Suitable SAS Raid card for HP Z800

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

perdrix

Member
Mar 3, 2016
75
7
8
71
I have an HP Z800 which has the LSI SAS 3000 series (1068E) embedded RAID conroller.

Unfortunately it doesn't support disks larger then 2TB.

I'm looking for recommendations for a controller that does upport the larger disks and also will handle an existing RAID 1 array which I use for the boot drive (can recreate from backup if essential).

Thanks
David
 

BeTeP

Well-Known Member
Mar 23, 2019
653
429
63
Anything LSI SAS2208 based will do:

LSI 9267-8i
Dell PERC H710
IBM ServeRAID M5016
Fujitsu D3116-B25
NEC N8103-149
Intel RS25DB080

Prices depend on memory size and BBU - you can find a NEC with 512Mb w/o BBU for as low as $18 shipped.
 

BeTeP

Well-Known Member
Mar 23, 2019
653
429
63
Sure. The SAS2108 would also work. Personally I would not buy one in 2019 (almost 2020). Specially given such insignificant price difference.

The main reason is not even the performance difference - both 2108 and 2208 RoCs (RAID on Chip) are legacy products. It is that the hardware RAID controllers should be used with BBU (battery backup unit). All SAS2108 based controllers have been using batteries which required regular maintenance (replacement). And it is hard to find guaranteed working battery replacements for such old products. Whereas many SAS2208 models use super capacitors instead of batteries which have much longer life span.
 
Last edited:

perdrix

Member
Mar 3, 2016
75
7
8
71
Just double checking - will all these controllers all support (e.g.) 8TB drives? Assume I need a SAS3108 based card if I want full support for SAS-3 (12G/s) drives?
 

gosho2212

New Member
Feb 3, 2020
2
0
1
Also keep in mind that if you intend to use the Z800 caddies with the original cables (HP Z800 463987-001, https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/wZUAAOSwed9drzAa/s-l1600.jpg) you'll need miniSAS-to-sata(male) fan-out.
Such item can be found as HP 676918-001, https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/DwIAAOSwsW9YyVV~/s-l1600.jpg.
I bought mine from ebay, but it is rather short. It was too short for my P812 so i opted for P420 instead and the cable reached the ports by magic (1cm or less tolerance.)
This means that if you don't want to do re-cabling, choose adapter with ports as close as possible to the front of the case.
 

perdrix

Member
Mar 3, 2016
75
7
8
71
I bought some SATA M-F adapters which are doing the job, but are fragile and not well made. A longer mini-SAS to SATA(male) than the one you show would work well but that one would be way too short :( That's actually the first time I've seen one ...

Thanks
 
  • Like
Reactions: gosho2212

gosho2212

New Member
Feb 3, 2020
2
0
1
I bought some SATA M-F adapters which are doing the job, but are fragile and not well made. A longer mini-SAS to SATA(male) than the one you show would work well but that one would be way too short :( That's actually the first time I've seen one ...

Thanks
I'm happy to hear you've found alternative solution.
I've tried with SATA M-F cable (not adapter) and some SSD drives (AData, Kingston) were acting weird. This was probably due to a total cable length of 1m or so and multiple cable connections... the mechanical drives were ok though.

P.S. Long live the Z800 :)
 

Hurricane

New Member
Jan 10, 2021
2
0
1
@perdrix

Hi, I am in a similar exercise trying to upgrade my Z800 box to use two 4TB RAID 1 mirrors. I purchased off eBay a New HP 694504-001 LSI 9212-4i SAS 6Gb/s RAID controller card. It was able to see the 4TB drives and create the RAID 1 successfully. However, my Win 7 Pro 64-Bit cannot see the drive, even though the mirror can be seen within the MegaRaid Manager program as a virtual drive of the right size. Explorer refuses to show the drive and Disk Manager doesn't list it either. May I ask how did you get yours to work?
 

perdrix

Member
Mar 3, 2016
75
7
8
71
I ended up with an IBM 5016 that I re-flashed with the recovery images from LSI. That just works with W10.
 

Hurricane

New Member
Jan 10, 2021
2
0
1
@perdrix and all experts. Thanks! Please bear with a few more questions. I am operating at the edge of my knowledge.

1. You mentioned in your initial post that you have a RAID 1 array as well. Is that array running on the IBM 5016?
2. Are you running any modified version of the Z800 BIOS? If not, can you tell me the BIOS version number?
3. As I mentioned earlier, with the LSI 9212-4i-based card that I bought, I was able to build a RAID 1 4TB array but that array cannot be seen in Win 7 Pro 64-bit even though it's configured GPT. I assume you had success with IBM 5016-based >2TB RAID in Win 10?

It's worth stressing that my end goal is to have a RAID 1 4TB array running in Win 7 64-bit, not a lone 4TB GPT SATA. I can do the latter easily by connecting to one of the existing SATA ports, but that isn't what I want.

Thanks again.
 

perdrix

Member
Mar 3, 2016
75
7
8
71
Yes that RAID 1 array is attached to the IBM 5016

No it's not a modified Z800 bios, but I did have disable a few things like network card bios and SATA raid support to get enough "Option ROM memory" to be able the complete POST with the built-in SAS and a SCSI card active as well.

The RAID 1 isn't very large - it's the boot drive (450GB IIRC), but I have attached 4TB drives to the M5016 w/o problems.