ML150 G5 - Connecting SATA drives to system SATA ports via HDD cage backplane?

[P-Howard]

I received an old ML150 G5 server and am using to learn about HP servers and evolution of the range.

The server has a HDD cage with backplane (part 459191-001). In the cage are SATA drives only <2TB (no SAS). I have connected the backplane directly to the System I/O SATA ports 1-4 with a SFF-8484 32 Pin to 4x SATA 7 Pin cable (I believe is equivalent to part 459190-001).

I was not sure if the backplane can only be used with a controller in PCI Express slot, but am trying this way because there is a diagram, page 60 of the HP ProLiant ML310 G5 Maintenance and Service Guide under heading "SATA hard drive cabling" clearly showing connection from backplane direct to the mainboard SATA ports. I know the ML310 is not exactly the same as the ML150 but its using the same cage and backplane...

However no drives are found, via IDE, AHCI or RAID. The CD drive is found, and SATA drives are found when I completely bypass the backplane and connect individually to the SATA ports on the mainboard, so I know the SATA ports are working.

So, is it possible to connect SATA drives to system SATA ports via the HDD backplane with ML150 G5?

Forgive for asking about such an old server, but I hope there is someone here who remembers... Though I do not expect to use the hot-swap feature of the cage it would be nice to use for SATA drives connected to the motherboard ports.

For bonus question: Can anyone say what the 2 jumper pins and 2 connectors on the top-right of the backplane are, or point me to documentation? A good image is here. 

[Bunsol]

Hi Howard,

Good Day. As per what you have shared we need to first check if the drives are hot plug(HP) or non hot plug(NHP) drives. And if they are compatible with the type of drive cage used. The issue possibly is that the drives are NHP and the backplane/cage is an HP.

JP1 to JP 8 function is used for backplane power source from power supply. 

If the drives are still not detecting if the configuration is correct then we would request you to log a support ticket with us if a hardware component is faulty causing this issue. Please use the below link to log a support ticket:-

https://support.hpe.com/

Regards,

Bunsol

[Big_Banana]

Did you power the cages? They have dedicated supplies. Here it's a pic of my ML150G6 cages I had extra.

[Big_Banana]

Here is the card that connected to my G6 cages.

[P-Howard]

Thanks for your replies. Turns out I had ordered the incorrect cable in my attempt to connect the ML150 G5 backplane directly to the motherboard SATA ports. What I needed was a "SFF-8484 (Device) to 4 x 7-pin (Host) REVERSE Cable". I've attached a photo of the REVERSE cable that works for my use case (I believe this is equivalent to HP part 459190-001). The cable I had ordered previously had exactly the same connectors but can only be used to connect the other way around (SFF-8484 Host to 4 x 7-pin Device).

As the ML150 G5 is so old I'm trying to repurpose the awesome case and the cages, and have now installed a new quiet power supply and contemporary motherboard into the case. Considering installing Freenas which advises against any hardware RAID, so being able to connect the backplanes directly to the motherboard helps. The drives I am using in the ML150 G5 cages are just regular desktop SATA drives, and they are now recognised when the backplanes are plugged into motherboard SATA ports, and powered. I'll be interested to find out if the backplanes limit the drives to 1.5GB/s or 3GB/s SATA data rates or whether they can achieve the 6GB/s that a contemprary motherboard and SATA drives are capable of. Anyway, I'm happy now that my project can continue.

[Big_Banana · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the closure on the thread. :)

For a NAS, not sure a better motherboard is going to do much for you? My G6 ran multiple VMs fine. I also don't see how software RAID would ever be "better".

Either way, enjoy your build!