Discussion for Non-RAID PCie Sata Controller; more ports the better aligned with performance/speed

[L2S3000]

I’m looking to purchase the best Non-RAID PCie Sata Controller; more ports the better aligned with performance/speed.  
 

I’m not seeing much discussion on this topic with that said I wanted to start a discussion around this topic^ and recommendations are a plus (model numbers, etc.)
 

I plan on the using the sata controller with Microsoft Storage Spaces on my Asus ROG Maximus XIII Hero and looking for the best compatibility and performance 

[L2S3000]

Using Windows 10 Pro

[Electronics Wizardy]

Id get a lsi hba, something like a dell h200 or h310, or lsi 9201-8i. They should be sub 50 bucks on ebay.

 

 

[LIGISTX]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id get a lsi hba, something like a dell h200 or h310, or lsi 9201-8i. They should be sub 50 bucks on ebay.

 

 

This.
 

@Luvs2Splooge A RAID card flashed to IT mode working as an HBA is the best option. I forget which one I have, it’ll be in my dig under my homelab parts. 

[CerealExperimentsLain]

6 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id get a lsi hba, something like a dell h200 or h310, or lsi 9201-8i. They should be sub 50 bucks on ebay.

 

 

LSI 9201-16i is great too.  They're more pricy than the 8i's but way more useful.  Also the 16i ships default in IT mode, so most will already be formatted that way.
They're my go-to for servers since I'd rather have fewer expansion cards.  I have one in a 12 bay server for example because I didn't want to do two slots just to run 12 bays.

Edit: I have just realized that Chia has driven up LSI 9201 16i prices by 200-300% on ebay and god damn, maybe avoid that for a while.

[L2S3000]

6 hours ago, CerealExperimentsLain said:

LSI 9201-16i is great too.  They're more pricy than the 8i's but way more useful.  Also the 16i ships default in IT mode, so most will already be formatted that way.
They're my go-to for servers since I'd rather have fewer expansion cards.  I have one in a 12 bay server for example because I didn't want to do two slots just to run 12 bays.

Edit: I have just realized that Chia has driven up LSI 9201 16i prices by 200-300% on ebay and god damn, maybe avoid that for a while.

I went ahead and purchased a LSI 9201-16i

 

Paid too much; but it’s done. I found MSRP mentioned around $120 on reddit in 2020 (below) BUT I went ahead and paid the Ebay scalper’s price @ $280.  

 

One of my concerns of waiting it out for the price to drop back to MSRP is I may end up paying more later when I want it and just want to get on with continuing my build in process at the moment before being price gouged even further.

 

Now I’m waiting on MSRP for a RTX 3080 or 3090 in que @ Auto-Notify. I refuse to pay scalpers price on a GPU when my GTX 1060 will get me by for now.

 

 

Thank you all for your help!  

 

 

 

[CerealExperimentsLain]

1 minute ago, Luvs2Splooge said:

I went ahead and purchased a LSI 9201-16i

 

Paid too much; but it’s done. I found MSRP mentioned around $120 on reddit in 2020 (below) BUT I went ahead and paid the Ebay scalper’s price @ $280.

Yeah, USD$120 is typical the price, I paid CAD$150 for both of mine for my UnRAID machines but after I replied to you on eBay I looked at pricing and went 'Oh god DAMN'.

Though these wouldn't be scalpers, all these LSI cards are recycled ewaste, coming out of servers and being put up for sale.  The 8is costing less per port than the 16is due to being more common and the 16i being more desirable for a home server build.  But obviously demand must have sky rocketed with chia and people looking for controllers. It had never even occurred to me that Chia would drive up controllers though it's obvious once I thought about it.

It's a good card and 'just works' in most OS's.  Sorry you paid so much for yours tho.

Make sure you get the cables you need.  You can get varying types too.  I have a mix of right angle and straight ones, depending on all which case position the drives are in for what works best.

[Mihle]

If I remember right, if you use as many drives you can on one of those, you dont get quite the same total write speed on all of them as if the same number of SATA ports on motherboard, but if you use Unraid it probably don't matter.

 

Correct me if wrong, I might be wrong.

[L2S3000]

6 hours ago, Mihle said:

If I remember right, if you use as many drives you can on one of those, you dont get quite the same total write speed on all of them as if the same number of SATA ports on motherboard, but if you use Unraid it probably don't matter.

 

Correct me if wrong, I might be wrong.

Ok, this is exactly the info I am looking for a discussion on, but I am having a hard time finding specifics on performance in regards to read/write based on the # of hdd/ssd and so on and specifics are even more abstract due to the varying fragmentation of various technology i.e various motherboards, various read/write speeds of hdd/ssd, operating system, etc 

 

I would be interested in the discussion of what performance you all are experiencing with your personal build / specs

 

I will post up the full specs for my build shortly, 

 

I am running an i9 11th gen OC