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Once upon a time I was using a cheapish Windows 7 computer as something of a server. More like it was a cheapish computer with a bunch of hard drives stuffed in it, and they were all individual volumes set to "Shared". It worked just well enough, then I started increasingly using that computer for a multitude of non-server duties. Plus I was hitting the limits of what a $40 motherboard from 2009 was capable of. So then I set about planning on another iteration of a home server.
A newer mobo with enough SATA ports would be really expensive. How about a RAID card? RAID cards are expensive. How about an HBA card, and use ZFS for the RAID? Simpler HBA cards are less expensive. So I got one. What this card requires is an open PCIe 8x slot. I tried it with my Linux experiment box and it didn't work. When I put it in my (old) main desktop: It kinda worked, just barely. When I put it in my (new) main desktop: Cake and ice cream; party's on. But the problem with leaving it there is it's my main desktop, so while I can stuff a bunch of hard drives in there, it's not set up for server use.
Turns out the mobo (H170 chipset) for the Linux box is too new and was using Gen3 settings for the PCIe slot; I needed it to be Gen2. Once I changed that, everything worked. This means that even if I don't use that particular motherboard, I can use something similar or newer.
What does an HBA card bring to the table? The one I got can immediately support 8 hard drives. If I go to expanders and backplanes, it can see as many as 256. If I want to use SAS drives, it can use those too. Hot-plugging? It was designed for that. The 9207-8i I got is enterprise-grade hardware that originally retailed for somewhere around $250-300. The RAID version would have been around $500. Thanks to the relentless turnover of enterprise hardware, I got one for about $100. The benefit extends to the motherboard selection. Now I don't need a board that has 8+ SATA ports built-in, which would otherwise increase the cost significantly. Nor does that board need built-in RAID. Just as long as it has 4 slots for DDR4 memory.
What to do with the older computer I tried using as a server? I dunno, I've been using it as a Windows 10 experiment.
A newer mobo with enough SATA ports would be really expensive. How about a RAID card? RAID cards are expensive. How about an HBA card, and use ZFS for the RAID? Simpler HBA cards are less expensive. So I got one. What this card requires is an open PCIe 8x slot. I tried it with my Linux experiment box and it didn't work. When I put it in my (old) main desktop: It kinda worked, just barely. When I put it in my (new) main desktop: Cake and ice cream; party's on. But the problem with leaving it there is it's my main desktop, so while I can stuff a bunch of hard drives in there, it's not set up for server use.
Turns out the mobo (H170 chipset) for the Linux box is too new and was using Gen3 settings for the PCIe slot; I needed it to be Gen2. Once I changed that, everything worked. This means that even if I don't use that particular motherboard, I can use something similar or newer.
What does an HBA card bring to the table? The one I got can immediately support 8 hard drives. If I go to expanders and backplanes, it can see as many as 256. If I want to use SAS drives, it can use those too. Hot-plugging? It was designed for that. The 9207-8i I got is enterprise-grade hardware that originally retailed for somewhere around $250-300. The RAID version would have been around $500. Thanks to the relentless turnover of enterprise hardware, I got one for about $100. The benefit extends to the motherboard selection. Now I don't need a board that has 8+ SATA ports built-in, which would otherwise increase the cost significantly. Nor does that board need built-in RAID. Just as long as it has 4 slots for DDR4 memory.
What to do with the older computer I tried using as a server? I dunno, I've been using it as a Windows 10 experiment.
