Needs some advice on MegaRaid 9271-8i

[majoho]

I've had this card for a while since I was fed up with the throughput of NAS boxes I've had and I'm very happy with it.

Until now I've had it in a normal tower computer with 8x3TB drives but I just ordered a secondhand Supermicro SC-933 case so I want to get some more drives but frankly I have no idea how to!

The card has 2 internal connectors and 2x4 splitters for 8 drives in total but it's supposed to be able to use more, but how?

Do I need some add on card or something because I can't seem to find any accessories for the card aside from battery and cache.

Thanks for any help.

 

[xnoodle]

Your card has 2xSFF8087 connectors, which you are using fanout cables for, to convert them directly to SATA.

Are you using hardware based RAID?

Which SC933 chassis did you obtain? T (15 sata ports required), or E1/E2 (SAS expander included).
Supermicro | Products | Chassis | 3U

Odds are you need an expander, but that's kind of a waste if you only need 15 ports total.

 

[Chuckleb]

If you need more than 4 ports per connector on a SAS card, you use an expander like xnoodle said. It can either be built into the chassis or you can buy a card. The Intel expander card is popular, it is a 24 channel card, usually used as 4 lanes in and 20 lanes out. On the other hand, depending on the chassis and backplane, it may be built in and you just need to connect one cable over.

 

[majoho]

Thanks for the replies.

Yes I'm using hardware raid (RAID-6) and the one I found was the T-version so I guess I would need an expander - I should probably have researched before I ordered :/

 

[Chuckleb]

There is a RES2SV240 card on eBay for $129 with a BO option. I think the cheapest people got them for was $90 new with cables but that was a few months ago. I have used that successfully with the 9271-8i.

 

[majoho]

Yeah found that already

Going to get one but I'll wait until I have set up the new server, wont get the case until next week.

Thanks again.