mixing SAS/SATA drives

[micromacromonkey]

Hi all

My client has a lightly used DL360 GL5 (running BackupExec). It has a pair of SAS drives set up as a RAID 1 system partition. Can I add 4 SATA drives in and set up as a RAID 5 array? I think I may need to upgrade the E200i (BBWC uprgade?) to get RAID 5 but will it work?

The reason for this is the client has 4 ESX servers with an almost-full SAN, they want to archive some data off but still have it online, so tape not an option. The data will be very lightly used. I figured I could set up an iSCSI target on the DL360 then mount the vmfs filesystem on there. I'd have have a 750GB RAID 5 array for the price of 4 SATA disks and the iSCSI target software. (another MSA30 with enough disks to do this is around 20 grand!)

thanks, Dan

[Andrew Young_2]

Hi Dan

The short answer is that you cannot mix SATA and SAS drives on the same channel. Bays 1-4 use the same connection (channel) to the controller, but bays 5-6 on some models can be connected to another controller. I'm not sure whether it is possible though to have different disk types on a controller.

I think your least cost option would be to use SAS drives. Some model of the DL360 have all 6 drive bays enabled, others only have bays 1-4.

HTH

Andrew Y

[Andrew Young_2]

Hi Dan

I need to make a correction. The E200 controller series are universal controllers and you can mix and match SAS/SATA drives on the unit.

Again the restriction is 4 drives per channel.

Regards

Andrew Y

[micromacromonkey]

Hi Andrew

Thanks very much for your reply, so just to clarify your second response, I can mix the two types but not on the same channel?

My reason for suggesting SATA was cost and size based, with 4 250GB drives I could get a 750GB RAID 5 drive, I would only be able to do 420GB with SAS I think?

However I'm guessing that the system drives are on ports 1 and 2 of channel 1 so perhaps I would need to move them to the second channel to leave me 4 free ports on the first channel.

[Andrew Young_2]

Hi Dan

If you have the E series RAID controller on your server it is highly probable that only drive bays 1-4 are enabled. To enable the other two you would need to buy an optional cable or update to a P-series RAID controller which supports 6 drives per bus.

Once channel 2 on the e-series is enabled you could move the boot disks there and enable them to boot from channel 2.

Although I have never tried it, the documentation seems to suggest it is possible to have both SAS and SATA drives on the same channel.

[Andrew Young_2]

Hi Dan

If you have the E series RAID controller on your server it is highly probable that only drive bays 1-4 are enabled. To enable the other two you would need to buy an optional cable or update to a P-series RAID controller which supports 6 drives per bus.

Once channel 2 on the e-series is enabled you could move the boot disks there and enable them to boot from channel 2.

Although I have never tried it, the documentation seems to suggest it is possible to have both SAS and SATA drives on the same channel.

Regards

Andrew Y

[Andrew Young_2 · Accepted solution]

Hi Dan

I have done some additional reading. The onboard E200 controller on the DL360G5 only supports a single channel. You will need to purchase an addon P400 controller (BBWC recommended) and the additional cable to access bays 5-6.

Regards

Andrew Y

[micromacromonkey]

thanks mate, your effort is much appreciated.