$80 - Intel RS2WC080 RAID Controller SAS/SATA MD2 6GB/s PCIe 2.0x8 New Retail Bo


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Ever since I ventured into the $69 Xeon CPU E5-2670 rabbit hole this past week, I've been trolling ebay for NIB surplus Intel server components.  I encountered one seller who appears to have a metric $hit ton of surplus Intel stock.  While they advertise pretty high prices, on their auctions they've been accepting what I consider reasonable offers.

 

Per this posts topic, they have http://www.ebay.com/itm/201389073881 listed for $240.00 with $10 shipping, however I offered $70 which they accepted (with $10 shipping, so $80 all in).  This is new in box RETAIL package.  Shipping fedex ground from them in New Hampshire to me in MN was 3 days.

 

I just bought a second RS2WC080 from them, also from an accepted $70 offer +shipping...

 

YMMV,

Jake

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Is running a 4 SATA drives off of one of these equivalent to running on SATA3 bandwidth for each drive? Other than RAID what benefit would I have running this card than running a 4 or 8 port SATA3 PCIE card?

 

Yes, exactly.

 

To use this card with unRAID,it needs to be flashed with the LSI SAS2008 IR/IT firmware which strips out the RAID features and turns the card into a plain old 8 port SATA/SAS card.

 

Per the LSI Controller FW updates IR/IT modes topic:

https://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12767.0

I found the following excerpt on ServeTheHome.com and could not say it better myself:

It is a well known practice that many vendors re-brand LSI RAID cards and host bus adapters (HBAs) using different firmware and re-sell them as their own. Oftentimes, re-branded cards are less expensive to acquire than their LSI counterparts making re-brands highly desirable.

 

It is also well known that using the initiator-target (IT) firmware mode is a great way to give up the RAID features of the cards, treating the cards instead as simple HBAs in IT mode. In turn, this allows operating systems that handle parity calculations to directly access the drives, thereby reducing the rate of TLER dropouts from RAID arrays among other things.

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This is the card I purchased awhile back and am using in my UnRaid box now. I will carry this over to the Xeon box once I receive everything. Sits at about the same price as this Intel card although I lack SAS compatibility plus the longer integrated cabling that SAS brings with it.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Ableconn-PEX10-SAT-Port-Express-Adapter/dp/B0177GBY0Y/ref=sr_1_27?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1457061830&sr=1-27-spons&keywords=8+port+sata+3&psc=1

 

Still on the fence with getting one or two of the Intel cards.

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i ended up buying one after all. I tried for $60 but they came back at $70. Now I just need to buy mini-SAS to SATA cables. Recommendations or just go with the least expensive option?

 

As this is the RETAIL box, it comes with two mini-SAS cables (2 x Internal Cable SFF8087).  However they may *not* be what you specifically need...  But if it is, then you've just saved $20-$40 on cables...

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i ended up buying one after all. I tried for $60 but they came back at $70. Now I just need to buy mini-SAS to SATA cables. Recommendations or just go with the least expensive option?

 

As this is the RETAIL box, it comes with two mini-SAS cables (2 x Internal Cable SFF8087).  However they may *not* be what you specifically need...  But if it is, then you've just saved $20-$40 on cables...

 

Sweet deal. I will keep the cables but yeah I am specifically looking for mini-SAS to 4xSATA. This should reduce cable clutter since mini-SAS is consolidated into the one mini-SAS connector.

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i ended up buying one after all. I tried for $60 but they came back at $70. Now I just need to buy mini-SAS to SATA cables. Recommendations or just go with the least expensive option?

 

As this is the RETAIL box, it comes with two mini-SAS cables (2 x Internal Cable SFF8087).  However they may *not* be what you specifically need...  But if it is, then you've just saved $20-$40 on cables...

 

Sweet deal. I will keep the cables but yeah I am specifically looking for mini-SAS to 4xSATA. This should reduce cable clutter since mini-SAS is consolidated into the one mini-SAS connector.

 

So you need what's called a forward break-out cable.  I've purchased several from monoprice.com http://www.monoprice.com/Product?p_id=8187 for my Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8.

 

I haven't yet received my RS2WC080's to positively identify what mini-sas cables are in the box...  But earlier in the week I had received a NIB P4000M 4U server chassis, proper airduct (NIB) for that chassis (with the unique cable kit for my S2600CP mobo from natex.com), RMM4 management module (NIB), and S2600CP IO shield (NIB); all from this seller via Offers at what I consider bargain basement liquidation prices :)

 

What's interesting, is that the NIB Case, and NIB Airduct (with unique cable kit) each came with a 4 port SATA -> mini-sas cable (to connect individual SATA ports to the 8 port SATA/SAS 8x3.5" HD hotswap enclosure that came with the P4000M case)...  I doubt I'll ever use those sata -> mini-sas cables...

