okay I finally got a working SATA controller that makes the drives show up on my NAS. things I've learned:
- the thing people say about making sure the card listing explicitly mentions that it's an HBA is true.
- not only this but, if you search for HBAs on web sites that sell new computer hardware and look for deals instead of buying the ones that go for $120-500 because they're server-class hardware, you're going to accidentally buy a non-HBA SATA card that won't work.
- if you really want a deal (~$40 including two quad fanout cables, which go for $20 each new), go to eBay and buy a used one.
- the used LSI 9200-8i I bought was shipped from a warehouse in Hebron, KY, from a seller headquartered in China and called either lsj2016 or USKY3 or TalentFortune (depending on whether you ask eBay or the mailing label, and which part of the mailing label you ask), in a box that said "made in China"1, and was probably originally salvaged from the bottomless stream of datacenter e-waste coming from the US. very weird to think about the circulation of computer hardware nowadays.
-
the card was actually made in Thailand.
