A few clarifications:
LSI MegaRaid 9286CV-8e. It has 8 external 6Gb channels.
Note: though the MegaRaid is a SAS controller, it will work with SATA disks as easily as SAS disks.
The LSI controller will be a bit finicky on disks it will accept as "good"...if you want good performance, you'll want to get Enterprise level drives.
Clarification: Drives that don't test good on a HW controller like the LSI will likely work on a software-raid. However "work" doesn't mean it will work well. The reason the LSI controller kicked many drives: RPMs out of spec, so instead of 7200RPM, a few were faster, seeming to be 7920 RPM drives -- a benefit if used as a single Desktop drive, though many were worse ... performing more like 5400 RPM drives. 9 out of 12 Deskstars were too far out of RPM range to be considered 'good' by the LSI controller. Note: for drives that were slower, the slower speed could have come from bad sectors or tracks that had been remapped. Testing 12 UltraStars, showed less than a 1% variation. FWIW re:reliabilty: I have 24 2tB Ultrastars with 3yr warranties that have been running 24/7 since July 2009. I've had 2 drives go bad from that batch (both within the past year). I dropped in spares purchased w/initial disks and the RAID rebuilt in background, all with no system downtime. I added a 2nd container (in the Areca) holding 24 4tB Ultrastars (w/5yr warranties) in july 2014. No failures on that batch (yet). BTW, I got my Areca @ Circuit city, but this looks like the same unit: https://www.amazon.com/External-SATA-Expander-Enclosure-DS-24E/dp/B004IY1PIK and this might be newer version of it: http://www.areca.com.tw/products/sascableexpander8028.htmcontainer Note, you'll need to by the SFF-8088 cable to connect LSI controller with the expansion bay. My *beef* (didn't try netapp specifically), was that none of the off-the-shelf solutions had performance worth diddly. Some came with 1Gb ethernet, but then had max speeds that were abysmal -- <=10MB/s. Also, another gotcha, netapp rings a bell here, is that you needed to buy separate addon license to serve different things, so you buy it with iSCSI today, but you an't even try NFS or SMB without a separate license for them. You CAN buy one with all the licenses up front..but so much better to use linux and free license. (sorry for another long post, but lots of bewildering info... I was given advice that it is best to fill out your enclosures when you buy them (and not worry about later upgrades, so you can take advantage of a full parallel setup & redundant setup. To expand you add more enclosures. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org