Short version: can people recommend an HBA card? Specifically, to control up to 10 drives probably via SAS.
Understanding whether there’s any real benefit to the pricier SAS3 cards given I’m not using SSDs would be great, too.
It looks like versions of the LSI 9300-8i are available at relatively reasonable prices from reputable-looking resellers on ebay. There seems to be a ‘normal’ version and a ‘Dell’ version…is this difference significant?
Alternatively, the LSI 9210-8i cards are significantly cheaper - are these okay for HDDs?
Long version: I’m in the process of upgrading a very old HP N40L, and am already really grateful for the advice I’ve had on boot drives and other things!
The next thing I’m looking at is which HBA card to use. I already have a Dell 0J53X3 card which worked, slowly, in an test of truenas I ran on some very old hardware I had kicking around. It’s the same model linked here.
Looking at the existing forum threads, the TrueNAS community hardware guide suggested looking at SAS3 devices, and that was the 2021 edition. The same advice is in this page, linked from this thread. That also suggests not using the SFF-8087 in newer builds.
All this is making me think I should look at a newer card, as others have been doing and posting about.
Interesting but slightly terrifying threads like this one about counterfeit cards, however, make think I should check what people think. Thank you!