Heya Woomack! Thanks again for the information as it is much appreciated! I know the dell controller does not have cache on board but the LSI has 512 of ddr2 cache... I will provide pdf text spec sheets for each of these controllers on seperate replies since i cannot seem to upload the pdf sheet and my links wont work. Hopefully you could take a moment to look at the specs and see if they have the "ROM/Management" or not.. i didnt seem to see anything about ROM/Management on the dell or the LSI.
Now lets say i did go with one of these controllers and i had to use the "Rom/Management" and disable the onboard intel sata 2 controllers... Would i be able to hookup the two data drives i have on my r3e (The two data drives i have are not in raid array as they are just sata 3 hdd single drives from different brands and different sizes, and i only have two data drives, a 1tb and a 2tb) to the add on raid controller and just use them as single drives in a non-raid array along with the two ssd sata 3 drives in a raid zero boot array. That would be ideal as then i would benefit from the sata 3 speeds the add-on card offers rather then the sata 2 speeds the r3e ich10r offers... If that makes sense... I hope im not confusing you! Im not sure if data drives have to be in a raid array to run off either of these add on raid controllers, especially since i would have an ssd boot array installed on the add on card already ?
Last question... lol Once again THANK YOU for your knowledge, information, and most importantly HELP as i have not had very good luck in finding out this information you are providing and some people are just rude and non-helpful on these sites! I have spent hours upon endless hours reading information about the r3e as it intrigues me and have learned alot and even helped others with questions on youtube video comments etc. I have a Stable 4.5 oc on my r3e with an i7 970 (Though the jump in cpu voltage from 4.3-4.5 was quite drastic compared to lets say 4.1-4.3 but nothing overboard which is good) and a maxwell sli setup etc etc I absolutely love it considering the mobo, cpu and gpu's were given to me by a friend and this is my first computer build! The hardest part of this build was overclocking ram and tuning timings! i just ran memtest86 for 14 hours and no errors as well as windows memory diagnostics. I was happy about that! If you have ever overclocked or tightened timings on an x58 setup (From the looks of your profile i would assume you have =P) then you would understand the smile i had on my face once i seen memtest86 with no errors after overclocking my ram and tightening timings! I see that your super involved in the overclockers community and that is awesome! Way to help others as well as know your stuff! It takes a good person to help others like you do, even if its a simple reply as you have given me!
Anyways, onto the last question... If i went with the add on raid controller and ran the two ssd's in a raid zero boot array, could i run two sata 3 hdd data drives in a raid 1 array off of either of these controllers along with the the two ssds i would have in raid zero boot array.. In short, would i be able to run my main raid zero boot array on the ssd's and then run a raid one array with the data drives? The reason i ask is i was thinking of getting a matching drive for each of the two data drives i alread have and running them in a raid 1 array... Its amazing how quickly storage space adds up.
Yes! You are spot on with the integrated sata 3 marvell controllers on the r3e... Terrible performance being that it is pcie1. I do not use the marvell sata 3 ports for anything besides they are red and match my black and red color scheme i have for my pc lol
Once again. i cannot thank you enough for helping me with this information! I will provide the spec sheet text for the two separate raid controllers i am considering in two separate replies and hopefully you will be able to tell if they will have to be ran in "ROM/Management" and in return, disable my onboard intel ich10r sata 2 ports. Hopefully i can just hookup my data drives to the add on raid card and call it good ! lol
- Aayli
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SPEC SHEET FOR THE LSI 9260 I am considering.
Models
LSI MegaRAID® 9260-8i SAS 6Gb/s ROC RAID Card
WE465AA
Optional: LSI iBBU08 Battery Backup Unit for LSI 9260-8i
LA783AA
Introduction
The LSI MegaRAID® SAS 9260-8i, 6Gb/s eight port, ROC (RAID on Chip) controller is a next generation high bandwidth storage option,
ideal for storage connectivity of SAS drives in high performance workstations.
