R440, PCI-e Slots, Raid Controller, Risers

Question

I have recently procured a Dell R440 for our business though i am trying to work out the additional parts i require, to maximise free PCI-E slots and enable hardware raid

It comes with a HBA330, which i believe would have been for their vSAN deployment

What i am looking at doing is maximizing my PCI-e slots (for pci-e storage) + Adding a raid controller for the 8x SFF drive bays

The box came with the following, which i believe would use PCI-E slots

405-AAOM : Internal PERC

405-AANK : HBA330 Controller Adapter, Low Profile

403-BBPM : BOSS controller card + with 2 M.2 Sticks 120G (RAID 1),LP

Though can someone explain to me what this line item is

330-BBHO : Riser Config 3, 2 x 16 LP

The pictures of the server seem to indicate it has the place holder for the riser extension

So can i add an additional riser? or am i getting confused (most likely)

Happy to share the service tag if it helps.

DELL-Shine K · Answer

R440 can have internal PERC riser for Internal PERC and can have 2 more PCIe LP slots apart from that. Looking at the details provided, you have HBA330 on internal PERC and one LP BOSS card. The riser you mentioned (330-BBHO : Riser Config 3, 2 x 16 LP) will support 2 LP PCIe slots. Can you take a picture of the system from top after removing the top cover and share it here. With that we can confirm what all riser you have on the server. You can also refer below links for location of Internal PERC riser and expansion card riser on R440.

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

mikeseclabs · Answer

Waiting on it to be delivered, hence why i was hoping we could figure it out from service tags / line items in the configuration.

Wanted to get the extra bits ordered asap

Any chance you can advise on which raid controller i should look towards? not after anything fancy, just being capable of raid 6.

Cheers

DELL-Shine K · Answer

@mikeseclabs , As your system have Riser Config 3 there will be three PCIe Slot and one OCP slot. 3 PCIe Slot include one internal slot for storage controller. Currently you have HBA330 and BOSS controller card as PCIe card. So your server will have one free PCIe slot. You currently have HBA330 Adapter as storage controller. As you are looking for RAID 6 capability, you need to replace it with H730P or H740P. R440 also support H330 Adapter but it does not have RAID 6 capability. You can get supported storage controller on R440 from below link

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

You can get more details on these controller from below link. Check under section "Series 10 Family" and "Series 9 Family" to get more details on storage controller.

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000131648/list-of-poweredge-raid-controller-perc-types-for-dell-emc-systems

mikeseclabs · Answer

The BOSS card will go the way of the dodo, Might just go with Raid 5 and the H330, does the board support the mini style, or just the normal PCI-E connector type

DELL-Shine K · Answer

You need to have Adapter card. Mini card is not supported on R440. You can refer below link to see the card and where to install this card

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

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R440, PCI-e Slots, Raid Controller, Risers

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