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I am in the process of creating a custom server for which I have the ability to have over 20 HDD's in this device.

I want t be able to make good use of a large number of 2TB and 3TB HDD's I have.

Now I have done a little Google as I already have a Dell H700 SAS Controller which I have setup with 8 HDD's. I want to add another lower end controller such as the Dell H200 SAS Controller, Has anyone had any experience with adding a second Dell SAS Controller to a setup? Will there be any issues?

I guess the simple and ultimate questions is. Will it work?

I look forward to and appreciate any comments / advice.

Thanks,

Mike.

Hennes
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Mike Smith
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  • Additionally if I obtained an additional H700 could I run 2x H700's in the same server? –  Jul 14 '16 at 10:47
  • Yes, that should just work. Assuming you have two PCI-e slots. What kind of server are you using? A power edge XXXX ? – Hennes Jul 14 '16 at 13:35
  • Oh, and for completeness sake: Are you using SAS drives on a SAS/RAID controller or SATA drives on a SAS/RAID controller? Asking because oe @ewwhite's answer on my first question here on su. (http://superuser.com/questions/489101/mixing-sata-and-sas-drives-on-same-controller). If you are using nearline drives then feel free to ignore this. – Hennes Jul 14 '16 at 15:56
  • Hi, The server is an own build so not a specific brand. I will be using on this instance just SATA Drives. I do know that I may need to update the firmware on the H700 controller as if it has an older firmware they were locked to dell certified drives. The board I am using has a good number of differing PCi-E Ports so this is not an issue. I am also using the Motherboards Onboard RAID for an SSD OS RAID 1 Drive. Once built it will be used for Storage and some HyperV testing. – Mike Smith Jul 15 '16 at 08:32
  • Peer behind him. Big tower. Z170 board, several SAS cards, SATA drives.... Perfectly normal playground stuff. :) – Hennes Jul 15 '16 at 08:47

2 Answers2

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You can connect many drives to a single SAS controller, using SAS expanders in a daisy-chain layout.

For example, each of the SFF-8087 ports on your H700 can connect to to an expander card. Expanders that are reported to work with the H700 are the Chenbro CK13601 and Intel RES2SV240.

Now, taking the Intel card as an example, it has six SFF-8087 ports available, so you are able to use five breakout cables (one of the ports will be used to connect the expander to the H700).

Standard breakout cables usually have four SATA/SAS ports each, so you should be able to use all 20 of your drives from one expander.

Craig Watson
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  • Hi Craig, thanks for the response. As I am on a little bit of a personal budget on this and I can get hold of another H700 much easier. Do you know if running 2 of the same SAS Controllers would work? Or as above 2 of slightly differing versions? –  Jul 14 '16 at 11:09
  • Two controllers would ultimately work (you can mix-and-match controllers as you wish) but you would end up with two disparate pools of disks, rather than one, which limits your layout and RAID choices. – Craig Watson Jul 14 '16 at 11:11
  • Hi Craig, Thanks again for the response. I believe I would run 8x 3TB Drives on the H700 which will contain the more critical data and then look to run 8x 2TB HDD's on the second controller which at this stage is likely to remain the H200. Many thanks for getting back to me though as this has given me the answers that I needed to it is very much appreciated. –  Jul 14 '16 at 11:17
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Now I have done a little Google as I already have a Dell H700 SAS Controller which I have setup with 8 HDD's. I want to add another lower end controller such as the Dell H200 SAS Controller, Has anyone had any experience with adding a second Dell SAS Controller to a setup? Will there be any issues?

In my experience all will work fine. I have few of each: LSI, DELL, IBM HBA and RAID cards, speeds 6G and 12G all work together. Doesn't matter if they handle disks in RAID or JBOD they all work just fine either mixed LSI/DELL/IBM or all of same manufacturer.

You can use MSM to see exact hierarchy and what is connected to which controller/hba.

The only remarks I can mention is if you have controller on motherboard, then i have seen that some HP motherboards might have interrupt conflicts. I had ASROCK with integrated SAS but it didn't give me any issues when I added external controllers. Might be related to BIOS version of HP.

Peter
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