The LSI MegaRAID SAS 9260-8i RAID controller offers a new level of flexibility and performance to servers and workstations by supporting both high-performance SAS hard drives and cost-effective, high-capacity SATA drives, as well as energy-efficient SSDs. Supporting RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50 and 60, it not only backs up data but can also extend the storage capacity of a system significantly.
It supports the industry’s fastest bus speeds at PCI-Express 2.0 X8 and offers complete connectivity with 2 internal mini-SAS connectors. Using an industry-leading RAID on Chip (ROC) processor and 512MB of DDR2 write cache, this high-performance PCIe-to-SAS RAID host adapter delivers enterprise-class performance for mission critical server applications.
SAS 6Gb/s CompliantThe LSI MegaRAID SAS 9260-8i supports both 6Gb/s SAS and previous-generation SAS/SATA hard drives, enabling new levels of server storage scalability, performance and reliability.
RAID SupportThe LSI MegaRAID SAS 9260-8i supports multi-level RAID configuration including RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50 and 60 for better performance, enhanced data security and flexible capacity upgrades..
PCI Express 2.0 x8 InterfaceThe LSI MegaRAID SAS 9260-8i features a PCI Express 2.0 x8 interface to provide fast signaling for high-bandwidth applications.
Pros: - Fantastic performance with HDDs - Can force write back without a BBU - MegaRAID software is nice
Cons: - Getting suboptimal performance with SSDs in RAID (see other thoughts) - Really could use a fan on the heatsink, especially with BBU present - BBU costs a pretty penny
Overall Review: The card is very nice and gets the job done. I've got it installed on an ASRock Z77 mobo with a 3770K and running Windows HP right now. At the moment this is mostly for testing this card to deploy 9266s and possibly 927X's in builds I do on the X99 chipset. I've also got an LSI BBU08. RAIDs: 1 RAID5 with 4 x 1TB Seagate Barracuda ($50/ea) HDDs - write back with BBU - No disk cache enabled - Getting just over 600MB/s read & write with both benchmarking (Crystaldisk, 4GB x 5) and with real world large (4GB+ ISOs) between this array and SSDs. So 10/10 on this one and couldn't be happier! 1 x RAID0 with 2 x 120GB Samsung EVO 850s (non pro) rated at over 500MB/s read and write - Tried with both write back and Write through - Disk cache enabled (this helped performance of the array) - Crystal Disk benching shows around 750MB/s read but only 350MB/s write. ATTO shows WAY higher, like 1000/1000 (which is what I want to see...) but I'm starting to seriously question which one of these tools is more accurate. Either way, real world file xfers indicated I'm getting very good read speeds off the array, However, when writing a large file to it (either from a SATA connected SSD on my mobo, or from another array on the LSI card) speed starts well and after 10-20 seconds dwindles down to 300-350MB/s. I can NOT get it to perform better. 1 x RAID0 with 2 x 120GB Kingston SSD v300s (mind you these have a "custom sandforce controller built by LSI" - Tried the same settings as w/the above Samusung RAID0 and seeing the same issue with writes. - Even when transferring large files between this RAID0 and the Samsung RAID0 on the same card, and vice versa, I see the same write behavior on both. I did try 3 x 850 EVOs in a RAID-5 also, same thing, no matter what combo of settings I tried on the array. So, I'm left a little troubled as I don't get why SSD arrays don't appear to perform well here, except with ATTO (2GB with a queue depth of 10). For HDD RAIDs though, I'd recommend this to everyone for sure. The MegaRAID app is nice as well and it takes all of 1 minute to configure an array. Initialization on my RAID 5 w/4 1TB drives took all of 2 hours (would have taken about 12+ hrs using on board RAID w/an X79 chipset, based on multiple experiences). I also tested a rebuild of a drive in that array, only took 2 hours, which is great. It (expectedly) killed the write speeds on the array down to <200MB/s during the rebuild. Grab the BBU, but shop around for it (sorry newegg...). You can force write back on your array even without the BBU but you'd be stupid to do so. The chip does run hot as you'll hear from many other reviewers. Mine hasn't got to a level of "too much" concern but I'm putting a fan on it anyway. When you install a BBU the manual even says the max temps you should be allowing are lowered by like 10+ degrees C, so be careful there.