Internal and External disks at same time on one controller?

[Mark Matthews]

Hi All,

I know the old rules on the parallel SCSI based array controllers didnt let you connect internal disks and external disks at the same time on the same channel of the controller, but does the same rule apply with the new SAS array controllers?

Specifically the Gen8 6G ones like the P222?

Any help much appreciated.

Thanks

Mark...

P.S. This thread has been moved from Storage > Disk to Disk Array. - HP Forum moderator

[Robert_Jewell]

The controller will detect the new drive and it will be marked as unused.

Since SAS uses a serial topology each channel, or port, can handle new drive insertion without affecting other drives.

The manner in which SAS drives are ID'd helps as well.  Each drive has its own unqique SAS address, thus eliminating the issue of duplicate IDs.  Both of these also help when a particular drive is failing.  In most cases the only the SAS port the drive is attached to is affected, not the entire bus.  

-Bob

[Mark Matthews]

Thanks Robert, but not sure I understand your answer!

So, with a P222 in a DL380 Gen8, will I be able to attach the internal drive cage to the internal connector on the P222, and and external D2700 to the external connector on the P222 and be able to 'see' / work with all the disks at the same time?

Thanks

Mark...

[Robert_Jewell]

That is correct.  The P222 has two ports and from what I see they are not shared (by shared I mean by using one you will not disable the other - the SAS controller distrubutes its data links between the two ports).

Here are the product specs:

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/productbulletin.html#spectype=north_america&type=html&docid=14227

-Bob