HP SAS Expander

Sometimes you see these expanders on eBay for a nice price. Has anyone experiences with the HP SAS Expander in combination with unRAID? Someone any experiences with eBay? If I'm correct there are different version of the expander?

I have one connected via dual link to a M1015 and so far its working well. I have 8 drives currently (including parity) and net between 93-105MBs during parity sync.

Overall ive been happy. There are 3 versions of this board, a yellow 1.5GBs version, green 3GBs version and the new 12GBs version. I have the green like I said, it works well.

Take a look at this post over at STH... It has lots of info reguarding that card.

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/hp-sas-expander-wiki.146/

Super! Thanks for the information.

It's funny you posted this, I was just about to ask this same question as I had looked at them on eBay as well and noticed how cheap they are these days for the older revisions which are still perfectly fine for media servers. Thanks!!

It's funny you posted this, I was just about to ask this same question as I had looked at them on eBay as well and noticed how cheap they are these days for the older revisions which are still perfectly fine for media servers. Thanks!!

Glad I could help! 

I have one connected via dual link to a M1015 and so far its working well. I have 8 drives currently (including parity) and net between 93-105MBs during parity sync.

 

Overall ive been happy. There are 3 versions of this board, a yellow 1.5GBs version, green 3GBs version and the new 12GBs version. I have the green like I said, it works well.

 

Take a look at this post over at STH... It has lots of info reguarding that card.

 

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/hp-sas-expander-wiki.146/

Super interesting information over at ServeTheHome.

So you have a speed of 95 - 105MB/s during rebuilding. Not sure what the speed is when you connect all drives to HBA's. Anyone? And is there difference when you connect more drives. What is the theoretical speed per drive in a 24 bay case when you connect 2 channels.

I have one connected via dual link to a M1015 and so far its working well. I have 8 drives currently (including parity) and net between 93-105MBs during parity sync.

 

Overall ive been happy. There are 3 versions of this board, a yellow 1.5GBs version, green 3GBs version and the new 12GBs version. I have the green like I said, it works well.

 

Take a look at this post over at STH... It has lots of info reguarding that card.

 

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/hp-sas-expander-wiki.146/

 

Super interesting information over at ServeTheHome.

 

So you have a speed of 95 - 105MB/s during rebuilding. Not sure what the speed is when you connect all drives to HBA's. Anyone? And is there difference when you connect more drives. What is the theoretical speed per drive in a 24 bay case when you connect 2 channels.

Now my understanding of the concept could be wrong here... But the HP SAS expander is capable of 3Gbs per channel, in dual link mode 8 channels worth of thourouput will be available to you, eg 24Gbs... Given 24 drives spinning you should THEORETICALLY get around 1Gbs or 125MBs MAX per channel/drive

I suspect that im getting less than 125MBs because I'm using an atx 775 board with PCIx8v1 instead of v2 like the M1015 wants

Did some research. Correct me if I'm wrong....

PCI Express 1.x does 250MB/s per lane 8x250MB/s= 2GB/s --> 2000MB/s

PCI Express 2.x does 500MB/s per lane 8x500MB/s= 4GB/s --> 4000MB/s

3Gbp/s per sata channel x8 channels = 24Gbp/s --> 1000Gbp/s per drive --> 125MB/s per drive. So 24 drives 125MB/s = 3000MB/s. So you indeed need PCI Express 2.x to get full bandwidth...

The IBM1015 has 6Gbp/s per sata channel. 8 channels x 6Gbp/s thus 48Gbp/s in total if you do dual link. So the IBM1015 can twice as fast as the HP SAS Expander (green edition)

I also have some IBM1015 lying around. I want to use them. There was I guy from a other forum saying that these cards get hot and need extra cooling. What is your experience?

I honestly haven't had any issue with my  M1015 cards getting hot. But then again my cases have at least 6 fans blowing from front to back and sit in my storage room that never gets much warmer than 60°F

Your PCIE 1v2 throughput comparison sounds accurate, made my bug to upgrade that mobo go into overdrive

Remember though, it's always about the weakest link, with the hp card nothing will ever go faster than 3GBs... Which is totally fine when running non ssd drives.

Hey guys, I would like to add this info into the wiki.

Can you help me to find out the specific numbers of those cards?

There are a lot of "HP SAS expanders" out there.

Are we talking about this one (the green SATA 3G)?

HP 24 Bay SAS Expander Card PCI-E - 468406-B21/487738-001

What would be the name/number of the 12G card?

Ummm I'm not sure, I'll see if I can find the info

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

Hey guys, I would like to add this info into the wiki.

Can you help me to find out the specific numbers of those cards?

There are a lot of "HP SAS expanders" out there.

Are we talking about this one (the green SATA 3G)?

HP 24 Bay SAS Expander Card PCI-E - 468406-B21/487738-001

 

What would be the name/number of the 12G card?

I have a 6Gb SAS/3Gb Sata green pcb one, p/n is 468405-001.

Works well with unRAID, but because it can only link at 3Gbps with SATA disks recommend using it on a dual link compatible HBA, eg, M1015 or H310 flashed to IT, or it will be slow with many disks.