The LSI 9260-8i design has more than 2X the RAID 5 Write bandwidth of the older LSI 8888ELP RAID card. HP performance testing
confirmed the increase in performance.
*
The LSI MegaRAID® 9260-8i is designed to excel in both high I/O transaction and high bandwidth processing. With an integrated
800MHz PowerPC, 800MHz 512MB write cache, and x8 PCI (Gen2) V2.0 Express, the 9260 delivers impressive performance numbers -
up to 2,875MB/s Reads and up to 1,850MB/s Writes - allowing streaming data, video or data backup applications to run faster than
ever.
**
The MegaRAID 9260-8i features the LSI SAS2108 RAID-on-Chip (ROC), a powerful I/O storage engine that transparently performs all
the data protection, data checking, and restoration tasks.
You can also ensure that your data is protected in the event of a sudden power failure with the optional LSI iBBU08 Battery Backup Unit
(mounts on the LSI 9260-8i). This will protect unwritten information in the controller cache for up to 48 hours. An investment in the LSI
9260-8i and the Battery Backup Unit brings piece of mind.
* Performance information based on the upper performance range of the LSI 9260-8i card for RAID 5. This is hard drive and
configuration dependent.
** May require more storage drives than can be installed in the HP Workstations.
QuickSpecs
LSI MegaRAID® 9260-8i SAS 6Gb/s ROC RAID Card and
iBBU08 Battery Backup Unit
Overview
DA - 13955 North America — Version 4 — June 1, 2012
Page 1
Key Features and Benefits
6Gb/s per port, 8 internal ports via two Mini-SAS SFF-8087 connectors
Support for SATA & SAS 3Gb/s or 6Gb/s drives via the HP supplied internal adapter cables
LSI SAS2108 6Gb/s RAID-on-Chip - 800MHz PowerPC®
512MB 800MHz DDRII onboard cache - HW XOR (eXclusive OR) RAID 5 write parity calculations off load the system processor for
improved performance
RAID Levels 0, 1, 5 and 6
RAID Spans 10, 50 and 60
Optional: LSI iBBU08 Battery Backup Unit, HP Part Number LA783AA
LSI iBBU08 - Higher maximum ambient temperature tolerance (up to 55 C versus 45 C) than previous generation battery backup
units
Supports major Operating Systems
Typical Applications
Video-On-Demand
Video-Surveillance
Video Creation + Editing
Medical Imaging
High-Performance Computing
Digital Content Archive
Storage Appliance
File, Web, Database, and Email Servers
Compatibility
The LSI 9260-8i SAS 6Gb/s ROC RAID Card is compatible with the HP Z800, Z600 and Z400; HP Z820, Z620, Z420. Supports >2.2TB RAID
Data Arrays with large capacity drives, 1TB, 2TB, 3TB.
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SPEC SHEET FOR THE Dell Perc H310 I am considering
Small to medium business owners can enjoy the
latest RAID technology at affordable prices and
low-power consumption with the
Dell™ PowerEdge™ RAID Controller (PERC) H310.
Ideal for file, web, database, and email servers, the
PERC H310 delivers trusted Dell PERC reliability
with minimal maintenance effort.
Our entry-level controller cards offer a
straight-forward solution that includes essential
RAID levels and uncomplicated configuration
options. In addition, these cards connect to
SATA and SAS hard disk drives and solid state
drives, allowing for tiered storage that optimizes
cost and performance. Another cost-optimizing
feature is physical disk power management
(Dimmer Switch™) technology, which manages
power consumption for idle, unconfigured
and configured drives. Dell’s entry-level RAID
controllers cover the spectrum of tiered storage
requirements for cost-sensitive applications that
require robust data protection.
Seamless migration
A unique feature of the PERC H310 is its ability
to seamlessly migrate to other PERC product
lines. Simply plug in a new controller to
recognize and import the existing array without
any reconfiguration. Plus, Dell OpenManage™
Storage Services (OMSS) provides a consistent user
interface to manage any PowerEdge SATA or SAS
arrays.
