HP SAS Expander Owner's Thread

Just to confirm (since it'll be an expensive purchase...), the *external port* of the Areca 1680ix series works fine with the HP SAS expander, correct? And any hard drives directly connected to the onboard expander ports (should) work seamlessly too? Thanks.
 
I had issues with mine. The integrated SAS expander on the 1680ix series seems to really screw with things.
 
Edit: Never mind, I see Odditory confirmed that the SFF-8088 port is direct and people have still had issues connecting it to the expander.
 
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Amfeltec, a small Canadian outfit, makes PCI-E x1 "risers" for debugging. The riser has two boards, the "interface" which goes into the host and the "adapter" which holds the PCI-E card. They're connected by a flex cable.

Of interest to us is the adapter, which can be powered by a Molex floppy connector:

x1pcie-adptr-atxpw.jpg


Assuming you don't mind using the enclosure power supply's switch for on/off (which it seems the Orbitmicro board has problems with anyway), AND you can/will dremel the x1 slot's edge to make it open ended, it could be a good alternative to power the HP expander. They will sell just the adapter board for $22, but shipping via mail is a bit steep at $15.

Any folks here who'd like to try one? Could do a mini-group-buy to amortize the shipping :)
 
Blue Fox...Did you end up switching over to the 1680x and HP Expanders or are you gonna wait for the new Areca cards you mentioned before?
 
Sorta both? I bought a 1680i and I will purchase one of the new cards when they are released as well.
 
LOL... Awesome...Are u just connecting 1-8087 to the expander or 2 for the higher bandwidth?
 
izx said:
Just to confirm (since it'll be an expensive purchase...), the *external port* of the Areca 1680ix series works fine with the HP SAS expander, correct? And any hard drives directly connected to the onboard expander ports (should) work seamlessly too? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Yes. Any 1680 series card using the SFF-8088 port to connect to the HP expander will be fine. I've tried six or seven different 1680 cards, including "ix" series, and never had a problem. The only problems I've heard from people seemed to be related to other variables like a questionable motherboard or SFF-8088 cable. FWIW I only use Supermicro motherboards in my servers. If anyone DOES have a problem feel free to post about it.

However, incorrect that ANY drives will work on the internal ports of an Areca 1680ix (or Adaptec 5 series card greater than 8 ports for that matter), due to the onboard expander. Example Seagate 1.5Tb CC1H drives and some Western Digital 1Tb's and 2Tb's will drop during an array build. That's outside of the scope of this expander thread though so see the dedicated Areca thread for any more questions on that subject.
 
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Has anyone had any success cascading (daisy-chaining) two or more HP SAS expanders? There was some talk earlier in the thread about trying it, but I did not see any results posted.

The application would be to use 2 HP SAS expanders with a Supermicro 847A chassis with 36 drives. I am envisioning just connecting the SAS expanders together with an SFF-8087 to SFF-8087 cable, and then connecting an Areca 1680X to one of the expanders. And, of course, all 9 multilane connectors on the chassis backplanes would be connected to various ports on the HP SAS expanders.

If that does not work, there are obviously other configurations that could avoid cascading the expanders, but the above would be my first choice if it works, since that would make it easy to also connect up additional external chassis to the same 1680X.
 
That should work just fine...or at least I'm betting on it working that way as I'm about to order my 2nd one.
 
Our stock was depleted this morning, we have a truck due in tomorrow with more gear, and more of these cards, but our cost from HP has increased. You'll see new pricing of $225 before shipping online, and $225 shipped from me offline. Send me a PM if you wish to order.

Thank you folks-

Dustin
 
Does the ARC-1300-4X show all the drive temps and activity like it does with the supermicro?
 
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I just pulled the trigger on an HP SAS Expander, a Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8, 2x 8087 to 8087 and 7x 8087 to 4 SATA fanout cables. I will use these on a Norco 4020 case, so I hope I got the right cables :)
 
cartman123 said:
I just pulled the trigger on an HP SAS Expander, a Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8, 2x 8087 to 8087 and 7x 8087 to 4 SATA fanout cables. I will use these on a Norco 4020 case, so I hope I got the right cables :)
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7x Fanout cables? You only need 5
 
Because I have seen too many reports of the EL1s not playing well with Areca SAS controllers.
 
cartman123 said:
I just pulled the trigger on an HP SAS Expander, a Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8, 2x 8087 to 8087 and 7x 8087 to 4 SATA fanout cables. I will use these on a Norco 4020 case, so I hope I got the right cables :)
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I'm in the process of doing the same. However, I've been debating just buying the newer 4220 w/SAS boards instead of the fanouts... sigh... I may just keep the case and use the fanouts as the 2nd case w/the system...

Are you planning on running it w/WHS? or Linux? Just curious since there's no RAID controller...
 
Bookmage said:
I'm in the process of doing the same. However, I've been debating just buying the newer 4220 w/SAS boards instead of the fanouts... sigh... I may just keep the case and use the fanouts as the 2nd case w/the system...

Are you planning on running it w/WHS? or Linux? Just curious since there's no RAID controller...
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I am using arch linux installed on a USB stick that is backuped to another one every week or so. The system will be JBOD, and for data protection I use flexraid, but also trying out disparity. As for filesystems, btrfs looks good and has passed my tests, so I will be slowly migrating to it as well.
 
