LSI 9300-4i4e SAS PCIe 12Gb/s HBA Card Review

By Olin Coles

Manufacturer: LSI Corporation
Product Name: PCI-Express 12Gbps HBA Card
Model Number: 9300-4i4e (SKU LSI00349)
UPC: 830343007134
Price As Tested: $395 (Amazon | Newegg)

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by LSI.

The LSI 9300-4i4e is a PCI-Express to Serial Attached SCSI (PCIe-to-SAS) host bus adapter (HBA) card fits server and high-performance workstation computers to deliver internal and external storage connectivity. Also called the LSI 12GB/s SAS HBA card, the 9300-4i4e model provides eight lanes of 12Gb/s SAS connectivity and is matched with eight lanes of PCIe 3.0 8Gb/s performance. LSI’s 9300-4i4e 12GB/s SAS HBA is based on the proprietary Fusion-MPT architected LSI SAS3008 / Fusion MPT 2.5 controller that fuses 8Gb/s PCIe 3.0 technology to 12Gb/s SAS technology. In this article, Benchmark Reviews inspects the features and functionality for the LSI SAS 9300-4i4e PCIe 12Gbps HBA Card.

Few motherboards offer a faster peripheral interface than the PCI Express bus. With support for eight-lane full-duplex performance, the PCIe bus is capable of performance reaching 64Gb/s in single direction or 128Gb/s with dual-direction. The LSI SAS 3008 controller chip enables the LSI 9300-4i4e to deliver 12Gb/s from the SAS HBA.

Features

• Four internal and four external 12Gb/s SAS +SATA ports
• 8 lanes, PCI Express 3.0
• Low-profile form-factor design
• One (x4) internal mini-SAS (SFF8643) HD connector, One (x4) external mini-SAS (SFF8644) HD connector
• LSI SAS3008 12Gb/s SAS+SATA Controller
• Support for up to 1024 SAS or SATA end devices
• Fusion-MPT 2.5 architecture
• Supports major operating systems
• RoHS compliant
• Three-year standard warranty

Benefits

• Designed to provide state of the art connectivity for servers and appliances with internal storage and the ability to add external storage
• 8 lanes of PCI Express 3.0 provides faster signaling for high-bandwidth applications
• High performance with 12Gb/s data transfer rates