which controller card should i buy

[dreamcast4599]

anyone have experience with server raid controller cards?

 

so as most of you may or may not know i ran out of usable sata ports on my CH7 hero motherboard. a friend of mine suggested i look into an ibm pcie controller card, since they tend to be more robust. i have narrowed it down to 2 cards but am unsure which card to buy. now i know these are sas controllers, but i already have the break out cables. and yes sata platter hard drives will work on sas controllers so which card is best keep in mind one of the cards comes with a cache card as well as a backup battery

 

the card will be used for my platter backup drives my sats SSD's will be connected to the sata ports on my mobo. please dont tell me to just buy a generic sata controller  for added context my case has room for 12 drives total all 6 sata ports on my mobo are used up hence why i need a controller card

 

 

card #1: https://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-ServeRaid-M1015-46M0861-LSI-SAS-9220-8i-SAS-SATA-PCI-E-RAID-Controller/293958481004?hash=item44714a746c:g:TagAAOSw0H9gAxIG

 

 

 

card #2: https://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-M5110-8-Port-RAID5-6Gbps-PCI-e-SAS-SATA-512M-cache-Controller-RAID/392532233185?hash=item5b64be8be1%3Ag%3AACkAAOSwS89dyn0f&fbclid=IwAR0cgc94UHndE1RTPr4YXdMh9jVgnIUHMhtzHMKammoLaZ-6g7Q_Ib_TEeE

[Electronics Wizardy]

DO you want a raid card or a hba?

 

Id go m1015 for hba, the the other if you want a raid card. Also there just rebranded lsi parts, so get the dell/lsi branded one if its cheaper.

[dreamcast4599]

@Electronics Wizardy whats an hba sorry im new to this also if it matters i just wanna be able to plug in my hard drives and back up my files raid is nice if i ever wanna use it but atm i just need a card for file storage as my mobo is outta ports im partial to the bottom card since it has a cache card and a backup battery and i think a cache card might be useful when transferring files

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 minutes ago, dreamcast4599 said:

@Electronics Wizardy whats an hba sorry im new to this also if it matters i just wanna be able to plug in my hard drives and back up my files raid is nice if i ever wanna use it but atm i just need a card for file storage as my mobo is outta ports im partial to the bottom card since it has a cache card and a backup battery and i think a cache card might be useful when transferring files

HBAs will show the drives to the os individually. Raid cards will make raid arrays and show the os the raid.

 

Id probably just get the hba, and setup raid in software if you need raid.

[dreamcast4599]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

HBAs will show the drives to the os individually. Raid cards will make raid arrays and show the os the raid.

 

Id probably just get the hba, and setup raid in software if you need raid.

 

i will keep that in mind altho the cache is tempting lol

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, dreamcast4599 said:

 

i will keep that in mind altho the cache is tempting lol

cache really won't affect performance much. Also windows already uses all your free ram as a cache now anyways.

[dreamcast4599]

10 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

cache really won't affect performance much. Also windows already uses all your free ram as a cache now anyways.

still would be cool to have even if just to say my card has cache lol i never had a controller card with cache on it lol

[Archer42]

Cache also has its disadvantages. Have to deal with battery or alternatives, or risk severe data corruption/data loss.

My opinion - for this use HBA would be better. Less issues to worry about, more control over how things work, cheaper.

 

For HDD-s you can use something really old and really cheap - it would not matter. I've used old dell raid cards based on lsi sas2008 reflashed into hba mode, for example, and honestly i see very little reason to go for something more expensive/newer.