💾 Efficient Data Storage Controller: LSI Logic SAS 9207-8i Storage Controller LSI00301 Review

This card has had serious problems with mdadm and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with firmware version 20 that the card comes with. An existing empty mdadm array was migrated to this card and then all disks attached to this card were marked as failed due to I/O errors. I thought it might be the drop cables I was using but it turned out to be IT firmware version 20 that the card came with. On version 19 IT flashed using the efi flash method by first removing the flash on the card and then flashing with older…

High-performance, no-frills 8-port SAS controller. LSI boards are the gold standard for FreeNAS - they are well supported and affordable. This one only supports "IT" mode (no RAID), so I didn't have to bother with flashing to a better image for ZFS. I moved it to a PCIe slot on the motherboard, attached two SAS SATA drop cables to the card (sold separately), and hooked up my new drive array. FreeNAS started and immediately recognized the controller and all 8 attached drives (they show up as…

Great card for adding additional SATA drives. I've done many checks and found that there is no need to flash the card in IT mode and it has the bandwidth to connect up to eight drives with no significant impact on transfer speeds. Mine is in a 16x slot, so if the graphics card is in another, I have 8 lanes for that card. Windows 10 immediately saw the drives without any problems and required no drivers. Also, I had no problem setting up mirroring for two 4TB drives. These are the first drives…

be careful. This WILL work with FreeNAS-11.3-U5 BUT. You may get the message "iucrc error occurred". In this case you need to update the firmware of this card. I will not go into the details of this review as flashing should be done after you have been enlightened and agree to the risk. Check the manuals to ensure you are using the correct firmware package. You need the package "9207_8i_Package_P20_IR_IT_FW_BIOS_for_MSDOS_Windows". The firmware that came with my card was 20.00.00.00 and almost…

Needed an HBA controller capable of providing 8 or more SATA ports that was reliable and worked with Proxmox/ZFS. I received many recommendations for choosing such a card from another site that would cost less money but gave me a used part from the server. I'm glad I wasn't listening. It was brand new in the box, sealed in a stationary bag and never appeared to have been used. This, along with supporting the Revains return policy, cost me an additional $20, which is well worth it. Pros: - Brand

Wasn't sure and after reading a lot of comps. List and all, I decided to pull the trigger on this one. Looks like it's already in IT mode and it's pcie3.0. I posted a screenshot of the sas2flash info on it. Edit: A week later and this card is really good. Still works fine in Unraid. I switched it to IR mode for use with Windows Server 2019 and it worked great too. I flashed it back to IT mode, although Windows' built-in raid is terrible, and for storage, unRaid is phenomenal.

The box I received shows an LSI Logic SAS 9207-8e (note the "e" at the end instead of the "i"), though says the sticker on the Box 8i. This bothered me until I opened the box and realized it was the right card (internal SAS ports vs. external). My guess is that the manufacturer just doesn't bother printing separate boxes for each variant of their cards, and uses stickers to differentiate between the actual models. I bought one of these for my unRAID server (running version 6.1.8) to connect…

Purchased for a Proxmox ZFS system based on 12 x 4TB HGST MegaScale 4000 drives. The burn-in test found random disk errors, and a look at the kernel log showed a number of errors coming from this card. Tried updating the firmware then downgrading the firmware but to no avail. I haven't found any issues with the Seagate drive, but my setup has HGST drives. The mainboard controller has no problem with HGST drives - only with this card. I replaced this card with a generic 4 port controller and…