Need help with SAS raid card and expansion

[CGfreak102]

So, i am in a dire need to re-do my current setup for my plex server. Currently, i have it all running threw my main gaming rig, and i have maxed out my sata ports, plus using two external USB drives -- the worst part is i am not utilizing any raid, and that is killing me.

I have a total of 7 - 2 TB drives almost full of content.

I am looking to upgrade them to 4TB drives, if i can afford it i will get the HGST ones.

I am relatively new to the enterprise raid environment and am hitting a small wall about planning things out. So my goal is to get a system setup that i can constantly expand as i need it. I also have my content split into two main categories, TV shows and Movies. And ideally i would like to make two different raid volumes for that. I am thinking to go with raid 10 for my setup, it would be more costly, but i am not big on the parity thing -- but that can change.

I also want to plan for the future, as 4k is coming and the total space i will need will need to expand.

So i have come down to three different raid controllers, all from LSI (my cloud infrastructure/server teacher loves them)
http://store.lsi.com/index.cfm/MegaRAID-Controllers/12Gb-SAS-9300-Adapters/LSI00406/
http://store.lsi.com/index.cfm/MegaRAID-Controllers/6Gb-SAS-9260-RAID-Controllers/LSI00197/
http://store.lsi.com/index.cfm/MegaRAID-Controllers/12Gb-SAS-9300-Adapters/LSI00408/

Not sure which one i want, but they are within the amount i would be willing to spend, granted i am leaning towards the 9260, as that would allow me to get expanders (which i assume i need), the spec sheet says a total of 64 drives as JBOD, or 32 (a total of 128TB per volume if my math is correct) per raid volume, which fits perfectly with my two volume setup.

Next thing i am kinda stuck on is how i would go by hooking everything up. Since i have only been able to find SAS cables that go from SAS to SATA (4 plugs). If that is correct, it would go like this (using this expander as a reference; http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-6Gbps-S...nder-Board-for-9240-8i-9261-8i-/121252220585? )
I plug in the LSI raid card, and the expander to the motherboard. I use a SAS cable to connect a port on the raid card to the expander (lets say port0), and then using the sas ports 0-x to connect to SATA drives.

Would that setup be correct, or i am having some details off.

I also came across this in my broswing, (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816117207). idk if that would work in place of the ebay one.

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Thanks for all the help

-CGfreak102

 

[MaddMutt]

Same question, just years later as there was no answer :-(

I wish to upgrade my Server. I has Movies, TV Shows, Music, ect..ect.. I first started out with a SAS 3G controller but ran into the 2TB limit. I upgrade to 2 LSI 9240-8i controllers with Windows Server 2008 R2.
I still have 2 9240-8i's and I have ordered a ~NEW 9260-8i if needed to help with the expansion.
What I want to do is use a SAS Expander so I purchased 2 16 port expanders. (Lenovo RD430X SAS expander Card Raid controller 6Gb 16 ports) I understand from the manual that I need to run 1 cable?? from my 9240/9260-8i to the expander and then I will get 16 drivers?? I know that the RAID card (9240/60) will do my raid 5 controlling BUT do I need to connect both cables from the RAID card to the Expander card??
I purchased the 9260-8i because my 9240-8i's do not have battery backups. <- This would give me 3 controllers = 24 drives or 1 controller + 2 expanders = 32 drivers??
I'm using a ASUS R5E MB (x99) with a i7-5960x, 32GB memory, and Windows 10. I have Windows Server 2012 that I can run but do I need too?? I felt Server 2008 R2 was overkill.

Thank You for your time

 

[Woomack]

I would get larger capacity drives and don't waste money on additional expanders. 1 SAS port = 4 SATA so with motherboard ports it should be enough when you pick 9260-8. If you run it on modern Windows then you can use dynamic volume and create kind of software RAID. It's faster than RAID on these cheap controllers because it uses CPU+RAM from your PC and not from the card. These RAID controllers usually have ~1GHz CPUs+512MB cache. If you make larger RAID then it will be simply slower than expected.

There is one more thing. If you create more than 1 RAID on desktop motherboards then depends on the motherboard, it may have problems seeing one of the RAID controllers. Additionally, it's not guaranteed it will work with the expander so it's always a risk if you buy something like that for desktop PC.

Personally I would get a NAS. New series support high capacity drives and have M.2 caching but also faster CPU and more RAM/cache. There are also additional RAID modes for +1 spare drive. It may cost a bit but if you are planning to use it for longer then it can be a good investment. It also won't limit you from PC upgrade and can connect it to anything but if you use it more often then I recommend to add something like 10Gbps switch and LAN card for your PC. It will sadly cost next ~$250. For some NAS series like QNAP you can buy additional bays to expand space if you ever need it.
Again, I would simply buy larger capacity drives as HDD are quite cheap nowadays.