Do I need 1 or 2 HBA cards and which one

[NewToThis]

Hi al,
My new build has hit a standstill because I don’t know which HBA to buy and if I need 1 or 2.
I have two separate arrays
3x18TB & 3x16TB.
So I need to buy two HBA cards, one for each array? Is there any benefit in doing so? Which card shall I buy? I’ll be using ZFS and looking to buy a best budget/price for performance.

If anyone can help that would be great

 

[Dunuin]

Its imortant that you get a HBA or a raid-card that can be flashed into IT mode. LSI cards got the best support and work fine with Linux and FreeBSD, so both PVE and TrueNAS with ZFS would be fine.
Best bang for the buck would be a cheap secondhand branded raid card like the "Dell PERC H310" which is a rebranded "LSI 9211-8i" you can get for as less than 30€. You can then crossflash it with the LSI IT-mode firmware to get a HBA that supports up to 4 SAS or 8 SATA disks. See for example here:
https://tylermade.net/2017/06/27/ho...-lsi-9211-8i-firmware-hba-for-freenas-unraid/
https://techmattr.wordpress.com/201...-flashing-to-it-mode-dell-perc-h200-and-h310/
https://fohdeesha.com/docs/perc.html


So in case you got 6 SATA HDDs and want to use them on the PVE host of pass all 6 to a single VM, a single HBA would be fine. But keep in mind that you can brick that card wenn doing the crossflashing the wrong way and that card is also quite old and will use alot of power (15 W) and firmware don't get updated anymore, so not sure how long Linux and FreeBSD will support it because it is EoL. But for newer LSI HBAs you still pay 100+ € second hand and until now the old ones work fine.

 

[NewToThis]

Its imortant that you get a HBA or a raid-card that can be flashed into IT mode. LSI cards got the best support and work fine with Linux and FreeBSD, so both PVE and TrueNAS with ZFS would be fine.
Best bang for the buck would be a cheap secondhand branded raid card like the "Dell PERC H310" which is a rebranded "LSI 9211-8i" you can get for as less than 30€. You can then crossflash it with the LSI IT-mode firmware to get a HBA that supports up to 4 SAS or 8 SATA disks. See for example here: https://tylermade.net/2017/06/27/ho...-lsi-9211-8i-firmware-hba-for-freenas-unraid/

So in case you got 6 SATA HDDs and want to use them on the PVE host of pass all 6 to a single VM, a single HBA would be fine. But keep in mind that you can brick that card wenn doing the crossflashing the wrong way and that card is also quite old and will use alot of power (15 W) and driver support might end sooner. But for newer LSI HBAs you still pay 100+ € second hand.

Thanks for your reply. Ok so I think I better pay the extra for better energy efficiency and support. Do you have any modern models that I should be looking at?

 

[Dunuin]

For example the LSI 9300 (PCIe 3.0) or 9500 (PCIe 4.0) series of HBAs.

 

[mikeinnyc]

Here's a comprehensive list for ZFS
List of HBAs with ZFS
HBA IT Mode
Counterfeit and Gray Market Awareness Statement