Review on 🖥️ SAS9211-8I 8-Port Internal 6GB SATA+SAS PCIe 2.0 Controller for Effective Data Management by Domonic Roberts

Why have I waited so long for this card?! I've been trying to use add-in cards for years to get good performance and reliable performance at an affordable price from a system with 10x drives organized as Linux Raid 1 and Raid 10 arrays. This card is only $20 more than cards with 4 PCIe 1x ports and offers MUCH more performance in a PCIe 8x slot. I now have all drives running at full SATA III speed (6Gbps) with no issues. the week. This card recognized all arrays immediately! My card came with IR v. 18, and based on what I've read here and elsewhere, I expected that I would have to flash the firmware, so I previously installed IT F/W v. 20 and got what I needed on hand. With a Freedos-formatted USB stick with the necessary utilities, the flash process went smoothly. UPDATE: I just bought the second of these cards at a significant discount. The card works fine with v19 IT firmware running Linux RAID software with the card in a JBOD (pass-through) configuration. Word to the wise - if you are running a Linux S/W raid you need the IT version (not the IR version) of the firmware, NOT the latest v20 - v19 is best. v20 has documented issues with concurrent reading and writing.