Combination was running on TrueNASLENOVO - 03X3834 16 PORT 6GBPS SAS SATA EXPANDERLENOVO - 03T6739 LSI 9240-8i 6Gbps SAS HBA P20 IT Mode ZFS TrueNAS unRAID
They work Great together. I needed the slot the expander was using for power for a 10G NIC so I upgraded to a 16 port HBA.
Now you can buy the more robust(and sometimes cheaper) SAS drives and yes you can mix and match SAS and SATA drives with this combo. Super flexible. As you can see I added fans as these were originally designed for high air flow server cases. These fans get the job done 100%.ALSO: You can connect 20 drives in total with this pair: 16 through the Lenovo 03X3834 expander, plus 4 connected directly to the 9240-8i’s remaining SFF-8087 connector.