ML570 multiple P400 controllers?

[Ryan Brace]

We have an ML570 G4 with 18 internal SAS drives. Currently we have 1 Smart Array P400 controller to handle the disk arrays. We are looking to get improved I/O and thought that adding a 2nd P400 array controller to share the load with the other P400 controller would help us accomplish this.

The problem we think may happen is after looking at the i/o backplate behind the SAS drives themselves, we only see 1 connection which the current P400 is connected to.

So is it possible to split drives 1-9 on 1 controller and drives 10-18 on a second controller and would this give us improved I/O ? Also, how would we go about doing this?

[Kedd Guyton · Accepted solution]

No, the ML570 G4's 18-bays may only be connected to one channel of an SA-P400. If you need additional channels, add an external storage array to the ML570 G4 and either a SA-P600 or SA-P800 for 'external' SAS channels.