Difference between PERC S300 and 6/I - 6/IR ?

Hello Peter

Are these card identical with just different firmare loads or do the people selling them have them labeled wrong?

No, they are very different cards. They should not be the same part numbers. They do use the same SAS cables as the PERC 6 on some systems.

Assuming it is a different firmware, will these 6/I 6IR cards work for VMWare with the existing cables, drives, etc?

No, the cards are not just running different firmware. The PERC and S300 are manufactured by different companies.

The PERC 6i and SAS 6/iR are both SAS controllers that support SATA. The S300 is a SATA controller. Any drive that functions on the S300 will likely work on the PERC 6 or SAS 6. That is not true going the other direction. SAS drives that work on the PERC/SAS will not work on the S300.

Regarding the cabling, we typically use a SAS cable for the S300. SAS cables will work for SAS or SATA. I'm not aware of a SATA cable for the S300, but if one exists then it would not work with the PERC or SAS. So, to my knowledge the cables are the same between the PERC 6, SAS 6, and S300. I would need the cable part number to be sure.

The R310 does not support a PERC 6/i. The variation of the S300 and SAS 6/iR that is supported on the R310 is modular. That version is a daughter board. It does not connect directly to the backplane or hard drives. There is a mini-SAS connector on the system board that routes to the slot that the modular card is installed in. The S300 and SAS 6/iR modular cards use the same cable in the R310.

Thanks

Ok, so the PERC 6/I is different from the S300.

How about the SAS 6/IR?  Dell has some documentation that lists both the SAS 6/IR and the S300 as having the same model number (Model UCS-60)

http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/corporate/environ/comply/pns_sas6ir_percs300_module.pdf

If they are different, how do I tell the difference?  Assuming they are different, will the SAS 6/IR  work with Linux/VMWare?  Is it the only modular card that will plug into the same slot and use the proprietary cable assembly already in the R-310?  I've seen some H200 modular adapters listed on eBay that look similar size/shape

Yes, they are very different cards. None of our cards are the same. We do not have any RAID controllers that are the same physical hardware differentiated by just firmware.

Yes, the SAS 6/iR is supported with Linux and VMware. Yes, the SAS 6/iR modular should work in the system using the same cables as the other modular cards. If the S300 you have is the modular version then the SAS 6/iR will use the same cable.

Thanks

Thank you for your reply.

So how do I tell the difference, since a lot of the ones being advertised as SAS 6/IR and PERC 6I look identical to my S300 cards including having the same model number?

My S300 cards aren't labeled anywhere as being S300, so I assume the SAS 6/IR also isn't labeled as a SAS 6/IR?

I thought I could tell by the model number, but apparently dell uses the same model number for different cards?

The model number "UCS-61" is not a specific Dell model number to identify the card.

For all intents and purposes, the S300 is simply a rebranded SAS 6/iR.  The major practical difference being that the S300 supports RAID levels 0/1/5/10 (5/10 poorly) and the SAS 6/iR supports only 0/1 (all you should ever really think about running on a low-end controller).  The S300 is advertised as a software RAID controller and the 6/iR is advertised as a hardware RAID controller.  I'm not sure how that works, given that the cards are practically identical, including the LSISAS1068E chip that runs them both, but the versioning of the chips differ, so LSI may have removed some processing functions and added organizational functions (RAID 5/10) in its place.

I would avoid either/both of these controllers.  You would even be better off with an H200 controller (low-end hardware RAID and will work with VMware).  You would be BEST served, however, to use the H700 (high-end hardware RAID and will work with VMware).  The PERC 6/i does not appear to be supported on the R310, but it would "probably" work, and it would be a much better choice than all but the H700.

The PERC 6/i is a completely different controller from the SAS 6/iR/S300:  256MB battery-backed cache, hardware RAID 0/1/5/6/10/50/60, supports up to 64 virtual disks, supports more physical drives than any modern server can hold, etc.  The 6/iR/S300 has no cache, low-end hardware/software implementation of 0/1 which is usually fine, but poor performance on 5/10 (S300), supports max of 2 virtual disks and 8 physical disks.  It is not unusual to see people selling things like SAS 6/i or PERC 6/iR or a UCS-61 PERC 6/i or UCS-61 PERC 6/iR, but they are confused and I wouldn't buy from someone who didn't know the difference.

Part Numbers (there exist several part numbers for each):

CR679 - SAS 6/iR
U558P - PERC S300

So how do I tell the difference, since a lot of the ones being advertised as SAS 6/IR and PERC 6I look identical to my S300 cards including having the same model number?

I don't know what the UCS number is. It could be the model of a chip on the board I don't know, but it is not the model number of the card itself. All of the cards are going to look nearly identical because they are all modular cards. They have to be the same size and shape to fit in the slot. The only way to know for sure is to get the part number off of the card. Find out what the part number of the card is and I can check to find out what card it is.

Thanks

I know that this is an old post, but I wanted to chime in here as I recently ran into this exact issue. You are absolutely correct in that both cards look exactly the same. HOWEVER, the S300 and PERC 6/I do not contain the same part number.

S300 - Dell P/N 0Y159P
6/I - Dell P/N 0HM030

Everything else about the card is nearly identical visually. What you will want to do is confirm that the item says 0HM030 on the back (it will be on a Dell label with the QR code). If it says 0Y159P, it is the S300, not the 6/I.

You are thinking of the SAS 6/iR. The PERC 6/i is completely different.