Cross-flashed Dell H310s only allow SATA at 3.0GBPS, not 6.0

[NYCone]

SOLVED -

CABLES were bad


I crossed flashed a few Dell H310s to the IT mode for use in my new solaris ZFS system in a Supermicro 846 with an X9 SM board using the following link:

Updated: SAS HBA crossflashing or flashing to IT mode, Dell Perc H200 and H310

I am testing the first card and no matter what SATA drive I put in, it only sees them at 3.0GBPS on Smart tools.

I've run a similar system for years with M1015s flashed to the IT mode with the same drives showing at 6.0GBPS. I have some new cables coming is a couple of days. What is the best path to see if this is an HBA problem or another issue?

Also, I'm not sure if I should run three H310s, or one H310 with an expander. Any advice?

I'm a relative beginner when it comes to this stuff. Any help is appreciated.

 

[herby]

There are a few variables: the speed of the disks your using HDD vs SSD, the PCI-e slots available to you 4x or 8/16x, if you really need/want the maximum speed, and the difference in cost of 3 HBA's vs 1 HBA and an expander.

At it's simplest the 1 H310 and an expander will be limited to the speed of the HBA and its 8 PCI-e 2.0 lanes vs the higher potential speed of 3 H310s. If you won't miss the slots 3 would be better than 1, but you might not really need it for a bunch of slow 8TB Seagate archive disks.