What eSATA card shall I use on ML350 G5?

[deckking]

Hi, what eSATA card shall I use inside ML350 G5? There is a port on board marked "SATA optical connector", thus not likely to be able to connect to eSATA hard drive. What eSATA card(controller) shall I use? I did search here but no direct answer.

Thanks......

[Ali · Accepted solution]

Hi there,

Server supports many controllers have external connector. Generally it is used to connect external devices like MSA,tape drive etc. So how exactly you want to connect the external SATA drive? which drive is it?

These are SAS controller but supports SATA by default.
HP Smart Array P800 Controller
HP Smart Array P600 Controller
HP SC44Ge Host Bus Adapter

Check quickspecs for more details
http://vb.net/products/HP/12475_div.html#Options

thanks,
Aftab

[deckking]

Thanks a lot Aftab for the reply, I will be using the eSATA port to connect Lacie external hard drives (sometime may be other brand) so I can copy over the files from external hard drive to ML350 G5 and then backup to LTO tape.

Thanks for the advise.......

[Ali]

thanks for your response.

please don't forget to assign points if you think information provided is helpful..:)

Cheers!
aftab

[deckking]

Aftab, your reply is helpful so just gave the points........ :)

Those 3 SAS controller do support SATA hard drive but they're internal, I need eSATA port on the card so I can connect eSATA hard drive.

Any controller you would suggest?

Thank you.

[deckking]

Aftab, your reply is helpful so just gave the points........ :)

Those 3 SAS controller do support SATA hard drive but they're internal, I need eSATA port on the card so I can connect external eSATA hard drive.

Any controller you would suggest?

Thank you.

[Sudhakar Subramaniam]

Smart Array 6402/128 Controller
273915-B21
Smart Array 6404/256 Controller
273914-B21
Smart Array 642 Controller

These can be used to connect external storage

[Ali]

HI Deckking,

What I understand from eSata is eSATA (e=external) provides a variant of SATA meant for external connectivity.

eSata hard drive comes in external casing with USB and FireWire interface.

ML350 G5 has 3 USB ports. 3rd USB port can be shared with eSATA external hard drives.

so please let me know what kind of interface you have on eSata hard drive.

Controller options that I have provided earlier keeping the external SATA/SAS drives in mind which could be part of JBOD / SATA enclosure or eSATA casing.

thanks,
Aftab

[deckking]

Yes, eSATA means external SATA port, which is used to connect another SATA hard drive enclusure or dock.

The eSATA hard drive is a Lacie box which is 6GB in size but has 4 physical disks, so it's RAID 5 built-in already I think, and the server recognize it as one big external drive when connecting via USB cable.

This Lacie box has USB, FIREWIRE & eSATA interfaces (I can get the detailed model # when I arrive home late today).

Besides connecting the lacie box, I will also sometimes need to connect internal SATA hard drive via this dock:
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=14_679&item_id=018433

Thanks Aftab........

[deckking]

BTW, "ML350 G5 has 3 USB ports. 3rd USB port can be shared with eSATA external hard drives."

How can you share USB port with eSATA external hard drive since the interface is different?

[Ali]

hi Deckking,

good information.

I had checked on the vendor site and found eSata enclosure generally has two interfaces USB and firewire, so you can connect to server using USB interface.

Since you have shared more info and your esata enclosure has more than 3 interfaces (USB, firewire and eSata) I will check for any compatible eSata controller for ML350 G5 server.

Also just wanted to clarify... in your eSata enclosure you have 4 hard drive with integrated raid 5 but USB see only 1 drive..
Operating system does not understand hardware raid and it looks at the logical drive as a single drive so it should be fine but what you need to notice is that the size of the drive that you see in windows.. if you see esata hard drive which is your logical drive at enclosure is bigger than actual physical hard drive then its working as designed. means you see consolidated 3 hdd space as 1 hard drive in OS

Hope this clarifies.

thanks,
Aftab