Question 1

I'm confused how this works. The card has six SAS ports, labeled 0-3, 4-7, 8-11, 12-15, 16-19, 12-23. Marketing for the card says it supports up to 24 ports. That would leave me to believe they are all output ports. But this isn't a controller, it's just an expander. So how does this connect to the controller?

I'm thinking of using this chassis (N82E16811219033), which has 20-drives split into 5 backplanes. That makes me think I will need 5 SAS connections to utilize all. Do I just take the 6th plug on this extender card and run it to my SAS controller? Is there really not a substantial performance degradation doing something like that?

Accepted Answer

The marketing is misleading. There are technically 24-ports, but you can only use 16 or 20 of them for connecting to drives (via breakout cables or backplanes). In the box you'll receive 4 SAS cables for backplanes (18" long I think) and 2 SAS cables for connecting to your SAS controller (these are really short). With the NORCO RPC-4220, you'll need to buy one extra SAS cable to reach all 5 backplanes. The expander can be connected to the SAS controller with 1 or 2 SAS cables. The tradeoff is speed vs 4 extra ports. I researched this at great length before purchasing, and I concluded my workload would likely not saturate 4 lanes (or very rarely) and 8 would be overkill. The price of this expander, a LSI HBA (single SFF-8087, no raid features), and connecting all 5 backplanes was the way to go.

Question 2

Does it has to be attached to a raid controller? or can it be attached to a SAS Controller?

Accepted Answer

While we are not using this without a raid card, I suspect a non-raid card would still be fine in seeing all the drive.  this card is basically a hub got hard drives.  as long as the utility of the sas controller can see the drives, you should be good.  Again, this is my guess, but an educated guess

Question 3

Just received this Expander Card to attach to my Intel RS25AB080 Intel Raid Controller which works perfectly. However the cables provided unlike the cables I use with my Raid Controller do not fan out to four  SATA 3 endings to plug into each of 4 Sata 3 hard drives. I would appreciate some advise as to what to buy or perhaps I need to return this expander card?

Accepted Answer

John, These expanders are typically used to connect with SAS cables, via SFF-8087 connectors, to a backplane. If you want to connect it directly to hard drives you will need to buy a cable that changes the connector, commonly called a breakout cable. Here is one option on Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1N82KJ3967&cm_re=breakout_cable-_-16-116-097-_-Product. They are a bit expensive, but all cables with the SAS connector usually are. They make a single cable worth 4 though so I think it's worth it. Ultimoblaze

Question 4

Please describe the backplane you can attach the supplied cable to and the backplane then spreads to the 4 hard drives on it?
By the way I thank everyone who told me how to go about getting the spreader cables for direct connections to the hard drives without any back plane. 
And where do I buy these backplanes and do you have a better name for them as my search of "backplane" gave no meaningful results.

Accepted Answer

To clarify a few things: 
1) This card uses SFF-8087 connectors. An SFF-8087 connector/cable is really just four SATA/SAS cables in a single connector/cable.
2) You'll need a SAS controller with at least four SAS ports or an SFF-8087 based SAS port. 
3) I know this card works with SATAII and SATAIII drives but I've only tried it with SAS controllers. 
4) A backplane is a fancy way of refering to a circut board that a bunch of hard drives plug into without using tons of cabled. (it's a bit more complex that this but I'm trying to keep this simple)
5) You don't need a backplane. You can plug drives into this card directly using SFF-8087 to SATA/SAS fanout cables.

You can use any brand or style of backplane or even none at all. There are cables that will go from one of the SFF-8087 ports to four SATA/SAS ports. 
This expander card will let you turn four SAS ports into 20 SAS ports. It can also be used to turn eight SAS ports into 16 SAS ports if you want basic path redundancy.

Question 5

Can you use this card to plug directly into SATA HDDs AND use one of the SAS ports to plug into a backplane?

Accepted Answer

You would need a SAS to SATA adapter cable plug into the hdds. It can directly connect to a backplane.

Question 6

How does this connect to a RAID controller, say an LSI 92604i? Will such a RAID controller (4port SAS with 1x8087 connector) expand to all 24 ports or do you need an 8port controller (2x8087)?

Accepted Answer

Port one (port closest to the backplane) is the cross connect port. This is what you'll connect to your RAID controller, giving you 5 free ports that transparently pass anything connected to the expander off to the RAID controller. The LSI 92604i would be fine for this solution. However, you may want to do some research to ensure that both cards are compatible with each other.

Question 7

i see the pci-e interface, but there is mention of being able to mount this in odd places. does all it require is the molex connector for power, plus whatever sff-8087 cables to function? as in does it NOT require to be plugged into a pie slot? would like to put it on this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182262 and use the blank spot for this card.

Accepted Answer

Correct. The card does not have to be mounted in the pci-e slot and can be attached to the side of your case. Here's a couple bullet points from Intel's User Manual.

- Board functioning either in PCI Express slot or remotely in system

- Onboard screw holds allow the expander card to be mounted on a chassis wall inside a server system

Question 8

can i use this without a controller card?  I currently have 10x 10TB SATA III drives connected to my motherboard directly and some to an 8-port SATA card.  I do NOT need RAID, just need the drives to talk to the Motherboard, as I am using windows Storage Spaces to configure the disks.  Any help is appreciated, thanks!

Accepted Answer

No, you cannot use this without a controller card as it is only a port multiplier, not a controller.

Question 9

Anybody have insight if this Intel SAS expander card is compatible with an Adaptec RAID 6405E? I've checked the Intel PDF on this but it only has a small list of compatible 3rd party RAID controllers.

Accepted Answer

Yes. I would be surprised if this didn't work since it is standardized technology. I used a different Adaptec card and it worked fantastic for a RAID-60 setup!

Question 10

i see it has 6 cables each with one special end. I expected to have the 4 longer cables fan out to 4 sata connections each. Then I could hook up 16 hard drives. I don't see what to do with the special end. Is there some thing to buy to attach that fans out to 4 sata ends  or do I have to separately order long cables that DO fan out to 4 sata ends?

Accepted Answer

This card has 6 SFF-8087 internal SATA ports, and one molex power connector.  One or two of these ports need to connect to a SAS/RAID controller which can manage the hard drives that you then connect to it using the remaining SFF-8087 ports.  Each port can connect to four hard drives, either directly with a fan out cable (search newegg for "SFF-8087 cable" to find a bunch of them), or through a backplane for easy hot swapping.  The card itself doesn't communicate with the computer, I don't think it even have to be plugged into the motherboard.  You can power the card either with the molex power connector or by plugging it in to the motherboard.

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