HDD bandwidth is determined by the RAID controller itself or the back planar/enclosure itself?

[JediFonger]

ML350 G5 P/N 419521-005 

ML350 G5 P/N 470064-837

^both of those have E200i raid card. I'm thinking about upgading to P410:

https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-c01677092

^according to those specs, 6Gb/s is supported. but from googling around and even posts in these forums, there is some confusion on whether the enclosure will limit that from 6 to 3Gb/s. i didn't think enclosures did anything like that... doesn't enclosures just fan out the HDDs for you to plug in? why would it determine the HDD bandwidth?

so would it be 3 or 6? i'm thinking about possibly doing SSDs... that's why the questions.

also... i also read there are single virtual disk limitations... of something like 1 to 2TB, is inherent issue of chipset or will this raid card tak me to larger disk capacities of beyond 4TB per disk?

[Suman_1978 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

As far as I know, Backplane is just a hardware piece which connects hdd to controller via cable.
3GB/s or 6GB/s depends on array controller and hard drives.

6GB/s may run at 3GB/s in the following cases:
1. Hard Drive and Controller is not compatible with each other.
2. Controller or firmware does not support 6GB/s speed.
3. SAS/SATA cable is faulty or not compatible.
4. SAS Expander card may require a firmware update.
5. Hard drive firmware update may be required.

Thank You!
I am a HPE employee
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[JediFonger]

thank you! i thought so, but there are circumstances where that may or may not be true but just wanted to check, thank you!