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R720XD HBA controller w/ 12 drives
Hello,
Recently we acquired a Dell PowerEdge R720XD with 12 sata disk drives. It has quickly come to our attention that the Perc h710mini is not capable of hba/passthrough mode which is what we require.
On the forums I have seen people recommending the SAS 9207-8i to overcome this.
I don't have much experience with HBAs and after looking at the white page for the SAS 9207-8i im a little confused as to whether this will work for my application.
On the white page for SAS 9207-8i it says "The SAS 9207-8i has two (x4) internal mini-SAS connectors (SFF8087)". To me this seems to indicate that only 4 drives can be connected to each of the two internal ports. However on the R720XD the backplane is split into two sets of 6 drives.
Am I misunderstanding this?
Thanks!
Phil-K
2 Posts
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March 19th, 2019 09:00
No activity related to this thread so I'll just provide an update here as I'm about to move forward with my purchase.
For some reason there is little documentation on the on the particular back plane I have in this R720XD which is a 12x3.5". Most of the info out there is related to 8x3.5 or 24x2.5.
In any case it appears that the SFF-8087 mini sas standard is 4 lane (4 device) regardless of where it is used. It appears though that the back plane must operate as an expander which will permit 6 drives to be funnelled through a 4 lane SFF-8087.
I'm going to grab a 9207-8i and the required cables (two (2) SFF-8087 to SFF-8087 90 degree right angle).
It will be a few days before I get them in hand but I will update this thread with my results in case there are any other inexperienced users with similar questions.
DaveHeritage
1 Message
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October 10th, 2019 14:00
I am curious about the outcome. I have had similar concerns with the T620 and needing a basic HBA for storage spaces use. How did it go?
russ_sa
1 Message
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November 24th, 2019 21:00
Also interested in this outcome as I'm in a similar position. Thank you.
LinusLi
2 Posts
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November 25th, 2019 01:00
You can replace it with an H310 adapter that has passthrough mode, or you can just set up RAID0 for each individual HDD on H710 as a special solution.
jason389953
1 Message
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June 17th, 2021 10:00
So @Phil-K how did it turn out? You never came back to let us know if it worked.
ServerExperte
1 Message
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July 9th, 2021 01:00
I am aware that this topic is already a few years old, but just in case someone comes across the same problem.
H710 is build by LSI and maybe designed by Dell. But it has Dell specific firmware on the card. And you right it has by nature no passtru in comparison to an HBA. The idea with making every single disk into RAID 0 and present it to OS is working but in case of disk failure I wish you good luck to fix it. VSAN does not like it.
If you google a little bit after H710 flash firmware you will find a nice website with step by step instruction and it transforms your H710 to an HBA but remember remove the battery from your H710. No longer needed as HBA.
I done it for a T620 with PCI H710 and for R720/R720XD with H710 mini D1 and it works great for VSAN and for Freenas too. But you also can put the H310 inside.