1 x Raid card and 6 sata drive over 1 SFF-8087 port

Question

I have a question regarding LSI00328 LSI MegaRAID SAS 9271-4i

Can I connect 6x sata drives to -4i card or I need -8i version

REad up on SATA. You can connect 100 SATA drives to that card. SAS is a network protocol - and the use of expanders is common. — TomTom, Aug 17 '14 at 17:56

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:14

1

This depends on your server, the backplane and whether an expander is involved. If you are connecting to the disks without a backplane or expander solution, you will need the 8i card and SAS breakout cables.

Edit:

You don't have an expander backplane, so you'll need an 8i (2 x SFF-8087 ports) controller and two SAS breakout cables.

Please see: How exactly does a SAS SFF-8087 breakout cable work? + RAID/connection questions

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:14

Community

1

answered Aug 17 '14 at 17:58

ewwhite

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I have a SAS823T backpane that has 6 sata ports. http://img.auctiva.com/imgdata/1/3/3/9/3/2/3/webimg/688186699_tp.jpg Since SFF-8087 adaptors has only 4 sata port how to I connect all 6 to SFF-8087 ? – AndreiG. Aug 17 '14 at 18:05
See the link I posted in my answer. – ewwhite Aug 17 '14 at 18:40
I still don't understand – AndreiG. Aug 17 '14 at 19:06
@AndreiG. You'll need an 8i card and two SFF-8087->SATA breakout cables. – ewwhite Aug 18 '14 at 13:44
That was what I've been looking for. I already bought LSI MegaRAID SAS 9271-8i Thanks. – AndreiG. Aug 18 '14 at 16:56

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 18 '14 at 13:40

Yes, you usually can connect more disks than the number of ports in your controller (see the other answer's link for information on what an 'expander' is). Of course, the performance will be limited to what those 4/8 ports can support.

For instance, check the Supermicro SC418 chassis. The backplane does not have 24 ports but a complex backplane that will manage concurrent access to multiple disks. If you're looking for maximum throughput, that would be a problem, but for solutions looking for maximum IOPS, that could be OK since, depending on block size, they would not max out the controller's maximum bandwidth.

1 x Raid card and 6 sata drive over 1 SFF-8087 port

2 Answers2