Per the spec for this card, no fan is included. If you do not have a fan, expect this card to burn out after a few months. Major oversight on LSI for not resolving such a obvious issue. I'm going to try to shove a 40x40x10mm 12 volt fan on top of the heat sink. I will probably switch to highpoint or Adaptec if I can't get the card to cool down. Otherwise a great card. No issues with Windows 10 x64.
The 9217-8i is a professional HBA / RAID adapter based on the LSISAS2308 controller ( embedded PowerPC ).
When used correctly it offers high performance and reliability.
The IR-firmware supports entry-level RAID levels 1,0,10 ( + some LSI enhancements ).
It's possible to crossflash this adapter to IT-firmware ( Initiated Target / Pure HBA ).
( With IT-firmware the 9217-8i becomes identical with the 9207-8i )
IT-firmware will disable RAID-options, but allows for direct software control.
This is crucial for systems that uses software RAID ( fx. FreeNAS ).
FreeNAS uses software RAID, which is not possible on IR-firmware where un-raided disks are presented to the OS as logical disk.
Also some S.M.A.R.T. -features are unaccessible with IR-firmware.
IT-firmware allows spanning volumes over several controllers without using SAS-expanders.
Things to be considered when using SAS controllers:
Newest firmware isn't always the best, but depends on your application and other hardware involved.
Fx. Since this is a SAS controller ( supporting SATA ) you will have to check compatibility with SSD's and their firmware to ensure TRIM is supported.
BSD and Linux are highly efficient OS's. ( integration with hardware is very close. )
Always use matching firmware and driver versions.