Linking SAS disk with raid controller

[gtsolid]

hi
i'm building a server with some ST4000NM0023 but i see the connectors are very different from SATA ports.
i would to make a RAID5, so i would to ask:
- if is necessary to buy a RAID controller or it is sufficient the X9SCL-F integrated.
- which kind of connector for signal/supply i need

 

[molletts]

The X9SCL-F doesn't appear to have onboard SAS so you'll need a SAS RAID controller. If you had bought ST4000NM0033 drives instead, you could have used the onboard SATA controller, although my experience with onboard RAID controllers, even on server boards, is that they are slow and unreliable so you'd be better off getting a separate controller card anyway.

SAS cabling is bit of a mess. The cable you will need depends on the RAID controller you choose as there are several different connectors in use. Some controllers may come with a suitable cable (it's likely to be a single "fanout" cable which connects up to 4 drives to one multi-lane connector on the board) but it may be a SATA one rather than a SAS one, as most SAS RAID controllers can also be used with SATA hard drives.

LSI MegaRAID SAS 9266/9271 cards include an SFF-8087 to SATA fanout cable but not a SAS one. You would need an SFF-8087 (the connector on the controller) to 4 x SFF-8482 (the combined power/data connector on the drives) cable to use your drives with one of these.

Adaptec/Microsemi RAID 8405E cards use SFF-8643 connectors so you would need an SFF-8643 to 4 x SFF-8482 fanout cable for these.

There are other connectors too, and some fanout cables can go the opposite way to what you expect (for connecting multiple ports on a controller/motherboard to a single multi-lane port on a storage enclosure)... Like I said, SAS cabling is a mess.

 

[tank20101955]

a good motherboard with an easy to configure on board LSI sas raid controller with 8 ports and also has 6 ports for sata2 drives is the HP xw9400, with dual opteron cpus and a 12 gb/s sas system and can use both single port and dual port drives in 15k and 10k speeds. right now you can build one of these for a couple of hundred dollars, my mobo cast 40 bucks 32gb ddr2 ecc memory was about a buck per gb, you will need a video card as this board dont have one, and the drives can be had for less than 20 dollars each. unless you go with say 4 wd VelociRaptor 10k sata2 drives, which you can get from ebay for around 11 bucks each with free shipping. these drives are very quiet which is amazing, considering the are 10k drives. a warning tho if you plan on putting one of these together figure out how many drives you will need then order your drive cables, if you use the dp drives then the cable number you will need is SFF-8482, and these will most likely have to come from China so order a month ahead!. you dont need these cables if you go with the wd VelociRaptors .