Dell PE 2950 hba cards

Sorry....for above question, if the server has 3 PCI slots and there is an existing integrated dual port NIC, how many HBA card can fit in the server?  Pls assist....thks

Why would you want any more than two HBAs? The system can use 2 HBAs. Dell typically use Qlogic HBAs, i'd suggest sticking with them.

My customer wants 3 units of the card for the rack server.

A 2950 can either hold 3 PCIe cards or 1 PCIe + 2 x PCI-X (133/64). It uses 2 riser's; one is always PCIe and the other is either dual PCIe or dual PCI-X.

So depending on what riser you have and what kind of NIC you have the exact option for HBAs depends on the riser.

You could always go with dual port HBAs. In PCIe there's the QLE2462 for instance or in PCI-X you could get the QLA2462. These are both Qlogic adapters. I know that the QLE2462 is supported for sure, as Dell even sells it in the server when you build one on the dell.com website. You'd have to check the QLA2462. I remember it not being validated, but that's probably due to Dell not expecting someone to buy a new server and put in a 4Gbit PCI-X (older architecture) HBA.

Does it make sense though to put in 3 units of dual port HBA card in a single server?  Appreciate ur feedback.

Probably not. That said, i don't know what the customer wants.

Why exactly does the customer want three HBAs? How is their environment setup/going to be setup?