Is it safe to use a M1015 SAS Card in a !x PCIe slot?

[Suse User]

I'm ready to do a major upgrade to my UnRaid server, but there's still some performance issues with slow performance on the SuperMicro Motherboard and CPU combo I want to got for.

 

Until it is resolved whether the combo I intend to buy will work at full performance I'm sticking with my old system and I'm wondering whether it is safe to use an IMB M1015 PCIe SAS card in a 1x PCIe slot on my current Gigabyte GA-G33-DS3R Motherboard?

 

Mobo Link: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2535&dl=1#sp

 

I need some further expansion and that's the highest performance slot available as I already have a Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 in the 16x slot.

 

What do you think?

 

Thanks,

 

Mark.

[pettakos]

How are you supposed to fit it in physically?

If the slot is not cut at the lower end, you simply can't.

[Suse User]

How are you supposed to fit it in physically?

If the slot is not cut at the lower end, you simply can't.

 

I hadn't appreciated that as it hasn't arrived yet.  It looks to me from this image that there is a slot cut that should enable it to slot in the shorter socket (not the actual one I purchased).  I assumed the unused pins just hang behind the shorter socket.

 

There's no real problem here though as these parts were bought for my system upgrade hardware, but I'm waiting on a full resolution of the speed issues on the SuperMicro X9SCM-F Mobo in this thread.

 

In principle though, can you run a SAS card in a 1x socket?  Would things just go slower or would it cause issues?

[Ford Prefect]

I think there are not many among us who have ever tried...yes, a x4 slot is confirmed to work (at lower speed) but x1 

[Johnm]

I will assume the answer is no.. I say this because I have had other LSI cards fail in Asus 16x slots on some Desktop P7 Series motherboards.

 

This is because the 16x slot only has 16x power pin and the LSI card gets the power from the 4x (or was it the 8x?) connector.

 

I'm not saying it runs at 4x, that is where the power pin is on many LSI cards. It never fires up.

 

Plus it would be so slow after just a few drives.. you would pull your hair out..

[Suse User]

I had a feeling that it wouldn't work out too well.  Thanks for the input.

 

I ordered a RES2SV240 16-Port expander today so my new plan is to put an M1015 in the 16x slot and either:

 

1/ Run 1x SFF8087 SAS cable from 1 port on the M1015 to the RES2SV240 and have capacity for 20 disks off the RES2SV240 and 4 disks off the M1015

 

2/ Run 2 x SFF8087 SAS cable from the M1015 to the RES2SV24 and have capacity for 16 disks off the RES2SV240 and use the 8 SATA ports on the Mobo as well

 

I don't have that many disks yet, so would I be better off populating the RES2SV240 first?  Or sharing the load between the Mobo ports and the expander?

 

Thanks again for your opinions.