Budget raid controller recommendations?

[Pa1yn]

Running linux server, just unsure what raid card i should get instead of software raid. I have sata HDDs but i'd like the possibility of sas in the future using breakout cables

[Electronics Wizardy]

You should probably go software raid. how many drives? What raid config?

 

Softwaer raid is better for most uses here. Just plug the drives into your board and use zfs or md on linux to setup the raid. ZFS is my pick and also gives you many more data protection features than hardware raid.

 

THen just get a hba if you need more drives, id get something with a lsi controller like a dell h200.

[Jarsky]

18 minutes ago, GougedKirby522 said:

Running linux server, just unsure what raid card i should get instead of software raid.

If you want hardware raid on a budget, the LSI 9260-8i is about the best value. Make sure you get a battery as well to enable the cache as well as provide some protection against inflight data and raid configuration. 

 

18 minutes ago, GougedKirby522 said:

I have sata HDDs but i'd like the possibility of sas in the future using breakout cables

"Breakout cables" are for SAS > SATA or SATA > SAS.

[Pa1yn]

2 minutes ago, Jarsky said:

If you want hardware raid on a budget, the LSI 9260-8i is about the best value. Make sure you get a battery as well to enable the cache as well as provide some protection against inflight data and raid configuration. 

 

"Breakout cables" are for SAS > SATA or SATA > SAS.

Thanks!

[Pa1yn]

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You should probably go software raid. how many drives? What raid config?

 

Softwaer raid is better for most uses here. Just plug the drives into your board and use zfs or md on linux to setup the raid. ZFS is my pick and also gives you many more data protection features than hardware raid.

 

THen just get a hba if you need more drives, id get something with a lsi controller like a dell h200.

Well if my os decides to go screw me and breaks I'm kinda screwed lmao

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, GougedKirby522 said:

Well if my os decides to go screw me and breaks I'm kinda screwed lmao

If your os has a issue, your software raid will be fine. You can just boot into a live disk or put the drives into anouther system and get your data back. Its normally easier to recieve data from a issue in software raid than hardware raid. And ifthere was a corruption issue with the os, hardware raid will still have the same issue.

[Jisagi]

To elaborate some more on what Electronics Wizardy said. If a hardware raid card dies, you have to get the exact same card with the esact same firmware. Otherwise there is a high chance the data is gone (Not always, but most of the time). Software to manage a raid is replacable, hardware is too, but way harder and more complicated.

[Jarsky]

14 hours ago, Jisagi said:

To elaborate some more on what Electronics Wizardy said. If a hardware raid card dies, you have to get the exact same card with the esact same firmware. Otherwise there is a high chance the data is gone (Not always, but most of the time). Software to manage a raid is replacable, hardware is too, but way harder and more complicated.

 

You really don't need the same card with the same FW. It just needs to be a similar card that uses the same logic to understand the RAID configuration data.

The LSI 9200 (SAS2008) cards are very cheap and very widely available. There's also the 9300, 9400 & 9500 series that are backwards compatible with importing your RAID. They're so dirt cheap the old LSI 9260's you could just buy 2 and have 1 as a spare. 

 

Just to put the concern into perspective...

I have 6 RAID Cards, and 4 HBA's at home, and i've been using hardware controllers since ~2003..i've never had one die.

I also support approx ~4k servers across 6 DC's and have maybe once in the last 8 years had a controller die...we took a spare out of stock and replaced it within a couple of hours. It's just not a common occurrence.

[remakethegame]

All RAID configuration data and array metadata is written on each drive in the header, so you can always easily replace the hardware RAID controller and it will acknowledge the config. It should be the same manufacturer, but it can be any other RAID controller.

LSI 3108 is what I used for last 5 years and it works just perfectly. It might be not the "best value" RAID controller from LSI, but absolutely brilliant. You can take a look at LSI 9341 as an alternative.

[JustTheTip]

I use an IBM M1015 flashed into IT mode on my FreeNAS server. 

 

You wont need to flash it to IT mode if you're doing hardware RAID.