Drew wrote:
If you're looking at port multipliers, you need to find PCI-Express
modules if you want them to be fast. The PCI ones are gonna be very
slow when you have more than 2 disks per card.
The existing server we're planning to re-purpose for this is an IBM
xSeries with two free PCI-X/100 slots and dual PCIe/x4 slots.
Your best bet might be to use one of these HBA's:
http://www.lsi.com/storage_home/products_home/host_bus_adapters/sas_hbas/lsisas3801e/index.html
although you would need to check whether it functions OK in an x4 slot -
obviously the maximum performance will not be reached, but if you are
only using one output you should be OK.
This would then be connected to an enclosure like this:
http://www.aicipc.com/ProductDetail.aspx?ref=XJ1000%20series%20-%203U%2016-bay
which contains a port expander to all the drives.
I have been running 2 similar setups (although using the LSISAS3442E-R
version of the HBA - around $US230 in an x8 slot), for over a year
without any trouble, with the drives configured as an md RAID6.
The HBA's can have an alternate firmware loaded which removes the
onboard hardware RAID0,1 functionality.
Regards,
Richard
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