Adaptec 3805 RAID Setup

[fluxboxuk]

Heya chaps (and ladies)...

Iv been running a RAID5 server for the past year over 5 x 500GB SATA disks, and now am looking to put togeather a new machine, alas the RAID card that i have been using has a physical limitation on the max size of array being 2TB... Thus i am looking at an Adaptec 3805 and wanted to check if anyone knows if this card has any such limitation...

What im kinda thinking of doing is getting 4 x 1TB drives and using one of the mini-SAS ports with a fanout cable to connect these into a 3TB RAID5 array.... can anyone confirm this is possible ?

Then in the future, get another 4 x 1TB drives and create a second 3TB array and possibly either use this for additional storage, or to mirror the first array...

 

[r_manic]

I'm not sure if the 3805 has a limitation in terms of total size. I do know though it can support up to 8 devices at the same time.

As for nesting arrays via SATA, that hard disk connection protocol has unfortunately yet to be standardized. If they can get how swap down, what more RAID nesting?

 

[wuzy]

Just curious, which RAID card are you currently running that has a 2TB limitation?
None of the 1st gen. PCIe based SAS RAID card I've encountered has a 2TB limitation (e.g. the Adaptec 3805 mentioned here). I've never worked with the older PCI-X ones tho, maybe you're using one of those.

And besides, PCI-X 266/533Mhz doesn't have sufficient bandwidth needed for a big RAID array with more than 4 modern disks. I encourage those old inefficient servers to be phased out at work.

What im kinda thinking of doing is getting 4 x 1TB drives and using one of the mini-SAS ports with a fanout cable to connect these into a 3TB RAID5 array.... can anyone confirm this is possible ?

Then in the future, get another 4 x 1TB drives and create a second 3TB array and possibly either use this for additional storage, or to mirror the first array...

That would be RAID51. I think 3805 only supports RAID50.
In any case, performing an online RAID migration from RAID5 to RAID50 should be possible. (On my LSI 8408E/DELL PERC 5/i it's possible)

 

[fluxboxuk]

The RAID card im currently using is a PCI Adaptec 2610SA (its a re-branded DELL card which supports 6 SATA hard disks), at current it has 5 500GB disks, 5 of which are in a RAID 5 configuration and one as a stand alone disk.

This is only a home based server for lots of graphics work and CAD design stuff by some people i house share with, the new RAID is going to be a completly new build, the old server is being retired due to lack of processing power and compatibility with new software were gonna be using !

Guess my real only question came down to if anyone saw a problem with this card handeling arrays of that size, guessing the answer is 'it should be fine" hehe !

 

[fluxboxuk]

Okay, random add on part, but iv got the card up and running in a test maching i had lying around, and noticed it seems to get very warm... is this normal for the Adaptec cards these days ?

 

[wuzy]

Not only warm, some passively cooled ones can get extremely hot if there's zero airflow over it. On latest gen. cards many have a 40mm fan over it now. They can run up to around 65-70C no problem tho.
Normally airflow produced from the bottom front HDD cage induce enough cooling for the passively cooled ones.

 

[fluxboxuk]

Thats good to know... thought it might of burst into flames lol... got the HDD's in the post today, alas aint got the cables to connect to the hard disks yet lol... deciding which one of the Norco cases to go for, with SAS connectors or 4 individual sata connectors... either way im having to order it from the US and ship to england (hows that for stupid, its actually cheaper to have it shipped in, than buy a UK model ! JOKE OR WHAT !)

 

[user_1]

Just to add my 2p. I have an Adaptec 3805 with 8 x 1TB Samsung Spinpoint drives in a RAID-6 config (giving me a 5.45TB array under Windows, when converted to a GPT disk). I ended up here whilst searching for information to see if the controller works with 2TB drives as I want to replace the 1TBs with 2TBs!

 

[paulcooperorama]

go to the adaptec site and make sure the drives you are setting up are qualified on the card. most are but a check will not hurt... setting up in the ASM or on the bios level will take some time on the 3805 card. plan on at least 8 hours for 1Tb drives in a raid 5 set up... once done in windows you will need to set up the array as GPT so you get one large chunk not 2Tb chunks.