CISCO UCS C240 M4 12LFF 2x E5-2680V4

[Askingslushy]

Would I need a different HBA for the drives to show as actual drives versus as a virtual drive.

[Lurick]

What card is in there now?

Did you delete the virtual drive in CIMC first?

[Askingslushy]

It has a CISCO 12GB SAS MODULAR RAID CONTORLLER. I don't have the system yet I wanted to know if I needed a different HBA before buying.

[leadeater]

That generation of server doesn't come with newer RAID cards that can operate in Mixed Mode (unconfigured drives presented through to OS, HBA alike).

 

Your best bet, since it likely has come with the Cisco SAS RAID card, is swap that out either for Cisco's SAS HBA or any LSI HBA (the Cisco cards are all LSI based). Have a look on ebay, you'll find what you need quite cheaply.

[Needfuldoer]

Dell PERC cards from that generation have an "HBA mode" option buried in their menus. That Cisco card might have an equivalent feature.

[Askingslushy]

8 minutes ago, leadeater said:

That generation of server doesn't come with newer RAID cards that can operate in Mixed Mode (unconfigured drives presented through to OS, HBA alike).

 

Your best bet, since it likely has come with the Cisco SAS RAID card, is swap that out either for Cisco's SAS HBA or any LSI HBA (the Cisco cards are all LSI based). Have a look on ebay, you'll find what you need quite cheaply.

Do you know of one that will work with 12-14 Drives?

[Askingslushy]

I was thinking this HBA obviously from ebay not them but this should work and it supports 24 drives but has 4 ports so I assume each port can handle 6 drives. 

 

https://www.connection.com/product/cisco-12gbps-modular-sas-hba/ucsc-sas12ghba/31390312

[Askingslushy]

or is that two ports? 

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, Askingslushy said:

I was thinking this HBA obviously from ebay not them but this should work and it supports 24 drives but has 4 ports so I assume each port can handle 6 drives. 

 

https://www.connection.com/product/cisco-12gbps-modular-sas-hba/ucsc-sas12ghba/31390312

Every SAS port supports 4 data lanes or 4 disks, the above card has 2 ports so supports 8 disks directly connected to the SAS card. To use more disks/bays you use a SAS expander, all configurations of that server above 8 disks uses a SAS expander as part of the built part options.

 

So the way a typical SAS expander works is it slots in to a PCIe slot for power and has 1 or 2 SAS input ports and for example 6 SAS output ports.

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/servers-unified-computing/ucs-c-series-rack-servers/c240m4-sff-spec-sheet.pdf

[Askingslushy]

On 4/3/2024 at 10:56 AM, leadeater said:

Every SAS port supports 4 data lanes or 4 disks, the above card has 2 ports so supports 8 disks directly connected to the SAS card. To use more disks/bays you use a SAS expander, all configurations of that server above 8 disks uses a SAS expander as part of the built part options.

 

So the way a typical SAS expander works is it slots in to a PCIe slot for power and has 1 or 2 SAS input ports and for example 6 SAS output ports.

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/servers-unified-computing/ucs-c-series-rack-servers/c240m4-sff-spec-sheet.pdf

So I only need one expander cable to plug into one of the ports on the hba?

[leadeater]

8 hours ago, Askingslushy said:

So I only need one expander cable to plug into one of the ports on the hba?

Had to dig a little more in to what the server has just to make sure, there are different ways you can encounter an expander in a server system. For you the SAS expander is integrated in to the drive bay backplane of the server.

 

This means all you need is an HBA card with 2 SAS ports, with correct cables base on what you have, actually important.

 

 

This is an image of the actual backplane in your server, the heatsink is on top of the SAS expander SoC and  below that are the 2 input SAS connections. Everything else is handled on the PCB and goes to each drive bay port connector.

[Askingslushy]

7 hours ago, leadeater said:

Had to dig a little more in to what the server has just to make sure, there are different ways you can encounter an expander in a server system. For you the SAS expander is integrated in to the drive bay backplane of the server.

 

This means all you need is an HBA card with 2 SAS ports, with correct cables base on what you have, actually important.

 

 

This is an image of the actual backplane in your server, the heatsink is on top of the SAS expander SoC and  below that are the 2 input SAS connections. Everything else is handled on the PCB and goes to each drive bay port connector.

Thank you so much. So I just put the hba in and call it a day? All 12 drives should show up?

[leadeater]

13 minutes ago, Askingslushy said:

Thank you so much. So I just put the hba in and call it a day? All 12 drives should show up?

Yep