Budget 0-20k SAS controller for my PC running Unraid

shadowD

Recruit
Hi, can you suggest a good SAS controller for my PC? It is running Unraid as NAS OS. Also, where can I get it for cheap?
 
I recently got a quote for Dell H200 from server baslet for about 6000. A lil overpriced but comes with 6 months replacement warranty.
 
Yup thats why I suggested H200, go to r/homelab or r/datahoarder and you will find a lot of guides on flashing it to IT mode. H200 is identical to 9211-8i and you wouldn't even need IT mode, in RAID0 disks are available to OS without any issues

 
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Yup thats why I suggested H200, go to r/homelab or r/datahoarder and you will find a lot of guides on flashing it to IT mode. H200 is identical to 9211-8i and you wouldn't even need IT mode, in RAID0 disks are available to OS without any issues (like other cards)

Awesome! Thanks, Also, does this price also include the cables?
 
Awesome! Thanks, Also, does this price also include the cables?

Last time I tried to get a quote from those guys they wanted INR 500 extra for one 1x4 mini SAS to SATA cable. Two of those will give you 8 SATA connections and that should be enough
 
Does ebay ship to india? How can I get it from customs then?


can you please share the link to device, I would like to see if it would be compatible with my system. Also, does it have IT mode?
Ebay per say does not ship. The seller ships to India. And yes sellers from china do ship to India.
 
Last time I tried to get a quote from those guys they wanted INR 500 extra for one 1x4 mini SAS to SATA cable. Two of those will give you 8 SATA connections and that should be enough
Sounds good! I think i'll give it a try, also, Do I need to flash this myself to IT mode or is it already done? Also, looking on the internet I see that there are 2 different models, H200 and H200A, Is there any difference?

Ebay per say does not ship. The seller ships to India. And yes sellers from china do ship to India.
And, will I have to do the customs clearance myself?
 
Well I can't find data/spec sheet for H200A so just stick with H200 for now cuz that's fairly well documented.
Sure, Thanks, also i forgot to ask earlier, can you please tell me what kind of system are you running and using these cards in?
 
Well I had two systems with raid/HBA cards. I got both of those cards from my office. One was an LSI 9211-8i (same as Dell H200, same hardware), it was running 7 HDDs until an unfornuate incident made me part with my systems. Another system was running a RAID card (can't remember the model but it wasn't running in IT mode) the mobo on that was useless but it had a pci slot and served as a seedbox until the incident. Get one of those older chasis with lots of HDD slots and you should be good. If you already have the rest of the system then this is the best way to build a DIY NAS. However if you are building a NAS from scratch then I would recommend buying a used dell/hp server. Powering those HDDs in a desktop chasis is a pain in the A** with all the wires going everywhere, servers bring a lot of quality of life improvements like out-of-band firmware with dedicated network interface for remote UEFI firmware access. However servers themselves use a PCI HBA card internally so technically its same thing (H200 itself is server card).

Currently my NAS system is using a mobo with 6 sata slots (5 occupied) and I should be good for some time with the storage I have. However I am working on a personal project to build my main NAS and I thing I will be buying a server with an HBA card and go from there (not final though)
 
Well I had two systems with raid/HBA cards. I got both of those cards from my office. One was an LSI 9211-8i (same as Dell H200, same hardware), it was running 7 HDDs until an unfornuate incident made me part with my systems. Another system was running a RAID card (can't remember the model but it wasn't running in IT mode) the mobo on that was useless but it had a pci slot and served as a seedbox until the incident. Get one of those older chasis with lots of HDD slots and you should be good. If you already have the rest of the system then this is the best way to build a DIY NAS. However if you are building a NAS from scratch then I would recommend buying a used dell/hp server. Powering those HDDs in a desktop chasis is a pain in the A** with all the wires going everywhere, servers bring a lot of quality of life improvements like out-of-band firmware with dedicated network interface for remote UEFI firmware access. However servers themselves use a PCI HBA card internally so technically its same thing (H200 itself is server card).

