Looking to buy a new hba since the first one had enough daisy-chained expanders and the bandwidth just isn’t enough.
Checking on ebay, I see that there are lots of Chinese sellers offering 9211-8i or equivalents for less than half the price I paid for the first one at theartofserver.
One seller has a 40k+ ratings with a 99%+ positive feedback, which got me thinking if the cards they are selling are genuine refurbished cards or counterfeit? I’d be glad to get some feedback if you got a card from one of these sellers.
Should I take my chance or not take any risks trying to save 25-30 bucks? I’d choose the latter, but if you got any experience about the aforementioned cards, I’d love to hear it.
Extra question: I see that there are two versions(?) of cards selling under the 9211-8i name. One’s ports are on the right side of the heatsink, far from the bracket (I have this one), and the other one has ports near the bracket, marked port 1 and port0 from left to right. Are these both genuine or is the latter one counterfeit?
I went with theartofserver because I’d rather deal with him than Chinese sellers. He’s great at providing help if you have issues and that’s worth more to me than cheaper.
Same here. He also has a Youtube channel with lots of great info
https://www.youtube.com/c/ArtofServer
I bought my current card from them! Didn’t need any extra help from them but his Youtube channel is really informative.
He was great was great when I bought a second 8i HBA and it wouldn’t work in a x4 slot. Went through a few things with him and isolated that it was the slot that was faulty. So got a port multiplier instead, which only needs power from the slot and achieved the same results.
People say you can get the parts cheaper elsewhere…
But that’s literally the only downside I’ve ever read about him (and I’m at 2 successful purchases myself).