IBM m1015 max drives?

[lordsegan]

I know the M1015 can support up to 32 drives and has 8 internal ports.

Does that mean I can use the sff connector to connect it to an external 12 bay chassis and populate all drives in the bays?

 

[omniscence]

You have to use a case that has an SAS Expander. If it is a case that has less external SAS lanes than it has drives it should include an expander.
You cannot use something that has SATA port multipliers, but IMHO those cases with SFF-8088 connectors are rare or do not exist at all.

Beware of incompatibility problems between SAS expanders and SAS controllers from different vendors (use something with LSI expanders).

 

[staticlag]

256 drives is the max if you use expanders. It has 8 internal SAS lanes, in the form of 2 sff ports.

My 20 drive array runs off of one of the ports on one card.

 

[mrkazador]

Each port on the m1015 is 24Gbps.

 

[PigLover]

Each port on the m1015 is 24Gbps.

Not to be overly picky, but each port on the m1015 is 6Gbps. Each connector wires 4 ports.