Currently my NAS system is using a mobo with 6 sata slots (5 occupied) and I should be good for some time with the storage I have. However I am working on a personal project to build my main NAS and I thing I will be buying a server with an HBA card and go from there (not final though)
Wow, that sounds nice!, Earlier, I had a Synology NAS which died on me in 2 years, I wanted to build a more powerful NAS with energy efficiency in mind. So I selected AMD Ryzen 3 pro 4350G, and Aorus pro-B450 as the mobo, adding 2 pairs of vengeance lpx rams, and 6 HDDs, my system runs on unraid, I also got some SAS HDDs from a friend and that's how I got interested in powering those up in my build. I also added an ADATA S70 Blade 2TB PCIe 4.0 Nvme as a cache drive though I'm having some compatibility issues with the cache drive, So I'll be putting that up for sale and replacing that cache with a different brand one.
 
Wow, that sounds nice!, Earlier, I had a Synology NAS which died on me in 2 years, I wanted to build a more powerful NAS with energy efficiency in mind. So I selected AMD Ryzen 3 pro 4350G, and Aorus pro-B450 as the mobo, adding 2 pairs of vengeance lpx rams, and 6 HDDs, my system runs on unraid, I also got some SAS HDDs from a friend and that's how I got interested in powering those up in my build. I also added an ADATA S70 Blade 2TB PCIe 4.0 Nvme as a cache drive though I'm having some compatibility issues with the cache drive, So I'll be putting that up for sale and replacing that cache with a different brand one.
that sounds good, give your set up some time (in terms of usage) to list out the things that actually bother you (personally) and fine-tune them in time. I once set up a ZFS build for my friend which was top notch but he found it cumbersome to manage on his own, he loved his basic hardware raid, and windows share(s) far more than that (don't laugh at his simplicity he had almost 150TB of raw storage). You don't have to worry a lot about SSD cache; unless multiple users are accessing your NAS (for the cache to be used) the performance gain(s) won't be visible; more of "nice to have" than "need to have". When it comes to NAS, quantity or RAM is more important than quality so buy cheap but buy as much as you can. And I too want friends who can give me SAS HDDs :laughing:, so that's a good thing. Keep building and keep storing....
 
that sounds good, give your set up some time (in terms of usage) to list out the things that actually bother you (personally) and fine-tune them in time. I once set up a ZFS build for my friend which was top notch but he found it cumbersome to manage on his own, he loved his basic hardware raid, and windows share(s) far more than that (don't laugh at his simplicity he had almost 150TB of raw storage). You don't have to worry a lot about SSD cache; unless multiple users are accessing your NAS (for the cache to be used) the performance gain(s) won't be visible; more of "nice to have" than "need to have". When it comes to NAS, quantity or RAM is more important than quality so buy cheap but buy as much as you can. And I too want friends who can give me SAS HDDs :laughing:, so that's a good thing. Keep building and keep storing....
Damn! Forget about SAS, your friend has 150TB :tearsofjoy:. those are some good tips. Basically, I'm using cache because transferring most used files like docker settings to cache makes the system put HDDs to sleep, which saves a lot of power. So my HDDs only spin up when I have to access my files, which is not too often, so it helps in saving me some units of electricity.
 
Well I had two systems with raid/HBA cards. I got both of those cards from my office. One was an LSI 9211-8i (same as Dell H200, same hardware), it was running 7 HDDs until an unfornuate incident made me part with my systems. Another system was running a RAID card (can't remember the model but it wasn't running in IT mode) the mobo on that was useless but it had a pci slot and served as a seedbox until the incident. Get one of those older chasis with lots of HDD slots and you should be good. If you already have the rest of the system then this is the best way to build a DIY NAS. However if you are building a NAS from scratch then I would recommend buying a used dell/hp server. Powering those HDDs in a desktop chasis is a pain in the A** with all the wires going everywhere, servers bring a lot of quality of life improvements like out-of-band firmware with dedicated network interface for remote UEFI firmware access. However servers themselves use a PCI HBA card internally so technically its same thing (H200 itself is server card).

Currently my NAS system is using a mobo with 6 sata slots (5 occupied) and I should be good for some time with the storage I have. However I am working on a personal project to build my main NAS and I thing I will be buying a server with an HBA card and go from there (not final though)
If buying a rack server, you will also need a rack and a way to keep them cool otherwise server fans would be on constantly so noise would be an issue and after a while they would shutdown.
Power efficiency is also a factor when looking at old used servers. Newer desktop processors are more efficient than old servers.
 
I bought a couple od Adaptec Cards for $10 each via eBay (someone carried them for me) The only issue is that the SAS cables they use aren;t easily available here
 
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