LSI LSI00244 (9201-16i) PCI-Express 2.0 x8 SATA / SAS Host Bus Adapter Card, Single Pack

Pros: Compact and runs cool. Easy to install with the exception of firmware and BIOS updates. Running smooth on Windows 7 Pro amd64.

Cons: Be sure to update firmware, BIOS, and drivers to latest version from LSI site.
For those experiencing missing SATA or odd boot issues, there are options to control this behavior in the LSI BIOS.

Other Thoughts: Working as designed. Has only been a week, but I've been aggressively testing all 16 drives.

Pros: Great product

Cons: Wasn't compatible with Mac OSX and description was misleading when it said and more under OS support.

Other Thoughts: Read the desciption carefully because this is not a RAID controller and is actually a Host Bus Controller, which is the reason I returned it.

Mid 2012 Mac Pro

Pros: Really like the card. It is a fast card 6 GBs and has a lot of sata port . I 've tested copying 2 drives from the card. From a 2GB Sata2 to a 2GB Sata3. it copied at 181MB to 151MB . I suggest to have a fan nearby to cool things down.

Cons: None so far.

Other Thoughts: It is not a raid card. But not all people need a raid card.
For my part I prefer to have a lots disk with share folder on my home server.

Pros: Excellent HBA for use with FreeBSD ZFS or Linux mdadm (software RAID).
Excellent port density.
Excellent operating system support - FreeBSD and Linux both support it natively. (Tested with FreeBSD 9 and Linux kernel 2.6.32).

Cons: The passive heat sink runs a bit too warm for my liking, but I have not noticed any problems.

Other Thoughts: This is not a hardware RAID card, but that is a VERY GOOD thing when you are pairing it with FreeBSD ZFS. And I would argue that a properly configured ZFS system is superior to all but the most expensive enterprise grade hardware RAID controllers.

Highly recommended Host Bus Adapter.

Pros: 16 ports, SATA III 6GB and supports drives 3TB and greater. Also supports TRIM for SSD's. This is a JBOD controller.

Cons: My review below documented a mother board conflict with onboard SATA ports. I also had a similar problem with an ASUS motherboard. I was able to get the motherboard SATA ports working by changing the LSI BIOS Boot Support option to "Enabled OS Only", the default is "Enabled BIOS and OS". Unfortunately I had to find this solution on my own, LSI tech support should have had the answer when I called. If you use the OS Only option you will not be able to boot from a drive attached to the LSI controller.

Drives do not Spin Down based on Win 7 (64bit) Power Options Setting. The drives run constantly. SMART statuses are not available in Win 7. I would give it 5 eggs if these problems were fixed.

Other Thoughts: This adapter has both BIOS and Firmware. My adapter needed both updated to bring it current.

LSI seems focused on supporting high end servers. They are missing a lot of potential for this product in the Media Server, Home Theater PC and Windows Home Server markets.

Pros: 16 ports, SATA III and supports drives 3TB and greater. Also supports TRIM for SSD's. This is a JBOD controller.

Cons: Once I connect a drive to the 9201-16i it disables all 6 SATA ports on my motherboard, a Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UDH3 (AM3). I contacted Tech Support and created a ticket, tech had heard of the problem but I am not confident they are interested in fixing. The board is PCIe x8, be sure you have available slot. Board does not come with cables, they must be ordered separately.

Other Thoughts: Very expensive to have compatibility issues.

Pros: 16 port count is pretty high.

Cons: Expensive for what you're getting.

Wouldn't work with 3TB drives out of the box. I had to do a firmware update to make them work, which just happened to be available - literally - the day I called LSI for support. If I had bought this a month ago, I would have been REALLY upset!

Other Thoughts: I purchased this through the online store that is named for a river in South America.

Although it's classified as a "RAID Card" by newegg's site, this is just a basic adapter that presents the drives to the OS individually. It does NOT hardware RAID, or even software RAID for that matter (you're entirely dependent on your OS if you want to go that route). More normal "consumer-oriented" cards that do the same thing will typically cost well under 1/4th the price, but by paying for this one you're getting:

* It can control up to 16 drives (or many more with a SAS Expander) - normal cards will be more like 2 or 4 drives, tops

* It's capable of SAS (as well as SATA) - consumer oriented cards will be SATA-only

It works well and does what it's intended to do, but I don't feel the price is commensurate with what you're getting.

Pros: Seems to work for 15 ports.

Cons: Somehow, port 12 is just not able to detect the hard drive no matter what I tried.

Same set of drives can be detected for Phy 0, Phy 1, Phy 2, Phy 3, but somehow, when it comes to the last 4 ports, I only got Phy 13, Phy 14, Phy 15.

What happend to Phy 12?

Other Thoughts: Hope they could have a little more QA.

Pros: This is my first time buying a card like this, so I was a bit nervous considering the cost. The card installed very easily, and it detects drives quickly. It is hot swap capable, and I'm using it in a Norco RPC-4224 server case. The card appears to take priority over the motherboard's own SATA ports, but if it doesn't find a drive to boot off of, it'll check the motherboard next.

Cons: It's a bit pricey, but I'll be able to connect 16 SATA disks to this. You get what you pay for IMHO.

Other Thoughts: Make sure you order the correct cables, depending on whether you're connecting to a SAS backplane or individual SATA drives.