what cable for a H310 RAID card on a Dell R710?

[horizonbrave]

Hi,
I just ordered on ebay a H310 card for my R710 so that I can flash into IT mode so that I can let FreeNAS play nicely with my drives and overcome the 2TB limitation.
I don't have experience at all with backplanes, SAS connection and basic server related hardware.. so I wonder if someone knows if I can still use the original cable connecting the original card to the backplane, a Dell Perc 6/i - E2K-UCS-61(B), with the new H310 card. Otherwise could I please be pointed to the necessary cable (lenght included)?

Another thing I couldn't figure out: can I place the card in the same slot?

I'm pretty sure this has been done plenty of times before by many of you
Many thanks!

 

[BLinux]

If you had a PERC 6/I, then you won't be able to re-use the cable as that I believe had a SFF-8484 connectors while the H310 will have SFF-8087. The good news is that I think the R710 has SFF-8087 connectors on the backplane. So you'll need to get SFF-8087 to SFF-8087 cables of the right length and connectors which are easier to deal with than say getting SFF-8484 to SFF-8087 cables. I don't know the length, but you could take the old ones out and measure to be sure.

if the PERC 6/I is in the "integrated slot", chances are that you'll need a "Dell" branded firmware to work in that slot; at least that's how it was with previous generations. If you flash the Dell HBA firmware, you'll probably be fine. If you flash the LSI firmware, you'll probably have to use one of the "normal" PCI-E slots.