Review on 🔌 High-Performance 12G External PCI-E SAS/SATA Controller Card with Broadcom's SAS 3008 - Compatible for SAS 9300-8E by Kirk Womack

A good choice for inexpensive internal storage such as a home NAS with Gigabit connections. For filesystems like ZFS you don't need HW-RAID, HBA is best. Also, I would recommend NVMe PCIe SSD as file system cache (ZIL/L2ARC in case of ZFS or LVM dm cache). Works well when you need to connect 4-8 hard drives. The typical sustained data transfer rate for today's consumer hard drives (SATA3, 7200 rpm) is around 250 MB/s, allowing this controller to efficiently handle 8 hard drives at PCIe 2.0 speeds of 250-500 MB/s per lane. or 3 SSDs with SAS/SATA 6 Gb/s interface (SSDs have a transfer rate of 550 MB/s, so the x4 PCIe 2.0 bus is a bottleneck even for 4 SSDs). The PCI 2.0 x4 bus is a bottleneck for this controller, preventing it from being used for more serious tasks and not a budget home NAS. The only negative thing about this seller is the lack of cables. The LSI 9211-8i at this price usually comes with cables. Good SFF8087->4xSATA cables may cost you an additional $30. At the moment I was not able to test the device while waiting for the cables to arrive. I will update later.