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LSI RAID controller cables

C

coolrunnings

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 21, 2004
Messages
511
I just recently purchased a MegaRAID SAS 8308ELP Raid Controller for running 5 SATA drives in a RAID 5. Unfortunately it comes with what appears to be a proprietary cable system that doesn't work well with my hotswap bays since the cable ends are molded together. Does anyone know where I can get cables that are separated out?
 
I'm not sure exactly what cable those cards ship with, but it certainly isn't a proprietary connector. My guess is that it's an iSAS to iSAS internal cable. (SFF 8087 connector).

There are a couple places where you can pick up a cable that converts this to various other connector types.

You can try SCSI4ME or CS Electronics
 
Ah, thanks for the links. That makes sense now. Now if only I could get this thing to even work in the first place... Can't seem to get in pressing Ctrl-H. :-(
 
Here are the pics of what Newegg ships with that card. They look like SAS cables rather than sata; the power and data being connected on SAS means you can't easily have separate data cables.

This cable specifically mentions the LSI 8308ELP. This looks like what ships with the card. Maybe you can sell your to SCSI4ME (yeah, right) - that's a hundred bucks of cable for each of the two that come with the card, according to them!
 
Ok I tried hooking up the provided cables to the unit but when I boot, the screen for pressing Ctrl+H goes by so fast I can not even read it. I had to press Pause on the keyboard to get it so I could read it. No matter how many times or when I'm pressing Ctrl H though, I cannot get into the WebBIOS of the card. I also noticed that it doesn't appear to detect the SATA drives in that initial firmware screen. Does anyone here know if those cables provided with the card won't work with SATA drives or something? I'm stumped here...
 
unhappy_mage said:
Here are the pics of what Newegg ships with that card. They look like SAS cables rather than sata; the power and data being connected on SAS means you can't easily have separate data cables.

This cable specifically mentions the LSI 8308ELP. This looks like what ships with the card. Maybe you can sell your to SCSI4ME (yeah, right) - that's a hundred bucks of cable for each of the two that come with the card, according to them!
Click to expand...


Are you saying that the power for the drives comes from the raid card? Would this cable provided run sata drives not in hotswap type enclosures?
 
marcusicp said:
Are you saying that the power for the drives comes from the raid card? Would this cable provided run sata drives not in hotswap type enclosures?
Click to expand...

Not exactly; the cables pictured have molex connectors and the 8087 cable on one end, and a one-piece power-and-data connector on the other end. You could indeed run non-hotswap drives with this. The difficulty is that in hotswap bays the power is often handled separately from the data in order to use up a smaller number of molex connectors. So there's no provision for the power-and-data connectors fitting onto the backplane, and thus we have this thread :p
 
Ok, but does the RAID card supply the power for the drives with the cable they provide? Sorry I wasn't more clear.
 
No the RAID card doesn't supply the power. Each of the 2 cables has 4 SATA connectors and a dongle for each to plug in a molex connector.
 
Ah ok I couldn't tell if the molex was male or female. What is the point in this over a regular data only cable?
 
Convenience for those without hotswap bays or a PSU with SATA connectors I guess. More of an irritation for me personally. Means I have to buy new cables. Also, I'm only getting like 500MB/Min out of this deal with 3x 320gb Seagate 7200.10 drives hooked up in a RAID 5. That's just about as bad as Nvidia RAID. I'm testing it sending a disk image from my non-RAIDed drive on the onboard controller by the way. Going from disk to disk on that controller I get between 2000-3000mb/min with single drives! Any ideas?
 
coolrunnings said:
Ok I tried hooking up the provided cables to the unit but when I boot, the screen for pressing Ctrl+H goes by so fast I can not even read it. I had to press Pause on the keyboard to get it so I could read it. No matter how many times or when I'm pressing Ctrl H though, I cannot get into the WebBIOS of the card. I also noticed that it doesn't appear to detect the SATA drives in that initial firmware screen. Does anyone here know if those cables provided with the card won't work with SATA drives or something? I'm stumped here...
Click to expand...

Got the same thing myself. I used the GUI program to setup my array. NP :D
Even has a little wizard program in each to help ya! :cool:​

Quite nice if I can get the Write-through to stop being the 'fall-back default' since I don't have a BBU :rolleyes:

I'm personally going to skip the HS/cage....The drives I have get HOT. Not unless it's maybe (2) of those 4-in-3 units....the 5-in-3 I think would be too little airflow

EDIT:

Cables I think you're looking for....HERE
 
marcusicp said:
Ah ok I couldn't tell if the molex was male or female. What is the point in this over a regular data only cable?
Click to expand...

Here's a view of the connectors on a sata drive and on a SAS drive. This is looking at the back of the drive, with the drive right-side-up. Next to that, there's a view of the end of the cable, mirrored left-to-right so that it would fit over the drive's connectors.
sas-vs-sata.png

Notice the red bit on the SAS data cable? That part of the connector would run into the SAS drive's connector. The blockage is intentional - sata cables can't be plugged onto SAS drives. But some applications (like backplanes, for example) don't need separate power for each drive - they'll get other power and feed it to all the drives. So there exist cables like the ones I linked which take the 4-port SAS cables and convert them into four sata-style connectors, so you can hook your backplane up.

A better solution, I think, would be to ship the card with no cables and a warning that you'll need cables. Then you wouldn't end up with some expensive useless cables. But I suppose it's a good marketing move to include cables of some sort.
 
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