Perc 6/I upgrade *ADDED PICS*

[XplodingData]

I've got a pair of old Dell PowerEdge 2950 servers that have the Perc 6/I card installed. They're using a ribbon type cable to connect to the backplane.

Aside from the 2GB drive size limitation, there's no real issues with the servers so I'm wondering if I can install a slightly newer h200 or LSI card and get that limitation removed.

The problem I'm having is that the backplane uses a pair of ribbon cable to connect to the Perc. I've seen newer servers with SAS connectors in the backplane and they're using a ribbon-SFF adapter Cable to connect from the ribbon connector on the card to the SFF on the backplane. Can I go the other way?

I've added a couple pics of the connections to help clarify what i'm asking.

 

[chinesestunna]

Yes as they are all "4 lane cables", so something like this should work: NEW SFF-8484 36-Pin to Mini SAS SFF-8087 32-Pin Cable Adapter 0.6m HDD Array 734135662351 | eBay

However, there's been lots of issues with older backplanes supporting larger sized drives so I'd do more research first

 

[XplodingData]

Yes as they are all "4 lane cables", so something like this should work: NEW SFF-8484 36-Pin to Mini SAS SFF-8087 32-Pin Cable Adapter 0.6m HDD Array 734135662351 | eBay

However, there's been lots of issues with older backplanes supporting larger sized drives so I'd do more research first

Ok that is excellent info. I was trying to figure out what I needed to search for to find the correct cable. All I could find was auctions for the 6/I controller with the cable and the asking prices are ridiculous for very outdated hardware...

For the $12 it'll cost me to try, I think I'll just order one up and see how it goes.
I did search a bit and found most people saying that the backplane was pretty basic, so likely not an issue. BUUUT of course it's never a guarantee.

With the expanders on the backplane, I'd expect that the drives wont hey a bump in speed, but that's probably ok.

 

[chinesestunna]

Ok that is excellent info. I was trying to figure out what I needed to search for to find the correct cable. All I could find was auctions for the 6/I controller with the cable and the asking prices are ridiculous for very outdated hardware...

For the $12 it'll cost me to try, I think I'll just order one up and see how it goes.
I did search a bit and found most people saying that the backplane was pretty basic, so likely not an issue. BUUUT of course it's never a guarantee.

With the expanders on the backplane, I'd expect that the drives wont hey a bump in speed, but that's probably ok.

Yep worth a try, but the backplanes in this case using 4 lane cables are "expanders" vs ones with individual dumb passthrough ports (Supermicro 840TQ). Good luck!