But if you're using multiple SSDs or multiple SAS 3 HDDs, you might need to up your game, or put fewer disks on each HBA, or accept a reduced max total bandwidth.

You shouldn't need other flashers - LSI's flashers will flash anyone else's roms and firmware nicely - but you might need to google and grab other versions of the actual firmware such as Fujitsu's version of the IT firmware for your card. I did have to hunt down the p20 sas2flsh DOS file as I didn't find it in the download but that was pretty easy here https://www. com/gp/product/B012BPLYJC They’re relatively cheap so if you want to take a crack at different cabling again it wouldn’t break the bank. But there could be exceptions, so if unsure, it's worth asking on the forum, if unsure whether your SAS2xxx/3xxx based card can actually be crossflashed and is supported by your system. If it shows loads of options and advanced RAID configs such as RAID 5 or caching, it's almost certainly IR version.

added new section on cards, chipsets and their variants at the start of the guide, with a link to a comprehensive resource list. Bus traffic for SATA/SAS is likely to be nearer half than full duplex, giving a realistic bandwidth of PCIe 2 with 8 lanes used for HDD/SSD storage that is uncertain but at least 250 MB/sec ** per lane, so even attaching 8 HDDs all at maximum burst speed can't usually do better than that.

If space is tight, it's worth going for 8x or 16x slot sizes, even if the actual *lanes* are fewer, because at least your HBA card will fit! Dell do it like this: the firmware for their 9211-8 i cards is usually IR version ("i"=internal ports, presumed to be RAIDed), and the firmware for their 9211-8 e cards is usually identical but IT version ("e"=external ports, presumed to be HBA). I would attach a screenshot of my drive if I could, but I used the rufus tool and followed the guide but not sure if I missed something.There's hundreds of threads on crossflashing variants of LSI 9211/9300/9305/9311/94xx cards here, on ServeTheHome, and on blogs. It can be worth quickly looking up the HDD+card manufacturer's documents, to confirm which SAS/SATA levels each of them supports. It will remember its "manufacturer" even when fully erased, until a new manufacturer's firmware is flashed. so as long as you can point me to some good documentation I am willing to learn and flash the 9211-8i myself. Use this to check what you're seeing, and take care to remove (or avoid modifying) any LSI controllers except those you mean to crossflash.