I think I have found a card that just works:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/124178148650

Ordered 22 June, delivered 28 June £29.98 including postage. Fitted it,
plugged in 8 x drives (mix of SSD and spinners) re-booted and there it was
in all its glory, no delays, all drives available. It identifies itself as Avago copyright 2015.

The two I had to return to Amazon were:

LSI SAS 9207-8i KIT 8-Port 6Gbps SATA+SAS PCI-E 3.0 HBA Kit - same as the Chinese one but £150 and very flakey.

StarTech.com 8 Port SATA PCIe Card - £100, just couldn't manage 8 x drives.

Highly recommended.

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
Have you ever noticed that all the instruments searching for intelligent
life are pointing away from Earth?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Jeff Gaines wrote:

I think I have found a card that just works: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/124178148650

Looks like a good 'un

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Jeff Gaines <jgnewsid@outlook.com> wrote:

I think I have found a card that just works:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/124178148650

Ordered 22 June, delivered 28 June £29.98 including postage. Fitted it, plugged in 8 x drives (mix of SSD and spinners) re-booted and there it was
in all its glory, no delays, all drives available. It identifies itself as Avago copyright 2015.

The two I had to return to Amazon were:

LSI SAS 9207-8i KIT 8-Port 6Gbps SATA+SAS PCI-E 3.0 HBA Kit - same as the Chinese one but £150 and very flakey.

StarTech.com 8 Port SATA PCIe Card - £100, just couldn't manage 8 x drives.

Avago bought LSI in 2013 and in 2016 bought Broadcom. Then Avago renamed
the company back to Broadcom. So they're the same LSI chips all along, it's not clear why you had problems with the 9207-8i and not the 9200-8i. The
9207 uses the SAS2308 controller and the 9200 the SAS2008, so the 9207 is
a generation newer. The 2008 is PCIe Gen 2 and the 2308 Gen3, which may be
a bottleneck if doing SSD or RAID things but is otherwise probably OK.

But there's a lot of variability with firmware on enterprise kit, or maybe
you just got a bad card. Anyhow it's a Proper HBA so is a much better
option than the consumer stuff. The only thing to watch for is that the
power consumption may be a bit higher.

Theo

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 29/06/2025 in message <Msg*8yggA@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk> Theo wrote:

But there's a lot of variability with firmware on enterprise kit, or maybe >you just got a bad card. Anyhow it's a Proper HBA so is a much better
option than the consumer stuff. The only thing to watch for is that the >power consumption may be a bit higher.

The main thing for me is avoiding an earworm starting "Avago Joe, you've
got to Avago...". Don't know if anybody here is old enough for that one?

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
That's an amazing invention but who would ever want to use one of them? (President Hayes speaking to Alexander Graham Bell on the invention of the telephone)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sun, 6/29/2025 10:38 AM, Jeff Gaines wrote:

I think I have found a card that just works:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/124178148650

Ordered 22 June, delivered 28 June £29.98 including postage. Fitted it, plugged in 8 x drives (mix of SSD and spinners) re-booted and there it was in all its glory, no delays, all drives available. It identifies itself as Avago copyright 2015.

The two I had to return to Amazon were:

LSI SAS 9207-8i KIT 8-Port 6Gbps SATA+SAS PCI-E 3.0 HBA Kit - same as the Chinese one but £150 and very flakey.

StarTech.com 8 Port SATA PCIe Card - £100, just couldn't manage 8 x drives.

Highly recommended.

That's the smaller brother of one of these, not using a PCIe switch chip. You're doing a 530MB/sec connection on a 500MB/sec lane, so it's in the
"right ballpark of perfection". You could load it with eight 870EVO 2.5" SSD for
example, if you wanted to do that. And would be unlikely to see a bottleneck
by doing so.

https://www.servethehome.com/lsi-9202-16/

Officially the card draws 17 Watts (compared to 7 watts for the usual SAS2008 card)

So your card draws 7 watts. Which is ballpark for some motherboard Southbridge chips
(with a heatsink on them).

Paul

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 30/06/2025 in message <103ti7v$22she$1@dont-email.me> wasbit wrote:

On 30/06/2025 08:22, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 29/06/2025 in message <Msg*8yggA@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk> Theo >>wrote:

But there's a lot of variability with firmware on enterprise kit, or >>>maybe
you just got a bad card.  Anyhow it's a Proper HBA so is a much better >>>option than the consumer stuff.  The only thing to watch for is that the >>>power consumption may be a bit higher.

The main thing for me is avoiding an earworm starting "Avago Joe, you've >>got to Avago...". Don't know if anybody here is old enough for that one?

Followed by "Put the money on the table, Mabel"?

That's the one :-)

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
If you ever find something you like buy a lifetime supply because they
will stop making it

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 30/06/2025 08:22, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 29/06/2025 in message <Msg*8yggA@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk> Theo
wrote:

But there's a lot of variability with firmware on enterprise kit, or
maybe
you just got a bad card.  Anyhow it's a Proper HBA so is a much better
option than the consumer stuff.  The only thing to watch for is that the
power consumption may be a bit higher.

The main thing for me is avoiding an earworm starting "Avago Joe, you've
got to Avago...". Don't know if anybody here is old enough for that one?

Followed by "Put the money on the table, Mabel"?


--
Regards
wasbit

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Jeff Gaines <jgnewsid@outlook.com> wrote:

I think I have found a card that just works:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/124178148650

Ordered 22 June, delivered 28 June £29.98 including postage. Fitted it, plugged in 8 x drives (mix of SSD and spinners) re-booted and there it was
in all its glory, no delays, all drives available. It identifies itself as Avago copyright 2015.

The two I had to return to Amazon were:

LSI SAS 9207-8i KIT 8-Port 6Gbps SATA+SAS PCI-E 3.0 HBA Kit - same as the Chinese one but £150 and very flakey.

StarTech.com 8 Port SATA PCIe Card - £100, just couldn't manage 8 x drives.

Highly recommended.

A postscript that I happened upon an AM5 mobo with 8 SATA ports, the Asus PRIME B650M-A
AX II: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/9HVmP6/asus-prime-b650m-a-ax-ii-micro-atx-am5-motherboard-prime-b650m-a-ax-ii

and its predecessor the Asus PRIME B650M-A AX.

Something I'll keep in mind for a future build...

Theo

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 30/06/2025 09:35, wasbit wrote:

On 30/06/2025 08:22, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 29/06/2025 in message <Msg*8yggA@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk> Theo
wrote:

But there's a lot of variability with firmware on enterprise kit, or
maybe
you just got a bad card.  Anyhow it's a Proper HBA so is a much better
option than the consumer stuff.  The only thing to watch for is that the >>> power consumption may be a bit higher.

The main thing for me is avoiding an earworm starting "Avago Joe,
you've got to Avago...". Don't know if anybody here is old enough for
that one?

Followed by "Put the money on the table, Mabel"?

The days when "Can I do you now, Sir?" would have the whole country
rolling on the floor in laughter.

--
Sam Plusnet

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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