DL 360 Gen10 Universal SATA - Smart Array P816i-a SR cabling?

[Troy-Tempest]

We have recently installed some DL360 Gen10s, all with HPE Smart Array P816i-a SR Gen10 Controllers (804338-B21) and HPE Universal SATA HHHL 3yr Wty M.2 Kits (878783-B21), each with 2 x 240GB M.2 SSDs.

The Universal SATA card has 2 x SATA connectors, which are connected (I believe) to the SATA ports 1 & 2 on the motherboard. Unfortunately, this means that we can't create a RAID 1 array with the 2 x 240GB M.2 SSDs that is recognised by vmware ESXi 6.5.

What we would like to do is to link the M.2 SSDs to the smart array controller rather than the motherboard, using a mini-SAS to SATA cable (e.g. 620796-001). Is this possible?

[KK]

Hi Troy,

M.2 SSDs drives are attached to the PCIe interface directly and do not have a dedicated hardware RAID engine similar to SAS controllers, therefore, RAID is only supported through the operating system software (e.g., Windows mirror, Linux MD, etc.).

Regards,

KK

[Troy-Tempest]

Thanks KK,

I'm looking at the 878783-B21 add in card, which has 2 x SATA data cables.

Given that these cables are present, surely it's possible to connect the SATA interface on the card to an appropriate RAID controller, given the correct cable. If the data connection is purely through the PCIe interface, why bother with the dual SATA cables?