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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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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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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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