Recommendation for PCIe SATA Controller for SSD's in a Workstation (Z820)

[MikhailCompo]

Hi

I am building/purchasing an HP Z820 with 256 GB RAM that I will installed ESXi/VSphere on for a lab and testing.

I will be using 4x Samsung 850 Pro 512 GB drives in RAID 5 or JBOD.

I am advised that the onboard RAID is not good for ESXi and that I should get a HW controller.

Can anyone recommend a fast (so as not to limit the SSD performance, which is key) RAID controller for this task? It must support SATA drives obviously, although most SAS controllers do, it seems, with a special cable?

Cheers all

 

[MikhailCompo]

PS I am asking on here as it needs to be a reasonably priced component, so possible eBay second hand etc.

Cheers for any advice!

 

[XavierMace]

Get a decent surplus LSI controller for $100 or so and call it good. I'm not aware of any SAS controller that doesn't support SATA drives.