6Gb/s SAS performance advantage
6Gb/s SAS is designed for backward compatibility
with 3Gb/s SAS and 3Gb/s SATA hard drives.
Regardless of the drive speed, 6Gb/s PowerEdge
RAID controllers deliver significant performance
improvements in both read and write applications
as compared to their 3Gb/s predecessors.
Simplified storage management
Protect your data using storage management
utilities by configuring data-redundancy, assigning
hot spares, and rebuilding failed physical disks. Dell
OMSS provides enhanced features for configuring
and monitoring a system’s locally-attached RAID
and non-RAID disk storage. With the Storage
Management service, you can perform controller
and enclosure functions for all supported RAID
and non-RAID controllers and enclosures from a
single graphical or command-line interface.
This intuitive interface of the Dell Lifecycle
Controller is the Unified Server Configurator, which
is a preinstalled configuration utility that enables
storage management tasks from an embedded
environment throughout the controller’s lifecycle.
The wizard-driven interface offers features for
novice to advanced users, and the command-line
interface is fully-featured and scriptable.
Dell PowerEdge RAID
Controller H310
The PERC H
An eight-port 6Gb/s PCI Express RAID controller, the Dell PowerEdge RAID
Controller (PERC) H310 offers robust data protection, seamless migration, and the
flexibility to use both SATA, SAS, and solid-state drives.
Februrary 2012
Learn more at Dell.com/PERC
© 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Dell, the DELL logo, the DELL badge, PowerEdge, and OpenManage are trademarks of Dell Inc. Other trademarks and
Feature
PERC H310 technical specification
Solution provided
Low-cost, green SATA+SAS RAID solution for high-density servers (1U or 2U) and workstations with the flexibility
to use both SATA and SAS hard drives, solid state drives, and pass-through drive configurations
Physical dimensions
167.6mm (6.6in) x 64.4mm (2.5in) (low profile)
Connectors
Two x4 internal mini-SAS SFF8087
Maximum number of
physical devices
Non-RAID: 32
RAID 0: 16 per volume
RAID 1: 2 per volume plus hot spare
RAID 5: 16 per volume
RAID 10: 16 per volume
RAID 50: 16 per volume
Host bus type
8-lane, PCI Express 2.0 compliant
Data transfer rates
Up to 6Gb/s per port
SAS controller
LSISAS2008
Key RAID data protection
features
RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 10, 50:
Selectable logical drive as boot drive
Consistency check
Fast initialization for quick array setup
Native command queuing
Staggered spin-up for SATA drives
Hot-plug support
Global hot-spare support
Online Capacity Expansion (OCE)
Online RAID Level Migration (RLM)
PowerPC 440
Automatic rebuild of hot-spare drives
Auto resume during array rebuild
Greater than 2TB logical drive support
Soft bad block management
Error recovery support
DDF compliant configuration on disk
S.M.A.R.T. support
Patrol read for media scanning and repairing
Physical disk power management (Dimmer Switch™)
RAID management
CTRL-R
Dell OpenManage™ Storage Services
Additional management:
UEFI (HII)
CEM
Environments
Operating:
0°C to 65°C
5 to 90% non-condensing
Storage:
-45°C to 105°C
5 to 90% non-condensing
PCI card type
3.3V add-in card
PCI voltage
+12V ±10%
LED indicators
Internal
Activity/Fault per x4 port: Heartbeat
Operating systems
Microsoft
®
Windows Server
®
2008 R2 SP2
Red Hat
®
Enterprise Linux
®
5.7
Red Hat
®
Enterprise Linux
®
6.1
SUSE
®
Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP4
SUSE
®
Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2
Virtualization options:
VMware
®
ESX/ESXi 4.1
VMware
®
5.0 U
