Looking for supported SAS controller

[Darren Pilgrim]

On 2/3/2014 3:34 AM, Georg Altmann wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I am looking for a PCIe SAS controller (HBA) for connecting a internal
> SAS tape drive (HP LTO3/Ultrium3 Storageworks 920) that works with
> FreeBSD 10.

LSI.  LSI all day long.  Specifically, anything with an LSI SAS2008 chip 
on it.  They go into a lot of OEM RAID cards, including those from Dell 
and IBM.  You can find 8-port ones on eBay for less than USD100.  If 
your eBay hunting doesn't go well, buy an LSI 9211-series card.  Most of 
the cards have multi-lane connectors, but LSI sells fan-out cables.  You 
can probably use third-party cables as well, I just never bothered.  LSI 
or OEM, download the "IT Firmware BIOS" from LSI and reflash the card. 
That will turn it into a non-RAID HBA, which is what you want for 
non-disk devices (and ZFS).

I found this article helpful:

http://forums.freenas.org/threads/confused-about-that-lsi-card-join-the-crowd.11901/

It's about picking HBAs for a FreeNAS box, but applies here as well 
since FreeBSD is FreeBSD-based.