confusing specs (eg: SA P800)

lariguet — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 01:38:21 GMT

confusing and very misleading hardware specs (eg: P800)

I AM VERY TIRED OF CONFUSING AND MISLEADING HARDWARE SPECS
which almost inevitably lead to bad buying desicions; eg:

HP Smart Array P800 (PCIe X8)
ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/products/servers/proliantstorage/arraycontrollers/compatability-matrix.pdf
as you can see this compatibility matrix says the P800 is compatible with the DL320 G4 & G5

HP ProLiant DL320 G4
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12365_ca/12365_ca.HTML
- slot 1 PCIe X4 using X8 connector
- slot 2 PCIe X1 using X8 connector
so where do you place the P800 ? on the X4 connector with half the bandwidth the P800 needs ?

HP ProLiant DL320 G5
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12572_na/12572_na.html
- slot 1 PCIe X1 using X8 connector
- slot 2 PCIe X8 using X8 connector: P800 obviously fits here ... but server spec don't list as supported (P400 is the best one listed)

The specs stated on this site are plagued with errors. I had very bad experiences in the past; comes to mind a DL320 G2 in which the 6402 fits perfectly (PCI-X 133) but the BIOS refuse to detect because the server originally came with a SATA drive which I migrated to a SCSI one. Nowhere the specs and/or manuals alerts you beforehand of these manufacturer-imposed limitations which are not hardware-constrained. Funny thing is the 6402 runs flawlessly on an Intel compatible box (where they actually is) but not on ... HP server hardware ! Sorry to say so but to me this is quite stupid !!!

topic confusing specs (eg: SA P800) in Disk Enclosures

confusing specs (eg: SA P800)