$202 Intel RES2SV240 24port SAS expander - PCIe x4 retail box

[tarataqa]

Buy.com just lowered this card $10 more.

Since it's a retail box, it should also come with 6 cables, but I couldn't find that in the description.

Buy.com's 45-day return policy is nice if there's trouble.

 

http://www.buy.com/pr/product.aspx?sku=217284266

 

I just got this to go with a server-pulled IBM M1015 card

http://www.ebay.com/itm/150690592470

 

[Rajahal]

Isn't 24 ports over a single PCIe x4 slot a bit of a bottleneck?  Probably not too critical in an unRAID set up, but I would be wary about spending this much on a card that would slow down my server.  Also, do these cards have an option to disable boot drives (similar to INT13 on the Supermicro cards)?

[c3]

As a fan out, it is limited to 20 with one uplink. The PCIe is only used for power...

[Johnm]

Isn't 24 ports over a single PCIe x4 slot a bit of a bottleneck?  Probably not too critical in an unRAID set up, but I would be wary about spending this much on a card that would slow down my server.  Also, do these cards have an option to disable boot drives (similar to INT13 on the Supermicro cards)?

 

The PCIe 4x is just a power source. alternately, you could use the molex power plug on the top and save the PCIe slot.

The OP is pairing this with an M1015 card. Since both of these are SAS2 bandwidth, he will be splitting the bandwith of a single 6Gig/s SAS2 port (off a PCIe 8x) into 5 SAS2 ports (at 1/5th the speed of 6Gb/s when all drives are active)...

It wont be a rocket. but he would get 20 ports at about the same speed as an saslp-MV8 in a PCIe 4x slot with 8 drives on it... plus he still has 4 ports at full SAS2 speed for the parity and 3 other drives..

unless he uses link aggregation for only 16, yet faster ports.

 

Think of an expander as a network switch for SAS.

 

the int13 would be controlled by the host card. in this case an M1015.

 

Awesome price for this by the way. great find!

I really wish I had the $200 to spare. this would free up 2x M1015's for me... (actually free up 2 MV8's as i would bump the m1015's to my second unraid box)

[tarataqa]

Exactly what John said.

 

I read his and fade23's posts about this card and I debated about whether to get 3 M1015's + cables (69x3+9.49x6+5shipping= $269) or 1 M1015 and this card (69+202=$271).

 

Then I debated about whether to use the M1015 + RES2SV240 as 16 fast SATA ports or 4 fast+20 slow. Since I'm using all green drives on the unRAID side, I'm taking fade23's point in thinking the rotational speed of the drives is the real limiting factor.

 

If I hate the speed, I can get another M1015 to have 24 fast disks on 2 PCIe slots

(albeit more expensive than just returning it and getting the 3 M1015s on 3 PCIe slots)

 

[Johnm]

Personally, i think it will be fine.

 

If there is a performance hit, it will be minimal and only during parity checks/builds.

[jbrodriguez]

As a fan out, it is limited to 20 with one uplink. The PCIe is only used for power...

 

yes, i'd love to get this for a 4224 das, but i'd come up short 4 drives

 

there's also a nice bargain at http://www.provantage.com/intel-res2sv240~7ITSP0V8.htm

[c3]

As a fan out, it is limited to 20 with one uplink. The PCIe is only used for power...

 

yes, i'd love to get this for a 4224 das, but i'd come up short 4 drives

 

there's also a nice bargain at http://www.provantage.com/intel-res2sv240~7ITSP0V8.htm

Checkout the 36 porter

 

[tarataqa]

As a fan out, it is limited to 20 with one uplink. The PCIe is only used for power...

 

yes, i'd love to get this for a 4224 das, but i'd come up short 4 drives

 

there's also a nice bargain at http://www.provantage.com/intel-res2sv240~7ITSP0V8.htm

This must be used in conjuction with a host card like the m1015.

You'll get 24 ports. 20 with this and 4 with the m1015.

Provantage is good too, even with shipping added.

[Johnm]

As a fan out, it is limited to 20 with one uplink. The PCIe is only used for power...

 

yes, i'd love to get this for a 4224 das, but i'd come up short 4 drives

 

there's also a nice bargain at http://www.provantage.com/intel-res2sv240~7ITSP0V8.htm

 

as mentioned, you can get 24 ports with this and an 8 port HBA.

 

If You build a DAS, you could leave you parity and cach in your HOST box off the second port on the HBA with ony one SFF-8088 cable. OR you can run 2 sff-8088 cables to the das wit ha set of these http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sas_cables_adapters/AD8788-2.asp.

 

If you are going to make a DAS I would go for the HP expander probably... thats a tough call...

besides. the 4220 is $100 cheaper then the 4224..

so the IBM card, rpc 4220 and 2 of these would be the way to go IMO for unraid.

 

 

Checkout the 36 porter

 

while the HP sas expander makes more sense because it has more ports including an external, it needs a PICe 4x for power or some sort of jury-rig.

 

plus the card is almost impossible to reflash the firmware without an actual HP raid card/server.

[Rajahal]

Thanks for the clarification, guys.  I haven't been keeping up on these SAS expanders as well as I should be!

[jbrodriguez]

...

so the IBM card, rpc 4220 and 2 of these would be the way to go IMO for unraid

 

...

 

you know what Johnm, i might just do that ... i've already purchased two m1015 (as per tarataqa suggestion http://www.ebay.com/itm/150690592470).

 

now since these m1015 dont have a bracket, i'm seriously considering running this cable betwen my host and the das 

[ccruzen]

Not sure if this is the right place to ask but for these M1015's without the bracket, what are you doing with them in the case?  Are you re-using a bracket from something else or do you have these "going commando" (without a bracket)?  Probably going the the M1015 and RES2SV240 direction on my build and interested to hear your solution.

Thanks.

[tarataqa]

I just had a bracket from another card that I used. I'd be interested too in another way to mount it.

 

I just got my Ebay M1015 and expander in. Followed the easy RAID-->IT flash instructions. I tried doing it on an Asus motherboard (didn't work), but my old Gigabyte board worked fine.

 

Hooked them up to my low-power ASUS AT3IONT-I system and ran parity on about 16 drives using 1 fast connection from the M1015 to the parity, cache, etc. and the other 12 using the expander via the other M1015 port. (still gotta buy one more SAS cable for the expander as I needed 7 total for 24 ports)

 

Parity check speeds for my green drives weren't horrible, about 40-50MBps on average. I'll have to check it later about how file transfer speeds are over gigabit.

 

EDIT: just transferred 30GB in 19min. DUmeter was between 300-500mbps. So far so good!