On 10/25/2012 05:40 PM, Bob Friesenhahn wrote: > On Thu, 25 Oct 2012, Sašo Kiselkov wrote: > >> On 10/25/2012 04:09 PM, Bob Friesenhahn wrote: >>> On Thu, 25 Oct 2012, Sašo Kiselkov wrote: >>>> >>>> Look for Dell's "6Gbps SAS HBA" cards. They can be had new for <$100 >>>> and >>>> are essentially rebranded LSI 9200-8e cards. Always try to look for OEM >>>> cards with LSI, because buying directly from them is incredibly >>>> expensive. >>> >>> Do these support eSATA? It seems unlikely. >> >> eSATA is just SATA with a different connector - all you need is a cheap >> conversion cable or appropriate eSATA<->SATA bracket, e.g. >> http://www.satacables.com/html/sata-pci-brackets.html > > While this can certainly work, according to Wikipedia > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esata#eSATA), eSATA is more than just SATA > with a different connector. eSATA specifies a higher voltage range > (minimum voltage) than SATA. It may be that a HBA already uses this > range, or maybe not. Text I read says that maximum cable length is > significantly reduced if an adaptor is used. > > Also, I am curious to know how well hot-swap works with an > enterprise-class SAS HBA and these cheap eSATA adaptors.
It may be that you'll get reduced cabling range (only up to SATA lengths, obviously), but it works. The voltage differences are very small and should only come into play when you're pushing the envelope of the cable length. Cheers, -- Saso _______________________________________________ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
