Do you think that the SAS Expander limits the total throughput compared to direct connect drives? It seems that 300MB/s Read or Write would be the limit on an Expander, versus 400-600MB/s with direct connect.

In your summary, you indicate it only works sometimes. From your narrative, it seems that you worked out all the bugs and got it to function on a full-time basis.

I just want to clarify, do you use the system you described above in a production environment?

choice of 1 or 2 (failover) SAS expander built-in
choice of space : 1U, 2U, 3U
choice of disks : 2.5 or 3.5 inch

the compatibilty and usability are impressive :
http://www.aicipc.com/Downloads.aspx?ref=RM
http://www.aicipc.com/Downloads/ReferenceMatrix/SAS_SATA_Cable_HDD.pdf

adaptec, areca (1680), LSI approuved SAS card
SAS and SATA disks tested:)

http://www.aicipc.com/ProductDetail.aspx?ref=RSC-3EC2-2

see the webinar here :
http://www.aicipc.com/Downloads.aspx?ref=T

seem to be the holly grail !

regards,
fredsky

*******
see my complete post here :
http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?t=88576

As to Supermicro tech support, they’re terrible. They’re only good for telling you when something doesn’t work, such as in the case of these backplanes. There hasn’t been any mention of a desire to help solve problems that come up, and in other cases (such as the IPMI card for the PDSMA), when the documentation is actually wrong, they insist that it’s right. Their documentation is so right that on every PDSMA we have around here, the only way I’ve gotten IPMI to work is the way I figured out after a week of trial-and-error.

Basically, email them to file a bug report, but don’t expect anything. See my post “Supermicro, You Suck”‘s comments. The “Storage Doctor” posted from an IP address that mapped back to supermicro.com. I got that reply about 30 minutes after I made that post, as opposed to the glacial times it takes Supermicro to normally respond.

To summarize: if it works, then awesome, and it’ll work *great*. If it doesn’t, you’re out a few grand with some smug tech support replies from the venduh.

here is my wishes and problem :

I want a chassis with SAS expander integrated so I can use :
- desktop motherboard
- high end SAS RAID controller (areca 1680x)
- connect at least 16 HDD with ONE cable (SFF-8088)
- hdds HAVE TO BE SATA

the only chassis I found i the supermicro you use : SC836E1 !

i read and read the documentation carefully, yes LSI expander support SATA but not supermicro.

here is the answer for edwar chen, supermicro techsupport :
“You can use the 836TQ model with SATA hard drives, however you cannot use SATA drives with any of our E1 or E2 models. That’s the spec and if you have difficulties with connecting SATA hard drives we will not be able to help. We can provide assistance with SAS hard drives.

Edward”

So… if i’m not dreaming, IT DO wORKS, you use it !

please confirm this mess,

best regards,
fredsky

To answer your question, I did end up with SATA II drives after removing the jumpers, and the system has been running quite nicely since then (with up to 300 MB/s off of the array even!).

And no, we have not tried installing Solaris on them, as the Megaraid drivers for Solaris didn’t exist yet, and we needed it working correctly right then. Linux works well enough to export the RAID anyhow, so that’s fine.

As for the iSCSI part of our san, we’re currently exporting from the standard gigabit ports on our RAID boxes, and have a QLogic iSCSI HBA on our server (soon to be a shiny new Sun x4200 M2).

Hope that answered your question!

After removing the drive jumpers, did you end up with SATA-II or SATA drives? When I read the documentation on the controller it said it was only compatible with SATA-II drives.

Also, have you tried installing Solaris on them? I know that LSI recently released a Solaris driver for the Megaraid Series. However, I haven’t heard of anyone using it, so it’d be great to know if it works! =)

Thanks!