SATA 6g 4-port non-RAID controller ?

[Jeremy Chadwick]

On Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 01:42:07PM -0700, Freddie Cash wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 2:34 AM, Kurt Jaeger <lists at c0mplx.org> wrote:
> 
> > What kind of SATA 6g 4-port non-RAID controller is currently suggested
> > for use in 8/9 setups with large RAM (64G) setups with ZFS ?
> >
> 
> SuperMicro AOC-USAS2-L8i
> 
> PCIe controller with 2 multi-lane connectors (SFF-1087) supporting 8
> SAS/SATA ports.  Supports two firmwares:
>   IR mode enables RAID0, RAID1, RAID10 and a couple of other modes (no
> RAID5+)
>   IT mode enables straight HBA mode
> 
> Supported by the mps(4) driver in FreeBSD 9-CURRENT, and I believe has been
> MFC'd into 8.2-STABLE.
> 
> Sure, it's 8-ports, but for under $300 CDN, you really can't do much better.

It's important to note that this device -- despite not being mentioned
anywhere on their site or in the user manual (!) -- appears to use a PCI
Express x8 connector, and will work on PCIe 1.0 or PCIe 2.0.

http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-USAS2-L8i.cfm?TYP=I

What's confusing about this card is that the web page states "Compatible
UIO Motherboards".  UIO is Supermicro's proprietary slot type (Universal
I/O) which can work with UIO-only cards, OR, using a riser/adapter, can
be made into a PCI, PCI-X, or PCIe x{1,2,4,8} slot.  So the web page
wording and description of this device is really sub-par.

And before someone asks: in most cases you *cannot* use this card in a
PCIe x16 connector on a motherboard.  Most generic motherboard
manufacturers at this point have special one-offs that assume their PCIe
x16 slots are for video cards only.  If you aren't sure, you'll need to
ask your motherboard manufacturer/vendor if you can use a
non-VGA-adapter in their PCIe x16 slot.  Some Supermicro boards do have
PCIe x16 slots that can be used by non-VGA adapters, but I haven't seen
this on, say, Asus/Gigabyte/Dell/Intel motherboards.

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                       http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                   Mountain View, CA, US |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.               PGP 4BD6C0CB |