Question 1

Can I use Windows software RAID with drives that are connected to this card?

Accepted Answer

Yes. This is an HBA (Host Bus Adapter). The purpose of an HBA is to "adapt" one "bus" to another (in this case, PCI-Express to SATA). When an HBA is properly installed, the adapted ports (SATA Ports), are effectively no different than the (SATA Ports) built into the motherboard. So, (most) anything you can do with one, you can do with the other. I'm using this card for a ZFS software raid (8x 10TB) in Fedora Linux, as a secondary data drive (i.e. not booting from it), and it works great.

There are a few caveats to this, but for the most part that's how it works. Ex: depending on the models & firmware involved, sometimes specialized features won't be supported, for example your motherboard might not be able to boot off of that HBA software RAID.  I don't know, I've never tried, but as far as I know, that's the kind of thing that _MIGHT_ not work. Everything else, (as far as once the OS is running) should work fine.

Question 2

Should this work with hot swap bays?

Accepted Answer

Yes it does.  Keep in mind this is not a function of the adapter as SATA and SAS have that ability, its a function of the hardware supporting the feature.

Question 3

Would this PCI-Express 3 card work in PCI-Express 2.0 motherboard; any compatibility issues?

Accepted Answer

I am running multiple cards PCI-Express 3.0 in 2.0 slots with no problems. The LSI 9300-8i is a solid card with great Linux support and I cannot recommend it more!

Question 4

I'm building a Windows Server 2016 Essentials server for my home. The description says SATA/SAS but can you use SATA 6Gb drives with it? If so, is there a size limit?

Accepted Answer

I do not know of any explicit size limit, but it is a large number. This HBA can handle 1024 SAS drives using expanders. Even at 1 TB per drive this yields 1 PB. I am using one of these HBAs with six 3 TB WD Red spinning disks, 18 TB RAW capacity,  in a ZFS array.

Question 5

It says you connect 1000 devices to this card? how is that possible with 2 mini sas connectors? (sorry if this is a dumb question)

Accepted Answer

I assume you are reading the "Connect up to 1024 SAS and SATA devices with 8 internal 12Gb/s SAS and SATA ports"

"Connect up to 1024 SAS and SATA devices" - maximum theoretical limit of these cards you can connect to a board, assuming you had a board that you could just keep plugging these into.

"with 8 internal 12Gb/s SAS and SATA ports" - one of these cards will service up to 8 ports. (you get 2x4 satas per SAS connection using a breakout cable)

probably the most misleading and poorly written statement ever put on a product page... hope this helped!

Question 6

Will this model support RAID 1 with a firmware update? From the research I have done it seems like the manufacturer has a firmware update that would allow for this. Can anybody confirm?

Accepted Answer

Raid 1 is supported by default.

Question 7

Never managed to see attached SATA HDs. What cables are you guys using please? Thank you all.

Accepted Answer

That depends on if you're going directly from HBA to individual drives versus HBA to backplane, then to individual drives.

If the prior, be careful about selecting a 'fan out' cable to go from a single 4x SAS connector on the HBA to 4 individual SATA connectors for drives. SOME cables are listed as only working in one direction, per say. For example, some might specify HBA on the SAS side and HDD on the SATA side while others might say SATA on the HBA side and SAS on the drives (via a backplane) side.

Question 8

Does anyone know if this controller supports Pass Through (via Intel VT-d) on VMware ESXi 5.5 and 6.0?

Accepted Answer

Yep. You'll need the driver for whatever you're passing it to.

Question 9

Connecting to SATA drives, is the configuration one 1x4 breakout cable per port for SFF8643 ports as it is with SFF8087 ports?

Accepted Answer

Yes it's the same.

Questions & Answers