Host Bus Adapter
Host Bus Adapter collects cards that connect servers to disks and SANs without doing RAID: 32Gb Fibre Channel HBAs such as HPE's SN1610Q and Dell's QLogic 2770, 8Gb dual-port FC cards for IBM servers, and SAS HBAs like the Dell 9211-8i, Lenovo ThinkSystem 430-16e and Supermicro AOC-S3008L-L8i. SAS HBAs are the usual choice for JBOD shelves, tape and software-defined storage like ZFS or vSAN, where the operating system needs direct access to each disk.
Host Bus Adapter: 1,086 products
Buying guide
Choosing an HBA
Internal or external
Names like 9211-8i or 430-16e give the lane count and whether the ports are internal (i) or external (e). External ports drive shelves and tape.
Pass-through for software RAID
ZFS, vSAN and Storage Spaces want raw drives. Use an HBA, or a controller flashed to IT or HBA mode, rather than a RAID volume.
Bracket height
HBAs come with full-height or low-profile brackets. 1U servers usually need low-profile; swapping the bracket is easy if you have the right one.
Host Bus Adapter
Frequently asked questions
What does 8i or 16e mean in an HBA name?
The number is how many SAS lanes the card has, and the letter where they come out: i for internal ports to a backplane, e for external ports to a shelf or tape drive.
Can a SAS HBA do RAID?
Basic HBAs pass drives straight through. Some, like the 9211-8i in IR firmware, offer simple RAID 0, 1 and 10, but for software-defined storage the IT, or HBA, mode is what you want.