Quick question, I trolled through this thread sofar these things look pretty killer. Just curious if anyone can confirm function on a Super Micro AOC-USAS-L8i (it has an LSIS 1068E controller.)

I have no need for a card that supports RAID, a HBA is just fine since I am using Solaris ZFS software raid.

Prior to finding this thread I had been looking at the Chenbro card.

I have been a long time troller of the site, though I finally registered :p

If someone could help out it would be greatly appreciated.
 
I can confirm an Areca 1680LP works fine with the HP when SES2 is disabled.
 
Hey Odditory, quick q- in one of you screen shots you have the HDD Queue Depth set to 32. Whats the dif between 1 and 32? Is there a big performance impact?
 
Tau said:
Quick question, I trolled through this thread sofar these things look pretty killer. Just curious if anyone can confirm function on a Super Micro AOC-USAS-L8i (it has an LSIS 1068E controller.)
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I can't confirm that particular card, but I can confirm that 1068-based controllers do work; I have the LSI SAS3442E-R in my Solaris/ZFS box with one of these connecting the disks. Other people have different results, but I'm honestly not sure what version of firmware I'm running (I have no HP controller anyways, so I can't upgrade) and it works for me.
 
Could you check what firmware you are running on the card? I will be ordering another 14 drives this month and would like to have an expander solution available by then that will work... so i dont end up throwing away money on parts.

Also can anyone who has used the Chenbro's and these HP's comment? I have a source on one of the Chenbros for ~the same money as an HP would be (maybe slightly more $10-20) Just want to see wich would be a better card... Assuming functionality on my HBA.

In earlyer posts there were a couple people offering to test controllers with this expander... Just wanted to see if someone is still doing it... If so please PM me.

Also if someone is willing to order one of these for me and ship it to Canada also PM me. Or have me purchase it and ship it to your residence then forward it to Canada... w/e the setup ends up being.

Thanks again.
 
I didn't really see much difference between the Chenbro and HP cards honestly. Chenbro was nice as it didn't require a PCIe slot for power. If you want one, I have a couple listed for sale in the FS/FT subforum if you decide to go that route.
 
Didn't the Chenbro have some compatibility issues? I thought it was picky w/its controllers? or am I remembering wrong...
 
Blue Fox said:
I didn't really see much difference between the Chenbro and HP cards honestly. Chenbro was nice as it didn't require a PCIe slot for power. If you want one, I have a couple listed for sale in the FS/FT subforum if you decide to go that route.
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Sounds good, that was kind of one of the +'s of the Chenbro card is i dident need to eat up a PCI-E slot to power the thing (slots are not an issue right now anyways, but its always nice for future use)

Bookmage said:
Didn't the Chenbro have some compatibility issues? I thought it was picky w/its controllers? or am I remembering wrong...
Click to expand...

^^ Can anyone confirm?
 
Blue Fox said:
I didn't really see much difference between the Chenbro and HP cards honestly. Chenbro was nice as it didn't require a PCIe slot for power. If you want one, I have a couple listed for sale in the FS/FT subforum if you decide to go that route.
Click to expand...

Aside from the handy molex power connector on the Chenbro, and the fact the Chenbro's have been discontinued a long time and generally hard to come by, I'll point out again the main difference is the Chenbro's have a SAS-1 chip and the HP has a SAS-2 chip, meaning the HP is more future-proof for future for use with current and future SAS-2 based controllers. Might not make a difference to a lot of people, but once we see benchmarks on upcoming SAS-2 based RAID cards, people may change their mind.
 
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danman said:
Hey Odditory, quick q- in one of you screen shots you have the HDD Queue Depth set to 32. Whats the dif between 1 and 32? Is there a big performance impact?
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I answered in the Areca thread since queue depth discussion doesn't relate to the HP expander.
 
Finally received the HP Expander cards today along with the rest of what was missing for my system build (CPU, Motherboard, Areca controller and ODD). I didn't realize that Dustin had included 12 SAS cables with the two HP SAS expander cards, that was a nice surprise. Oh well, now I have 12 spare SFF-8087 cables :)

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to play with any of if it today. Was just too busy with other things. Hope to be able to put it all together tomorrow. I think I'm done with most of the mods I want to do to the Chenbro RM91250 chassis, at least for now. Lots of pictures coming up ;)

Still need to figure out what OS I'm going to run on this machine.
 
treadstone said:
Finally received the HP Expander cards today along with the rest of what was missing for my system build (CPU, Motherboard, Areca controller and ODD). I didn't realize that Dustin had included 12 SAS cables with the two HP SAS expander cards, that was a nice surprise. Oh well, now I have 12 spare SFF-8087 cables :)

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to play with any of if it today. Was just too busy with other things. Hope to be able to put it all together tomorrow. I think I'm done with most of the mods I want to do to the Chenbro RM91250 chassis, at least for now. Lots of pictures coming up ;)

Still need to figure out what OS I'm going to run on this machine.
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Damn I only got 4 cables with my one card. Its a nice deal, just wish I had gotten the expander before I ordered cables.
 
I'm still. I almost gave up the Adaptec 1045. I'm going for an HP P212. I figured I needed one HP controller to update the firmware to keep up with HP anyway...

Tau said:
Anyone still testing controllers with these expanders?
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