DL320s / P400 SATA speed

[Shahid Sheikh]

The DL320s has one leg each in both Profialnt and storage forums so I never know which one to post in.

I was looking at the specs 'cause we were interested in buying a couple.

Am I reading the fine print in the specs correctly that the P400 controller in it only does 1.5 Gbit/s on SATA?

[Farooq Saleem]

Hello Shahid,

The maximum data transfer for SATA hard drives is 1.5Gb/s.

So Smart Array P400 Controller can only do 1.5Gb/s on SATA hard drives,

but it can do 3.0 Gb/s on SAS drives.

Regards,
Farooq

[Shahid Sheikh]

That was true a couple of years ago. 3G on SATA has been available for some time now. In fact, 6 Gbit/sec will be available shortly. Probably only good for solid state drives though.

Are you suggesting that HP drives are only 1.5 Gbit/sec? That is not the case according to this: http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13021_div/13021_div.html

Hence my question that is the 1.5 Gbit/s speed on SATA a limitation of the P400?

[KarloChacon]

hi


yes for smart array controllers like P400 they only work at 1.5 GB for SATA HDDs


there are some documents that says for another controllers like Embedded SATA and SAS HBAs the firmware must be updated to support 3GB SATA HDDs but they are not clear if the firmware is to support the 3GB speed or just to support the HDD itself but I think is the last sentence just to support the HDD

check this

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12903_na/12903_na.html#Core%20Options

"NOTE: Server BIOS update is required to support 3G SATA drives when configured with embedded SATA controller."

check this thread also

http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1268450

bye

[KarloChacon]

check this SAS HBAs do not support 3G speed neither

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantstorage/adapters/sc44ge/index.html


so the HDD are out there but won't work at 3GB
I heard next year will be Generation 6 servers that will have new controllers that eventually are going to support 3GB

bye

[Shahid Sheikh]

Thanks for the info.

This is really a shame. Othewise the DL320s is a very attractive box because of the high HD density.

I'll have to check again but I think the Dells have been supporting 3G speeds on SATA eversince their first SAS/SATA RAID controller which I think was the Perc 5.