HP Z420, 620 - Suggestions for suitable SAS-Controller board w/cache that is supported by W10...

[Ulf_K]

Greetings Forum,

I recently upgraded A Z420 with an LSI/Avago 9271-8i SAS-Controller. The upgrade was not without efforts since Windows 20H1 installer hanged during its attempt to install. Eventually, I had to load a very old version of W10 that for some reason - accepted the SAS-controller board. That old version was later upgraded using Windows update service to a 21H1 and now 21H2.  I know that one solution, which I did not try is to cut two PCB traces on the PCIe bus as theese are (according to my information) used by a bus in the server systems that the 9271 is intended for and that this is one possible solution.

I am about to upgrade a Z620 and I do NOT want to do a whole system re-install so the question is what SAS-controllers that are out there that can be added and configured into a working W10 system. The boards that I am looking for are of the types equipped with a larger cache.

[DGroves · Accepted solution]

as you have found out the OEM versions of some raid cards are system specific and don't play nice with other systems

the SMBus trick of taping or covering the two pins with nail polish usually works, but is not something i would use on a work related system

unless you are using Raid, your now stuck with a raid only LSI card  most of the  earlier cards based on the 9240 ROC chip are are not suitable as they only support raid 0/1 (and sometimes 5) not "JBOD" and are quite slow lacking cache/batt backup

i strongly recommend the adaptec 7xxx/8xxx series cards they support raid/JBOD at the same time and are true jbod passthrough and are fully supported under win 7/11 and all other major OS's but alas, will require a raid reconfigure/OS reinstall

https://www.amazon.com/ADAPTEC-16-Ports-Controller-Plug-Supported/dp/B00BEY17NK

check eBay for cheaper prices, just make sure the 7xxx comes with the opt cache/super cap batt backup module