Maximum Number of Hard Drives For IBM M1015 SAS Controller

[BobCochran]

Hi,

I'm confused over here and need some help understanding the capabilities of my IBM M1015 SAS controller cards. I've read somewhere that one of these cards can support up to 32 hard drives. Is this correct? If it is, what cabling exactly is suggested if I need to expand the number of hard drives connected to a single controller card? Right now, I have approximately 12 Tb worth of hard drives (something like 9 physical drives in mostly 2 Tb capacities) connected to two M1015 controller cards. The system works beautifully, but pretty soon I am going to need to add more drives. I only have two PCIe slots on my SuperMicro motherboard, so I have a big interest in making the best use of the controller card capacity.

My signature should give details of my hardware buildout. I'm running the latest stable version of FreeNAS....8.2, right?

Do I need to stay with 2 Tb hard drives, or can the controller card see 3 Tb drives?

Thanks for all your help!

Bob Cochran

 

[Hexland]

My understanding is that each of the ports on the 1015 is actually capable of running 4 SATA channels -- but you need to add a SAS expander to each port on the M1015 - kind of like a standard SATA port multiplier, but not :)

 

[BobCochran]

Thank you very much for responding. How do I connect the SAS expander to the 1015? What cables do I need? Thanks a lot, Bob

 

[Hexland]

Haven't a clue, I've never attempted it before :)

Sorry... hopefully someone will be along in a minute with the correct answer

 

[survive]

Hi BobCochran,

Take a look at this:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1484614

Everything you could ever want to know about SAS expanders with a praticular focus on the HP expanders.

-Will

 

[cyberjock]

Do not try to substitute SATA port multiplier for SAS expanders. It doesn't work. :)

 

[BobCochran]

Thank you all, very much. I am having trouble finding the 36-port HP SAS expanders, the current models seem to be limited to 24 ports. Chenbro boards do seem to offer 36 ports. The hardforum.com thread provided by survive seems quite helpful.