Searching for a decent SATA expansion card

[MsTrMind]

Hi all, 

 

I have a small file-server at home, that is also hosting a small Hyper-V environment. 

Its rocking :

- a basic H270 motherboard from Gigabyte (GA-H270M-DS3H)

- 8GB of RAM

- 128 GB M.2 (sata speed) boot SSD

- 4 3TB drives in a software RAID5 (done on OS level)

- 500GB "buffer" drive (7.2k RPM random sata drive)

 

I want to expand my storage space, I'd like to throw in 4 x 4TB drives extra. Now, I've run out of usable SATA headers on my motherboard

Can any of you please assist me in finding a decent SATA expansion card? 

 

I found this: http://www.delock.de/produkte/G_70154/merkmale.html?setLanguage=en

But its only SATA2 connection speed. 

EDIT: Just noticed that this is the old PCI standard, not PCIe.

This won't do :-)

 

I also found this: RocketRAID 640L - http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series_rr600-overview.htm

But its unclear for me if it supports direct passthrough (I don't want hardware RAID)

 

Thanks for the info!

 

[Dujith]

If you plan on using only HDD's then the Sata2 will be more then enough.

Also: 

38 minutes ago, MsTrMind said:

(I don't want hardware RAID)

There is no such thing as a hardware RAID. The controller might be dedicated to do this and have some backup via a battery for writes but still software  

[MsTrMind]

3 minutes ago, Dujith said:

If you plan on using only HDD's then the Sata2 will be more then enough.

We both missed something crucial. 

This is a regular PCI connector, not PCI-e

 

But indeed, SATA2 would/should be enough. 

 

4 minutes ago, Dujith said:

 

Also: 

There is no such thing as a hardware RAID. The controller might be dedicated to do this and have some backup via a battery for writes but still software  

>_< 

Yeah thats what I meant :-D 

[Helly]

all decent RAID cards support pass-through. just put the card in JBOD mode. (Just a Bunch Of Disks).

 

Just curious, whats the reason you don't want hardware RAID?

[NelizMastr]

4TB drives might pose a problem with older PCI SATA controllers, so make sure the controller even supports them. I think Promise and Highpoint probably have the cheapest options available.

 

This controller might be what you're looking for:

 

https://www.alternate.be/DeLOCK/Controller-SATA-4-port-with-Raid/html/product/530524?lk=19061

 

Edit: the controller chip doesn't like 4TB drives, I've seen, so maybe it's not good enough after all.

 

https://hardforum.com/threads/differences-between-sil3114-vs-sil3124-can-the-latter-run-4tb-drives.1906610/

[MsTrMind]

1 hour ago, Helly said:

all decent RAID cards support pass-through. just put the card in JBOD mode. (Just a Bunch Of Disks).

 

Just curious, whats the reason you don't want hardware RAID?

Aha nice, I tought JBOD would present all disks as 1 volume to the OS. 

 

Reason is quite simple, pricing :-) For the price of 1 decent HBA, I pay as much as I paid for my 4 3TB disks :-(

I don't run a business on this server. So super high performance is not needed, neither is 'reliability' (-> I mean, I don't care if I'm not 99,99% sure that it won't crash)

I run Microsoft Storage Spaces. Its super easy to use, And provides what I need. Parity redundancy, with no additional cost. 

There is some extra load on the CPU due to this, but the i5-6500 I'm running has plenty of resources unused. 

 

Most personal (I refuse to call it critical, as I'm not a business) data gets backed up to a small NAS at my parent's place.

 

1 hour ago, NelizMastr said:

4TB drives might pose a problem with older PCI SATA controllers, so make sure the controller even supports them. I think Promise and Highpoint probably have the cheapest options available.

 

This controller might be what you're looking for:

 

https://www.alternate.be/DeLOCK/Controller-SATA-4-port-with-Raid/html/product/530524?lk=19061

 

Edit: the controller chip doesn't like 4TB drives, I've seen, so maybe it's not good enough after all.

 

https://hardforum.com/threads/differences-between-sil3114-vs-sil3124-can-the-latter-run-4tb-drives.1906610/

Thanks! 

But I don't have any PCI slots (only PCIe slots). Same problem with it as the first one I found :-(

4TB isn't mandatory, 3TB could also work 

[NelizMastr]

18 minutes ago, MsTrMind said:

Thanks! 

But I don't have any PCI slots (only PCIe slots). Same problem with it as the first one I found :-(

4TB isn't mandatory, 3TB could also work 

I guess I got confused as your OP leaned towards PCI instead of PCIe. On PCIe there is a LOT more choice.

 

This one seems to support 4TB disks:

 

https://www.alternate.be/HighPoint/RocketRAID-640L-serial-ata-controller/html/product/1014545?lk=19061

[MsTrMind]

17 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

I guess I got confused as your OP leaned towards PCI instead of PCIe. On PCIe there is a LOT more choice.

 

This one seems to support 4TB disks:

 

https://www.alternate.be/HighPoint/RocketRAID-640L-serial-ata-controller/html/product/1014545?lk=19061

Yeah so the same one as I found. 

Looks decently priced, and with decent reviews. Might keep that one in mind. 

 

 

http://www.delock.de/produkte/G_89384/merkmale.html?setLanguage=en

Found this too, but I think the X2 speed will be too limiting (only 1GB/s duplex)

 

[Pyramiden]

Why don't you try to get a second hand HP P420? 
They should also work in non-HP devices:
https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/hp-p420-in-whitebox-server.4548/
To be sure I would buy it from somewhere where you could send it back if it does not work... You probably don't even need the cache and the capacitor if you just do a pass-trough, and you can add up to 8 disks.

The only issue with the P420 is that it can get rather hot, but if you have enough airflow it should be fine.

[MsTrMind]

On 13/4/2018 at 9:37 AM, Pyramiden said:

Why don't you try to get a second hand HP P420? 
They should also work in non-HP devices:
https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/hp-p420-in-whitebox-server.4548/
To be sure I would buy it from somewhere where you could send it back if it does not work... You probably don't even need the cache and the capacitor if you just do a pass-trough, and you can add up to 8 disks.

The only issue with the P420 is that it can get rather hot, but if you have enough airflow it should be fine.

I also tought about that, I have access to an "unlimited" supply of old IBM / Lenovo HBA's. 

Unfortunately, they consume as much, or more, power as the complete mini-server itself. 

 

Also, they are all SAS cards, which also implies the need to buy "expensive" SAS-SATA cables

[Pyramiden]

That is true. My P420 runs significantly hotter than my P410 used to do, so if energy consumption is a problem you will need another solution.

They are not that expensive, in my opinion. You have a mini-SAS to SATA cable for 5-10 euro. You can connect 4 disks to that. It is cheaper than 4 SATA cables.

[Jarsky]

On 4/12/2018 at 8:24 PM, Dujith said:

If you plan on using only HDD's then the Sata2 will be more then enough.

Also: 

There is no such thing as a hardware RAID. The controller might be dedicated to do this and have some backup via a battery for writes but still software  

It's pretty well accepted globally that "hardware RAID" refers to hardware controller based functionality. While it may be a firmware, it is still initialized pre-OS and is still on-chip, with a dedicated processor and memory making it "hardware".Software RAID is very much accepted as being initialized after the OS and is reliant upon the OS and its kernel for processing commands. 

 

 

As for the OPs question, personally as this is for a dedicated file server, I would go with a SAS based HBA and move all your disks to the controller. 

It's hard to beat a Supermicro AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 for the price: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101792

I have 2 of these that I use in my Test FreeNAS setup and I have a bunch of 2TB and 8TB disks connected to them.