EH957A Tape Drive question

[twixyl]

I'm not sure this is even the right venue for my question so if I'm in the wrong place, my apologies.

I don't work with this sort of hardware so I'm out of my depth and need some assistance.  Any is appreciated.

I have to try to install the above noted drive in a Win10-64 computer and need to know what HBA/controller I should use.  My understanding is that the P212 works with this drive but it's not clear that it will run under that OS.

Is this my best option or should I try to use another card such as the H222 or H220?

TIA for any help or advice.

[Curtis_Ballard]

The H222 is preferred over the P212 for any configurations where those cards are supported however neither is going to be officially supported on a Windows 10 platform.  They are supported for Windows Server operating systems.  They do work on Windows 10 but getting them going isn't straight forward.

Your best option for  a "supported" configuration would be to use the Avago/LSI 9217-4i4e which is listed as supported with HPE tape in the DAPR matrix and LSI/Avago/Broadcom just lists "Windows" under supported OS versions without any qualifier of server versions only so it should be supported by Broadcom on Win 10.

[twixyl]

That's extremely helpful.  Thank you.

If you might indulge me two further questions . . . do I need to get the Avago brand version of this card?  The reason I ask is that I've search for 'LSI 9217-4i4e' on Ebay and there seem to be several brands including one version from HP.  I generally like to maintain consistency with vendors when using 'new-to-me' hardware so my personal bias would be for the HP card.

The other question has to do with drivers.  It's probably too much to expect that these cards would be plug and play so do you know if I would be able to get the drivers from HP and/or LSI?

Thank you again so much for taking the time out to help me.

[Curtis_Ballard · Accepted solution]

The existence of the HP version of the LSI/Avago 9217-4i4e is the reason that this is the recommended card for connectivity outside of the HPE Server configurations.  It was easy to qualify.  Either version of that controller is fine.  I don't think HP even provides firmware or drivers for the card, I believe that you will pull those from Avago (now Broadcom).  I took a quick look and didn't see any updates for those controllers on the HP site.

[twixyl]

Thank you again for your help :)

[twixyl]

It turns out that I have one additional question.  Hopefully this will be the last.

I looked up the installation guide and as best as I can tell, the cable I need seems to be an SFF-8482 type since that seems to be the only type of SAS cable that has a power connector.  Is that in fact the cable I need to get for this drive?

BTW, I received the HP LSI 9217 4e4i card and it installed under Win10 perfectly.  Well, as best as I can tell anyway.  There are no errors that I see in device manager but I also can't seem to locate it's entry.  

edit - I tried to insert a link to the guide but got an error message.  Here is the link in plain text.

http://pdfstream.manualsonline.com/7/7e03bf5a-7757-4086-8b8a-73c19b2ad537.pdf

[Curtis_Ballard]

It looks like you figured out the right cable.  The EH957A is an internal drive so you will need to connect to the SFF 8087 connector on the HBA.  The connector on the drive is SFF 8482.  So you will want an SFF 8482 to SFF 8087 cable.

[twixyl]

Thanks again.  Your help has been invaluable.

Now the real test will be once I get the cable and hook everything up.  Wish me luck. :-)