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Confused about HP Expander(s)

E

Egomaniacal1

n00b
Joined
Jun 26, 2007
Messages
24
Ok so i've looked at the HP Expander owners thread and i'm thinking i will buy one off ebay to go in my WHS 2003 w/PP3 build. It has a Supermicro X8SI6-F board inside.

However when i go to search for the card i see alot of different numbers such as P212, P410, P411, P712....also stuff like "controller EXPANDER CARD 487738-001" vs "HP 468406-B21 SAS EXPANDER CARD". I think the HP 468406-B21 is the correct card but i also see green and blue cards online so that threw me off too since i'm not suppose to be looking to buy the yellow cards.

My thinking is that some of these are RAID cards but i want to be clear before i pull the trigger. What exactly is the difference in these cards?
 
Those P Series cards you refer to are the SAS Controller cards which could be connected to the SAS Expander to give you the additional ports. The 468406-B21 is the expander card you want, and again you want the green not the yellow or the blue. Your X8SI6-F has 2 onboard SFF-8087 ports, so one or both of them can be connected to your expander (Depending on if that builtin controller supports dual linking.)
 
Ok whats the difference in a controller card and an expander card?

Also the 487738-001 i see....is it a controller or an expander? Seems deliberately confusing in the listing if its one or the other and not both.
 
A controller card contains the logic for the actual SAS processing for RAID or controller functionality. The expander just contains the logic for the controller to talk to more devices. Think of an ethernet router as the sas controller, and the sas expander as a network switch (metaphorically speaking). As to the other card you posted, it is actually exactly the same as the other SAS expander, just one is the retail part number and the other is the service parts part number. See the following for that answer:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...=3923500&prodTypeId=329290&objectID=c01733557
 
Controller just controls the disk. You must have one to be able to connect disks.

However, a controller might only allow 8 disks to connect. But you wish to connect 24 disks. How to do that? Buy three controllers, each controlling 8 disks? You can do this. Another alternative is that you connect all 24 disks to an Expander. The Expander is dumb and has no intelligence of it's own - it only allows you to connect 24 disks to a expander. Then, you connect a single SFF8088 min SAS cable between the controller to the expander, and presto, the controller believes you have connected 24 disks to the controller!

Thus, the 24disks are now connected into the single controller and you can use the 24 disks as if they were connected directly to the controller.
 
Well, SAS expanders are not completely dumb, they do have logic and handle target initiation, end device routing and more.
 
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