August 22, 201015 yr Does anyone have any SAS drives running under unRAID? I have a 15k RPM drive I would like to use as my Cache drive as it hosts my Virtual Machines and I am trying to speed those up a bit. In order to do this, I know I need to purchase a new PCIe controller, which will probably be the HighPoint RocketRaid 2640x1 (http://highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series_rr2600.htm) - this is about the only option I have seen that meets my needs. I have a different Highpoint adapter that is working fine, so I hope there are no issues with this new controller. I understand another option would be to purchase a SSD drive, but the above option makes the most economical sense at this time based upon the hardware that I have and the drive size needed.
August 22, 201015 yr I can't say this is absolutely correct, but from what I can gather looking at the documentation and drivers... It uses the 6445 chipset which uses the 'mvsas' driver for support. This driver is not included out of the kernel source tree, instead the MVSAS driver from the SCST project is used. That driver supports the following chips: 6320, 6440, 6485, 9480, 9180. It does not support the 6445. Even the Linux Kernel 2.6.35.2 drivers natively do not support the 6445 chip. Is there any reason you couldn't connect this SAS drive up to the supported Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 card (chipset 6485)?
August 22, 201015 yr Author I can't say this is absolutely correct, but from what I can gather looking at the documentation and drivers... It uses the 6445 chipset which uses the 'mvsas' driver for support. This driver is not included out of the kernel source tree, instead the MVSAS driver from the SCST project is used. That driver supports the following chips: 6320, 6440, 6485, 9480, 9180. It does not support the 6445. Even the Linux Kernel 2.6.35.2 drivers natively do not support the 6445 chip. Is there any reason you couldn't connect this SAS drive up to the supported Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 card (chipset 6485)? Thank you for the detailed explanation. Yes, I cannot use the supported AOC-SASLP-MV8 due to the PCIe x4 bus. My motherboard only has 3 PCIe x1 buses and a x16 for video. I am not sure if the video bus can be used for the card or not and if the motherboard supports PCI video cards. The motherboard is a Gigabyte P965 DS3 v3 and has served me well up until now so I see no reason to change it. I have a Q9400 CPU running in it too, so I'm happy as can be minus the PCIe buses. I am also not 100% sure how the break-out cables work for that card. The SAS drives have a single (solid no gap) connector for power and data whereas the SATA drives have a gap in between them. So, the break-out cables for that card have standard SATA connectors which will not plug into a SAS drive (as I understand). The drive I have has an adapter that breaks out the SAS connection to a standard SATA connector and standard power; however there will be no way to plug that cable into the AOC-SASLP-MV8 card. Free hardware is never free...
August 22, 201015 yr Afaik, there should be no issues with using an x4 card in a "video" x16 slot, nor should there be any problems putting an old PCI video card into one of the PCI slots for video support. Look it up, but in the Asus board i have, I use a 4 port x1 sata card in my x16 slot without issue, along with a PCI video card.
August 23, 201015 yr I am also not 100% sure how the break-out cables work for that card. The SAS drives have a single (solid no gap) connector for power and data whereas the SATA drives have a gap in between them. So, the break-out cables for that card have standard SATA connectors which will not plug into a SAS drive (as I understand). The drive I have has an adapter that breaks out the SAS connection to a standard SATA connector and standard power; however there will be no way to plug that cable into the AOC-SASLP-MV8 card. Free hardware is never free... Well you allways have to buy two cables for the AOC-SASLP-MV controller and in your case you need one of them to be different (like the one in the Ebay listing below): http://cgi.ebay.com/iSAS-7382-F-SFF-8087-4-SFF-8482-29-Pin-SAS-cable-/180542712817?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0 There are cheaper versions of this one available (but they do not have a such a nice picture) and the cost of this cable is similar to the usual SAS to 4 SATA forward breakout cable that you are going to use on the other channel. And if you do not want to use EBay's you can buy a "brand name" cable from Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=SFF-8482&x=0&y=0 If you are using Norco 4220 or 4224 then you just use the regular SFF8087 to SFF8087 cables ( you should never breakout SAS drive to a pure SATA controller - such as your motherboard ports).
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