[CentOS] Recommended PCIe SATA/SAS Controller?

Wed Feb 24 18:24:21 UTC 2010
John R Pierce <pierce at hogranch.com>

Tim Nelson wrote:
> Greetings all-
>
> I need to purchase a PCIe SATA or SAS controller(non-raid) for a Supermicro 2U system. It should be directly bootable. Any recommendations? The system will be running CentOS 5.4 as an LTSP system. Thanks!
>   


is this for internal or external or both?  how many SAS ports you 
need?   do you need SFF x4 sas ports or discrete x1 sata ports (of 
course, the former can be converted to the latter with an 'octopus' cable).

the LSI stuff I previously recommended covers a wide range of this, for 
instance, the 3081E-R has 2 internal SFF-8087 x4 connectors, the 
9212-4i4e has a SFF8088 x4 external connector and 4 x1 SATA internal 
connectors, etc etc.     you need to know what sort of chassis or 
backplane you're connecting to...   most 2U servers have a drive 
backplane... these backplanes can connect to the HBA via a range of 
options, SAS supports a full multiplexor (eg 4 channels to 12 drives), 
while plain SATA only supports a simple expander (eg, 1 channel to 4 drives)