Dell H200 recommendations

[JosB]

Thanks to BiduleOhm and Cyberjock I have found out that I need to get a different card as soon as possible, since the current config using a PERC H700, will ultimately lead to data loss. They recommended to M1015

Since I'm pretty much stuck to using stuff from Dell: the Dell H200 is based on the same chipset as to M1015. According to the ProSupport and engineering staff of Dell (spoke with them over the phone), the controller will act like a plain HBA if one simply doesn't configure any RAID options. The only thing that confuses me is that some people on this forum say it's working fine out of the box and some go through the hassle of flashing it to LSI IT firmware or with the firmware of a different Dell controller ( 6Gbps SAS HBA).

Any recommendations or ideas? My focus is to have a reliable server, performance is nice, but I'm happy to sacrifice performance for gain in reliability.

 

[DrKK]

Flashing to IT mode is always preferred. Josh Paetzel (one of the senior developers) had a discussion with me once where we discussed that this was not strictly necessary---if you really knew what you were doing---but Cyberjock and others recommend that all HBA firmware be flashed to the IT mode, just to make everything happy, and straightforward.

 

[JosB]

Hi DrKK, thanks for answering! Do you know if the H200 in IT mode is compatible with the 12 disk SAS/Sata backplane backplane of the Dell R515? The H200 is certified for use with this hatdware, but using the standard firmware of course.

 

[jgreco]

Thanks to BiduleOhm and Cyberjock I have found out that I need to get a different card as soon as possible, since the current config using a PERC H700, will ultimately lead to data loss. They recommended to M1015

Since I'm pretty much stuck to using stuff from Dell: the Dell H200 is based on the same chipset as to M1015. According to the ProSupport and engineering staff of Dell (spoke with them over the phone), the controller will act like a plain HBA if one simply doesn't configure any RAID options.

Yeah, well, kinda, but then again, they don't actually do a lot of work with these cards on things other than Windows, so, no, not really. If the card's running LSI's firmware in IR mode, then I'd say it's probably almost true, except that you lose some speed. With Dell's firmware, I am more skeptical.

The H200 isn't the only card you can use. The H310 and others work as well. However, they're all a bit of a pain to crossflash into IT mode.

 

[JosB]

hmm ok, the reason for going for the H200 is that it's certified for this server. It's just so that it won't give me problems concerning the warranty.

Flashing the card isn't a problem and I'll certainly do that, but the only thing that still worries me is whether the backplane will work correctly using the card in IT Mode with LSI's firmware.

 

[jgreco]

It should. Is it just a breakout (i.e. 4 channels in to 4 drive bays) or an expander (i.e. has an SAS expander, 4 channels in to N drive bays)?

 

[JosB]

The back plane i connected by two cables of four channels each expanding this to 12 drive bays.

 

[jgreco]

So it sounds like an SAS expander in there somewhere. Should still be no problem. Lots of people use SAS expanders without issue.

 

[JosB]

Ok, thanks!