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But earlier in the week I had received a NIB P4000M 4U server chassis, proper airduct (NIB) for that chassis (with the unique cable kit for my S2600CP mobo from natex.com), RMM4 management module (NIB), and S2600CP IO shield (NIB); all from this seller via Offers at what I consider bargain basement liquidation prices :)

 

Looks like the RMM4 you got is OOS, but the following are still available from kelleyomalley.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-AXXRMM4IOM-RMM4-rIOM-Carrier-Board-Kit-New-Open-Box-Sealed-Inside-/201485745208?hash=item2ee97c7c38:g:ATEAAOSw3ydVu8p0

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-AXXRMM4IOMW-RMM4-rIOM-Carrier-Board-Kit-New-Bulk-Packaging-/381422389124?hash=item58ce8bc784:g:P4EAAOSwBahVN~du

 

Would these also work with the S2600CP mb?

 

I will be mounting in an existing 4U case, and might need a power supply extension cord for the strangely located 24 pin power on this mb.  Otherwise the i/o shield should be all I need to get this running.

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But earlier in the week I had received a NIB P4000M 4U server chassis, proper airduct (NIB) for that chassis (with the unique cable kit for my S2600CP mobo from natex.com), RMM4 management module (NIB), and S2600CP IO shield (NIB); all from this seller via Offers at what I consider bargain basement liquidation prices :)

 

Looks like the RMM4 you got is OOS, but the following are still available from kelleyomalley.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-AXXRMM4IOM-RMM4-rIOM-Carrier-Board-Kit-New-Open-Box-Sealed-Inside-/201485745208?hash=item2ee97c7c38:g:ATEAAOSw3ydVu8p0

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-AXXRMM4IOMW-RMM4-rIOM-Carrier-Board-Kit-New-Bulk-Packaging-/381422389124?hash=item58ce8bc784:g:P4EAAOSwBahVN~du

 

Would these also work with the S2600CP mb?

 

I will be mounting in an existing 4U case, and might need a power supply extension cord for the strangely located 24 pin power on this mb.  Otherwise the i/o shield should be all I need to get this running.

 

What are these for? I will be receiving the board next week. Does the board not come with a dedicated IPMI interface and, if not, then are these supposed to provide that capability?

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The mother board comes with ipmi, but not a dedicated port. This card will make it more robust, in the event of a system lockup, where the other ports no longer respond.

 

My board is still coming, so I leave it to others to explain what the limits to ipmi on this Intel MB are without this add-on card.

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You won't, that is *not* the RMM4 module that you want.  Here's the product compat page for that module (the Intel S2600CP2J board is not on it):

http://ark.intel.com/products/60194/RMM4--rIOM-Carrier-Board-Kit-AXXRMM4IOM?q=AXXRMM4IOM#@compatibility

 

You want either AXXRMM4LITE or AXXRMM4:

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/server-management/intel-remote-management-module.html

 

The AXXRMM4LITE is *only* the hardware key, this plugs into a teeny/tiny little socket on the upper left corner of the mobo and unlocks the advanced features such as remote KVM (what I suspect that you are interested in the most), and you'll use one of the two onboard NICs for Management traffic.

 

The AXXRMM4 comes *with* the AXXRMM4LITE hardware key _and_ a dedicated Management NIC board (with mounting brackets into either a square chassis hole, or a card slot bracket).

 

Note, that neither of these are required for you to successfully use this motherboard with unRAID; these just allow you to access the server via the network (Keyboard, Video, Mouse aka KVM) without *having* any of those connected directly to the server box, etc.  It's a Remote Manageability feature is all.  I got mine for ~$16 (evidently it was the last one that this seller had), so that's why *I* have it - it was cheap. 

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What ipmi is available without this?  I am mostly needing remote power control via IP.  I can then remotely turn servers on and off from half a world away.

 

The BMC provides IPMI 2.0 features per the manual:

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/support/us/en/documents/motherboards/server/s2600cp/sb/g26942005_s2600cp_p4000cp_tps_rev19.pdf

 

...so I'd expect that you'd be able to use ./ipmitool to do basic this like bring up the SEL (system event log), and do the various power on/off stuff.  There is also an embedded BMC web console where you can do all that stuff, but I'm not certain if that is unlocked by the RMM key or is avail without it...  I think it is avail without the RMM key.

 

If I understand it correctly, the RMM key unlocks remote KVM and USB Virtual Media Redirection (mount USB media from another computer remotely) ...

 

Regards,

Jake

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