PCI Raid card or Intel Server Intergrated Raid Controll Module

[Dragoby]

Hey Guys and Gals so I've had this server/workstation PC for a while now and I'm planning on redoing it with unraid to run a nas, ubuntu server and windows on it but the problem Im having with it is total drive storage.  the motherboard only has 6 onboard sata but it also has a socket on it for an intergrated module.

here is the Motherboard , and here is the control Module

My question is which would you guys recommend going with?  I'm leaning more towards the Module as it leaves me more PCI slots to use but I've never worked with an integrated module like that before.

The full current setup is:
dual 6 core Xeon hyper threading to a total of 24 cores I cant remember which processor model as I'm not currently on that machine right now.  
72gb of ram
nvidia 460 gpu
corsair 1200w psu
and a whole cluster of different hdds at the moment  I will be moving to wither WD red 6 or 8tb or Seagate

 

Any information/feedback is appreciated  and if you recommend PCI what card would you recommend?

Thanks

Josh

[Bacon8tor]

any reason you are saving the PCI slots? other than using a pci slot for either raid card or just a hba , I dont know of many other options(besides that module). Personally I would just use a PCI slot for whatever means of addition you want . although another look at RAID cards on newegg and that controller is cheaper. But say with something like this  LSI HBA ( I have purchased 2 of these for my norco case and they work great, but word of caution this is not a RAID Controller jsut Host Bus adapter. )  you would be able to hook up 16 drives with some of these sff-8087 to sata cables, granted $150 more than what you are using, not sure how many drives you are using or plan on using, this would also cut down on cables running thru out the case. 

 

EDIT

Here is your other PCI  option alot cheaper http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815158365&cm_re=pci_sata-_-15-158-365-_-Product

does support raid 1/0/10

[Dragoby]

Thanks Bacon8tor the reason from going away from the pci was due to I plan on moving to dual gpu soon in sli or crossfire depending on which route I choose and that would leave me with only one pci slot available and I currently have a usb 3.0 card in there I forgot to mention as there isn't any onboard and only a few usb that are taken up by my peripherals mouse keyboard mic etc.

Was just wondering if there was any benifit to the pci raid card over the moduel

 

Thanks again for the feeback I will think on the cards you mentioned  

[wpirobotbuilder]

43 minutes ago, Dragoby said:

Thanks Bacon8tor the reason from going away from the pci was due to I plan on moving to dual gpu soon in sli or crossfire depending on which route I choose and that would leave me with only one pci slot available and I currently have a usb 3.0 card in there I forgot to mention as there isn't any onboard and only a few usb that are taken up by my peripherals mouse keyboard mic etc.

Was just wondering if there was any benifit to the pci raid card over the moduel

 

Thanks again for the feeback I will think on the cards you mentioned  

How many hard drives are you using? Do you plan to run a RAID setup, or do you just need SATA ports?

 

If you want to run a RAID1 or RAID 10, then the onboard controller should be okay for your needs. If you're going to use RAID5, a dedicated PCI controller is recommended, and for RAID6 it is required.

[Dragoby]

Currently I have about 8 drives I have but I want to replace all of them with a single large array

The plan is
at least 8 drives for the raid or intergrated depending on which is decided
then dual ssd for the boot drive off the motherboard sata
and then another ssd for cache,
a blu ray drive for ripping media
and then the last 2 onboard sata for another 2 8tb archive drives in raid 1

Im going to be letting Unraid handle all of the raid/arrary for something similar to raid 5 or 6.  Im pretty new to Unraid but have done software raid with Ubuntu so if you have a better way to proceed with that im totally open to options as nothing is really set in stone yet

[leadeater]

12 hours ago, Dragoby said:

Im going to be letting Unraid handle all of the raid/arrary for something similar to raid 5 or 6.  Im pretty new to Unraid but have done software raid with Ubuntu so if you have a better way to proceed with that im totally open to options as nothing is really set in stone yet

It will be safer and more supported if you buy an HBA card not a RAID card. You should always use true JBOD mode for software storage technologies such as unRAID (BTRFS) and FreeNAS (ZFS). This will likely be a problem for the motherboard module since it is unlikely to have a proper JBOD mode, it has JBOD support but not all JBOD's are equal.

 

The motherboard module does use a very common LSI 2008 controller chip which is used in many good HBA's, the only problem is the RAID firmware for the module and how well it implements JBOD. You many be able to cross flash the firmware on it to an LSI HBA firmware which is actually rather common for people to do with other RAID cards with the same or newer LSI controller chip, something I have done to an IBM M1015.

[Dragoby]

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

It will be safer and more supported if you buy an HBA card not a RAID card. You should always use true JBOD mode for software storage technologies such as unRAID (BTRFS) and FreeNAS (ZFS).

Thanks leadeater  I think I will just head with the HBA pci route as it seems to best suit what I want to do with my setup.  I didn't think to check with the JBOD compatibility of the module.

Thanks Again