SmartArray P800 in an ML570g4 x4 PCIe slot ?

[Pascal BERTON]

Guys,

A customer of mine whishes to add an extra disc enclosure to his ML570g4. To achieve that, I had planned to install a SmartArray P800 and a PCIe bus expander (P/N 403724-B21) to turn one of the x4 PCIe slots into an x8 slot, as P800 is an x8 card. And then connect a SAS enclosure to the P800.

I have received the P800 from a broker, but unfortunately the PCIe bus expander card seems to be definitely discontinued, I just can't find but one to install on this planet, even at brokers... Blocked for just a bunch of bucks...

So here's my question : Has anybody already tried to install a P800 straight into an ML570g4 x4 PCIe slot, without the expander ? Would it work (Note: I don't intend to make something supported, I just need it to work!). My expectation is that it would work but at x4 speed, which would not be a big problem in this case as we will probably make use of only 1 of the 4 SAS ports the card features, may be 2 but proabably not. PCI-Express standard seems to allow that, but I would prefer to avoid make teh whole burn in flames...

Any feedback / experience / information about that would be highly apreciated.

Best regards,

Pascal.

[slingshot2000]

For a bit of storage, I have used a LSI SAS3442E-HP (generic of HP-SC44ge PCIe x8 non-caching SAS HBA) in PCI-e x4 slot of a ML570 G3/SCSI with the right SFF-8484 to SATA cable to talk to a 1TB 3.5 in. SATA drive, stuffed in the tape drive bay.  I used the same board in a PCIe x4 slot of a DL585 G2/SAS to talk to a 1TB 12.5mm 2.5in SATA drive stuffed in a SAS tray in one of the SAS cages.  I used only one drive and no RAID, running under Linux with no HP management software.  The SAS3442E-HP HBA will fall back from 3G SAS to 1.5G SATA.  Not enterprise quality.  Not supported.  May be useful as DAS for backups.  Your milage may vary.

[slingshot2000 · Accepted solution]

I note that the DL585 G2 http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12575_div/12575_div.html is sold with a SA-P400 PCIe x8 HBA http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12400_na/12400_na.html in slot 9, which is a x4 slot, to control 8 internal SAS drives.

[Pascal BERTON]

Hi, slingshot2000!

Well, I've finaly been on site to try to insert that x8 P800 in one of the x4 slots of this ML570g4, and definitely it works, I could see the D2700 tray and all it disks, could create my arrays and so on. It's now in production and works fine for several weeks. So your advice and assumption were both corrects. I suspect it won't provide the best perf it could, but it's not a big deal, the most important was it to deliver at least the same perf level as the current MSA500g2 does, which is the case, and even slightly above...

Thanks for your thoughts about that!

[TarunJain]

Hi Slingshot2000,
Thanks for sharing your experience and also it was very nice to find out needed info in specs of DL585 G2.
Keep it up
Tarun