HBA card

[Matt997]

So trying to consolidate my HBA CARDS was wondering if any one knows ones that are out there that have more then two sas connectors on it. I am building a new NAS with truenas and number of drives I want and pci-e slots I will have I need to consolidate to less cards. Any suggestions? 

[10leej]

I use this card

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0085FT2JC?psc=1

 

But really you can just type "freenas" into ebay

[OhioYJ]

6 minutes ago, Matt997 said:

So trying to consolidate my HBA CARDS was wondering if any one knows ones that are out there that have more then two sas connectors on it. I am building a new NAS with truenas and number of drives I want and pci-e slots I will have I need to consolidate to less cards. Any suggestions? 

 

How many drives do you need to connect? For example I used the LSI 9300-8i, which supports 8 drives (2 connectors), but just changing that to a LSI 9300-16i, gets you 4 connectors, 16 drives.

[Matt997]

1 minute ago, OhioYJ said:

 

How many drives do you need to connect? For example I used the LSI 9300-8i, which supports 8 drives (2 connectors), but just changing that to a LSI 9300-16i, gets you 4 connectors, 16 drives.

In the end I am going to be connecting like 24 drives. At 18tb each I am going to be using it for video and picture storage and Plex I am starting off with 10 drives write now but I want to have the ability to add more later down the road when I get more. So trying to future prof this as much as I can do I don’t have to do this again for a while. 

[OhioYJ]

5 minutes ago, Matt997 said:

In the end I am going to be connecting like 24 drives. At 18tb each I am going to be using it for video and picture storage and Plex I am starting off with 10 drives write now but I want to have the ability to add more later down the road when I get more. So trying to future prof this as much as I can do I don’t have to do this again for a while. 

Then a couple -16 cards would give you the option to add up to 32 drives. The LSI 9300-16i card I listed is the 12 Gb/s card, so it's a little higher price wise, and does run a hot, you'll notice they have large heat sinks. You'll want some air flow going over those if you go that route. I have an 8i version in my TrueNas build.

[Electronics Wizardy]

8 minutes ago, Matt997 said:

In the end I am going to be connecting like 24 drives. At 18tb each I am going to be using it for video and picture storage and Plex I am starting off with 10 drives write now but I want to have the ability to add more later down the road when I get more. So trying to future prof this as much as I can do I don’t have to do this again for a while. 

Sas expanders are anouther option. Most of those hbas support 255 drives with expanders, and cases often have a expander built in so your hba will work with 24 drives.

[LIGISTX]

2 hours ago, Matt997 said:

So trying to consolidate my HBA CARDS was wondering if any one knows ones that are out there that have more then two sas connectors on it. I am building a new NAS with truenas and number of drives I want and pci-e slots I will have I need to consolidate to less cards. Any suggestions? 

Get a SAS expander. I use one, works great. 
 

My HBA has 2 SAS ports, I run those both to the expander (would only actually need to run 1…), and then the expander has 3 more ports (5 total), and each of the three has a 1>4 SAS to SATA cable. If I only ran a single SAS from HBA to expanded, I would be able to do 5xsas->sata wires for 20 total drives. 
 

At the end of the day, all a Supermicro backplane is on a 4U 24 bay drive is a custom sas expander. You run 2 SAS cables from the HBA to the backplane, and magic…. 24 drives of SATA. 

[Blue4130]

3 hours ago, OhioYJ said:

 

How many drives do you need to connect? For example I used the LSI 9300-8i, which supports 8 drives (2 connectors), but just changing that to a LSI 9300-16i, gets you 4 connectors, 16 drives.

It supports 1024 drives.