install Intel X25-E SSD's in a HP DL380 G6

[Milo122]

Hi,

I want to buy a HP DL380 G6 for virtualization use. Because IO will proberly the performance bottleneck I want to install a couple of Intel X25-E in RAID.
Does HP support the X25-E? Does the SAS backplane has a SFF 8482 connectors? Intel claims that the X25-E also support hotplug so that should work too, right?

[Milo122]

forgot to ask, will I be able to use the standard empty drive bays that comes with the server?
I really hope this will work, the perfomance of the X25-E in RAID is unbelievable and a 2nd Gen will be released 2009 Q3, hopefully with a big price drop???

[acra2]

Not supported or recommended and you'll lose the carepack cover, but yeah it works rather well. I did it a few months back to see if it proforms well and it hits the bottle neck on the inbuilt SAS card after 2 drive in a RAID 0. Shame it isn't supported really as they fly with these in.

[Milo122]

What bottleneck does first occur? Read, Write, IOPS? At what block size? Would be great if you have any benchmark info.
I'm planning to use RAID 5, have you benched that also?
Don't know for sure yet if I want a Carepack because we are going to use virtualization that also help in case of hardware failure.