DL180 G6 with P212/256MB Controller upgrade to 8 HDD

[Gabor Virag]

Dear all,

I purchased a DL180 G6 4HDD Model with a P212/256MB Controller build in. Now I would like to upgrade to 8 HDDs. As QuickGuide i purchased a 8HDD LFF Kit 506924-B21 (Backplane) and two Internal Mini-SAS to Mini-SAS Cables.
Now i have the problem that the Controller has only one interna SAS conector but the Backplane has two connectors. I did not find any guide how to connect the backplane to the controller. at the moment there is only one cabel and i can still install only 4 drives. do i need a Y-cabel or an extender card or something like this?

please help...

thx

Gabor

[TTr]

The P212 has 4 internal ports and 4 external. A Y cable is not an option, a SAS expander would work but if you are willing to buy the expander card, might as well buy the P410 raid controller instead.

The P212 is for internal disks and for connecting external disk enclosures.

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13248_div/13248_div.html

[Gabor Virag]

Thank you for reply,

Is it possible to upgrade a 4HDD Model to a 12 HDD Model? I find only upgradekits for 8 HDD Models.

I read in a other thread that the expander is buildin on the backplane of the 12 HDD Model. Do I need something else?

thx

Gabor

[TTr]

I could't see the upgrade kits either so the 12/25 drive options might be FIO.
Check out the aprtsurfer site in case you find them there.
http://partsurfer.hp.com/search.aspx

Unless you need massive amounts of low performing disk space, stay with the 8LFF configuration and get a P410 controller.

The 12/25 disk server models have SAS expanders in the cage backplanes. The 12/14 model has one connector and the 25 disk model has two connectors.

The SAS expanders perform port switching just like a LAN switch. They switch the ports of the 12/14 disks (or the 25 disks) to the 4 ports (or the 8 ports) of the controller.
This limits the amount of i/o you can get with those drives because the controller can do concurrent i/o from 4 disks at a time. Any more disk i/o the controller has to wait and switch the ports accordingly.

The 8 disk cages have two 4-port connectors as you have seen. So with a P410 controller, you connect 8 ports from the controller to 8 disks, one port per disk for 8-disk concurrent i/o.

See the service guide on pages 66 - 69 http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01727924/c01727924.pdf