Dell R710 + H200 - SAS Cables

[sibi78]

Hi All,

I'm a newbie to home server design, and I'm trying to put together a home server to serve my NAS needs (most likely Unraid). I've bought a Dell PowerEdge R710 with 3.5 inch drives (LFF) off of ebay, and it came with the PERC 6i controller, which I believe can't be flashed into IT mode (from what I read in several forums). So, I've bought a Dell H200A on ebay.

 

I'm going to follow @Fireball3's suggestions from here: https://forums.unraid.net/topic/74225-dell-h200-on-dell-poweredge-r710-clarifications/?tab=comments#comment-683740 to cross-flash the H200A to IT mode. However, with the current IR firmware that's in the H200A, the R710 wouldn't boot if I plugged the H200A in the internal storage slot ( I see the invalid card in internal storage slot error). So, I'm assuming that after I flash the IT mode FW on the H200A, I should be plugging it in a different PCIe slot.

 

My question is on the SAS cables to connect the H200A in the external PCIe slot to the backplane. I  read on several forums that this cable on Aliexpress: (CY Ultra Slim Flat Left Angled 90 Degree Mini SAS 36 pin SFF-8087 to 8087 data cables 80cm long) can be used to connect the H200 to the R710 backplane. This cable apparently is the cheaper knock off of the dell M246M cables.

 

- Would these cables work on a LFF 3.5 inch R710 backplane with the H200?

 - If the H200 sits on an external storage PCIe slot, would this cable (80 cm) be long enough to
reach the backplane? Or are there even longer versions of the same cable.

 

I'm currently stuck without the SAS cable to connect the H200 to the backplane. Any help is much appreciated!