. I have found them a bit tricky to find where

I live, but it can be done.

 

 

Thanks.

I want to set up two arrays of 4 drives in RAID 5 using WD Reds.

Before you go with RAID5, I would recommend doing some reading

on the following links. Some of them are a bit sensationalist,

but nonetheless, there are some pitfalls in RAID5 of which one

should be aware before deciding to use it IMHO.

My main personal gripe with it is that rebuilds for arrays can

take a rather long time these days, so in case of needing to

replace a drive, if a second drive fails during rebuild, you're

hosed. However, four drives in one array is not that many, so

it's a bit less of an issue than with larger arrays.

http://www.raidtips.com/raid5-ure.aspx

http://www.raid-failure.com/raid5-failure.aspx

Spreading the panic:

http://www.zdnet.com/has-raid5-stopped-working-7000019939/

Rebuttal:

http://www.standalone-sysadmin.com/blog/2012/08/i-come-not-to-praise-raid-5/ 

And some more...

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/the-enterprise-cloud/how-to-protect-yourself-from-raid-related-unrecoverable-read-errors-ures/

http://www.high-rely.com/hr_66/blog/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-2009-not/

Using RAID5 for four disks seems acceptable to me (I've done it

myself), but I thought you might want to do some reading (if you

haven't already) reach your own conclusion.

Alternatively, RAID6 with eight drives also sounds like an acceptable

proposition to me, or even RAID10 (although that would give you

quite a bit less usable space, so might not be as attractive of

an option). It would likely give best performance though.

 

Do you think I would be better going with two 4 port cards instead of 1 8 port?

Upside: If a controller fails, you have a second one to fall back

on. Main downside: Cost. Decision is yours.

 

Yeh, the price is a killer. Everything is expensive here, and they can get away with it because Aus is so far away, if you buy cheaper stuff overseas you will end up paying the difference just shipping it here.

Ah yes, sounds familiar (need to order quite a lot ot stuff

overseas, VAT and shipping to Switzerland are rather high

in many cases as well).

If I may, have you looked at software RAID? I know it doesn't

sound as sexy as having some super high-end RAID card, but it

is actually a very good alternative which, if set up right, will

give excellent performance as well, without the need to spend

several hundred $ on a RAID controller.

[denniS_redbeast]

Don't get two 4i cards. I was just saying that if you want more expansion space, get 4i and a SAS expander. That way you can connect 20 drives without losing any performance, in theory. 

 

You could get an expander for the 8i too in the future, if you are not satisfied with the eight ports. The Intel RES2SV240 has 24 ports (six SFF-8087, but you can connect four SATA drives in each of them), but four of these are used as an uplink to the controller if used with 4i, eight with 8i.

 

Prices are very high in Finland too. I am ordering from Germany, I'll save about 1000 € with my next order.

@MikkoP @ces160 @alpenwasser

 

I do not understand how this intel sas expander works if conected to an 4i card or to a 8i card.

From my understanding, if connected to a 4i, you can only connect 20 hard drives to the expander.

However if connected to a 8i, you can only connect 16 hard drives to the expander. 

 

Is this true, and is this how it works??

[scottyseng]

-snip-

 

The limits of how many drives you can have depends on the RAID card limit. Looking at a 4i LSI card, you can have up to 64 drives if you have enough expanders). 8i is 128 for my LSI MegaRAID card.

 

If you have a 24 port (well, lane) RAID expander which is 6 SAS ports in total, 2 are input (If you have a two port 8 lane SAS RAID card), and four are output (Total of sixteen drives with breakout cables). Alternatively, you can feed one SAS from the RAID card and have five outputs (Be weary of bottlenecking though).

 

If you have a 36 lane RAID expander, it's nine SAS ports in total, with 2 in and 7 out (28 drives with breakout). Or if you choose to have only one SAS in, you can have 8 SAS ports out.

 

My point is that don't consider 24 "ports" as real SAS ports. They really mean SAS lanes. As you can tell on the photos of the expander, it's really only six SAS ports (24 lanes / 4lanes per SAS port = 6 SAS ports).

 

@ces160

I would get the LSI one. Make sure you buy the battery backup module for it. I have a LSI MegaRAID 9261-8i myself. Though if you're buying new, you might look at the 9361-8i (12Gb/s SAS) instead and get it if it's not much more expensive than what you're looking at.

 

In general, the 4i type cards usually aren't true RAID cards (Usually lack on board RAM / a battery back up kit). I'd avoid the entry level cards as much as possible.

 

Edit: Sorry, I just saw this post rise to the top of the storage solutions...did not notice it was from three months back...

[denniS_redbeast]

@scottyseng

 

I asked 45 min ago, although i knew this was an old post, and you replied and helped me. thanks you