EU HP SAS Expander Card €40

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orson

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Feb 4, 2013
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Hi,

I have asr-5805 from adaptec (8 port sas controller) that has the following information on product page:
Supports 8 direct-attached or up to 256 SATA or SAS disk drives
using SAS expanders
I assume it will work even if that is hp part ?

I need it to add some more drives to my software raid - so no need for raid or anything, even IT mode will do.

Thank you and have a nice day.
 
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Kybber

Active Member
May 27, 2016
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I just obtained an IBM m1215 (LSI 9340) to stack alongside my two LSI 9211-8i cards. The 16 channels from the 9211 cards are hooked up to 16 spinners. I also have an SFF 8087 to SFF8088 adapter for external expansion. In total this will occupy four PCIe slots.

My primary reason for getting the m1215 was to hook up 2-4 SSDs. Now I am thinking that perhaps I could just as well have used just the m1215 together with this expander:
1. Connect the m1215 to the expander using an SFF8643-SFF8087 connector. Connect all spinners to the expander.
2. Connect external equipment to the expander's SFF8088 port.
2. Attach the SSDs to the other SFF8643 cable from the m1215.

Would this work, and would it be a good/better/at-least-not-worse option compared to having 2*LSI 9211-8i + 1*m1215 cards to drive the above? Any loss of speed for either SSDs or spinners due to introducing an expander and mixing 6Gbit and 12Gbit devices?
 
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raylangivens

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Nov 22, 2016
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orson said:
Hi,

I have asr-5805 from adaptec (8 port sas controller) that has the following information on product page:
Supports 8 direct-attached or up to 256 SATA or SAS disk drives
using SAS expanders
I assume it will work even if that is hp part ?
Click to expand...
There's always a chance that it won't work due to compatibility issues - for instance my expander card doesn't work with an AMCC/3ware 9650SE-12ML, but it does work with a crossflashed Fujitsu D2516 (LSI IR firmware) and a crossflashed IBM BR10i (LSI IT firmware).

I'll have to recheck the compatibility on the AMCC, though, since I updated the firmware of the expander to 2.10, today.
 
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raylangivens

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Nov 22, 2016
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Essentially they are switches, so they should work with any mode the controller throws at them - at least if the controller is compatible.
 
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BlueFox

Legendary Member Spam Hunter Extraordinaire
Oct 26, 2015
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raylangivens said:
There's always a chance that it won't work due to compatibility issues - for instance my expander card doesn't work with an AMCC/3ware 9650SE-12ML, but it does work with a crossflashed Fujitsu D2516 (LSI IR firmware) and a crossflashed IBM BR10i (LSI IT firmware).

I'll have to recheck the compatibility on the AMCC, though, since I updated the firmware of the expander to 2.10, today.
Click to expand...
Of course it won't work with a 9650SE-12ML. That's a SATA card. You need a SAS HBA.
 
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raylangivens

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Nov 22, 2016
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Already got one of those PCI-E extenders for more cabling flexibility. No need here for that power board just now, because my drives are housed in two tailor-made Lego enclosures. ;-)
 
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raylangivens

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Nov 22, 2016
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Kybber said:
Would this work, and would it be a good/better/at-least-not-worse option compared to having 2*LSI 9211-8i + 1*m1215 cards to drive the above? Any loss of speed for either SSDs or spinners due to introducing an expander and mixing 6Gbit and 12Gbit devices?
Click to expand...
If I'm not mistaken the expander won't negotiate SATA drives with 6G, but 3G only.
All devices on the expander will share the bandwidth of one (or two, if the controller supports that setup) 8087 connections.
Don't know it that would be a problem in your case.
 
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Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
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raylangivens said:
If I'm not mistaken the expander won't negotiate SATA drives with 6G, but 3G only.
All devices on the expander will share the bandwidth of one (or two, if the controller supports that setup) 8087 connections.
Don't know it that would be a problem in your case.
Click to expand...
Item description: "HP 24-Bay 6G SAS Expander Server Card"
Hope its accurate though, have not checked;)
 
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raylangivens

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Nov 22, 2016
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Rand__ said:
Item description: "HP 24-Bay 6G SAS Expander Server Card"
Hope its accurate though, have not checked;)
Click to expand...
Yes, SAS 6G is correct, but I read somewhere that SATA neg is limited to 3G on these. Can't find the source now, though. I'll check when my H310 arrives.
 
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Kybber

Active Member
May 27, 2016
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raylangivens: Yes, you are correct: "6 Gb/s SAS technology delivers high performance and data bandwidth up to 600 MB/s per physical link and contains full compatibility with 3.0Gb/s SAS technology and 1.5 and 3.0Gb/sSATA technology." However, at least 12 of my 16 spinners are SAS.

However, this has me worried: "NOTE: The use of the HP SAS Expander Card requires a minimum of 256MB cache on the SA-P410 or SA-P410i Controller." If this information is correct, then the target audience is very small and it certainly won't work with either of my HBA types :(

raylangivens: Which HBA will you be using it with? Looking forward to an update on how it works for you once it arrives.

(Both quotes from http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/archives_Division/13232_div_v13/13232_div.HTML)
 
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Kybber

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May 27, 2016
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Quick update: I spent 10 minutes at https://hardforum.com/threads/hp-sas-expander-owners-thread.1484614. It seems that the expander can indeed be used with LSI controllers (quote: "Yes, generally any of the LSI controllers work without issue"). I imagine the cache-issue from my previous post regards on-board raid which requires a larger cache for more drives (or something like that), but IT mode should work.

But there does seem to be an issue where drives are only negotiated at 1.5Gbit even if they are 3Gbit SATA. One user wrote: "When installed in a Proliant, with all HP hardware in the chain (Controller, expander, enclosure/backplane, drive etc) they negotiate the proper and expected speeds 100% of the time. When installed with third party hardware (it seems to happen most often with SATA drives) then all bets are off and it usually defaults to SATA150." (HP SAS Expander Owner's Thread)
 
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raylangivens

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Nov 22, 2016
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Kybber said:
raylangivens: Which HBA will you be using it with? Looking forward to an update on how it works for you once it arrives.
Click to expand...
I'm torn between the D2516 to which it's currently connected, or the H310 which should arrive next week.
Depends on how well the H310 plays with the expander and if I'm going to want RAID6 (D2516 only) - haven't decided the final layout yet.
Or maybe I'll replace the 9650 with the H310 and order another expander. ;-)
 
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raylangivens

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Nov 22, 2016
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Small update: in the meantime I acquired two HP P812 one of which I promptly connected to the expander card.
The P812 now takes ages to initialize (far longer than with a 25bay SAS backplane attached), but it does initialize eventually and I can see all the drives (12x Hitachi 2 TB SATA3).
HP Smart Storage Administrator sees the actual ports of the expander, but does not enumerate the individual drives on the SATA fan-out cable.
Link speed with the expander is 1,5G, without the expander the controller negotiates the same drives with 3G.
 
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ruffy91

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Oct 6, 2012
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And your P812 is at least on 6.60?
"HP Smart Array P812 controller onboard expander firmware was updated to version 3.12 to enforce 3Gbps SATA connection speeds which is the maximum supported SATA data rate on HP Smart Array P212, P410, P410i, P411, P711m, P712m, and P812 controllers."

I had similar woes on my P410i with 1.5G/3G SATA until I updated to 6.64(b)
 
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