Inexpensive SATA RAID card for ESXI 6.7 that can be easily monitored

[mcisar]

I have been using the free ESXi (on a home/hobby basis, so I dont and won't have vcenter or anything like that to worry about) for many years through many versions so I wouldn't consider myself a newbie, but nor would I purport to have a clue what I'm doing beyond "yellow and black screen good, purple screen bad".

To this point I've always used Adaptec controllers (38xx, 68xx, 78xx series) more because that's what ended up in the "surplus" pile from work than any other reason.  Always have been frustrated at the hoops you had to go through to get any status on the drives or RAID, and it seemed to get more and more difficult through the years. 

Have decided to treat myself to a new 6.7 server and I thought to myself, lets try LSI, everybody has always said dump Adaptec, LSI is the way to go, no problems with status, etc, it just works.  This morning, however, I took a peek on here looking for model numbers and the first two threads that came up seem to show that LSI is now in a very similar position with many hoops having to be jumped to get a simple drive status.

So I'm now more confused than ever.

Are there any recommendations from the forum for a controller that meets these criteria...

- Inexpensive

- 8 or 16 port SATA/SAS RAID PCI Express with write-cache (battery, zmm, whatever)

- My 'preferred' configuration has always been RAID1 arrays with a copyback hotspare in the chassis

- Ability to see drive/raid status within ESXi (which I guess is now the web console) or if that is no longer possible something that is relatively easy to monitor by some other means .  Preferably something that will show or alert me when there's an issue, and not rely on me having to check (because we know in reality how often we remember to manually check until the beeping starts coming from the closet at 2am).

- And finally preferably something not so close to the end of its lifecycle that ESXI 6.8 will put me in the hunt for another new controller 🙂  Really I know this is crystal ball stuff, but you know what I mean.

In any case, thanks for humoring me!

[Dave_the_Wave]

Why stop at inexpensive, when you should hunt for free? ^_^

Instead of just the card, it may be easier just to get the whole box.

I don't doubt how many out there still build whitebox servers for production use, but branded servers still outnumber by the majority.

Custom ESXi builds for branded servers have the kind of monitoring you want.

A lot of Poweredges, ThinkSystems, ProLiants, end up in households, some try to "re-sell" them.

These hoarders won't put much effort into their ads, so look in local classified ads, like fb.

Depending on what their story is, it's easy to see when they just have to get rid of it at all costs.

Of course you can decide to pay money for their stuff, but sometimes you can barter.

Afterall, they got it for free from their workplace, so you just have to offer something of better value.

A perfectly working Briggs&Stratton lawnmower with new oil may be considered more useful than a pile of metal servers stacked outside covered with a garbage bag.

I once was able to trade a nib (new in box) coffee machine I got for Xmas from a client, simply because it occupied less space for them.