Hi, I have a Dell server that was advertised to support 4x3.5 + 2x2.5 drives but when I popped it open I found there are only 4 SATA ports on the motherboard total. So of the 6 claimed drives, I can actually only install 3 drives because the stock DVD drive consumes a mobo port.
Speaking with Dell, they are recommending their part number PEXSAT32 which is a rebadged StarTech product based on the Marvell 88SE9123 chipset. From posts I saw from people running various OS, that chipset is flaky on everything but Windows. My local shop has several el-cheapo no-brand cards based on the ASMedia ASM1061 chipset. From what I could find on the net those cards work ok but they can be slow. They also have a card based on the Silicon Image SiI3114 chipset. I didn't find much info on this one except for Windows victims claiming it was great or sucked. Can anybody recommend some good 2 or 4 port SATA (internal) expansion cards or a SAS HBA that works well with OpenBSD? Thanks, /jl
