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C6100 SFF vs LFF node interchangeability
So we have a cluster of 12 C6100 [LFF L5520] (32 nodes) in production in suites in the US and Europe.
We have only dealt with the LFF models up to this point.
Today I acquired a SFF model [SFF e5606] (4 nodes) {service code 6DH4TR1} today, and they all have the LSI 9260-8i SAS/SATA Cards.
Please excuse my inexperience in this question, but we have never dealt with this model or this card before, none of our LFFs have a RAID card.
1) am I correct in assuming that the nodes are all interchangeable? i.e. I could install one of the nodes with the RAID card and the e5606 in a LFF chassis, and vice versa, I could install one of the L5520 nodes in this SFF chassis.
2) is the backplane on this SFF model standard, or is it specifically configured/reconfigured for the LSI cards? I know it supports 24 2.5" SAS/SATA drives where as my LFFs support 12 3.5" drives (6 vs 3 per blade).
3) again, I apologize for my inexperience, but if the backplane is standard, I can install a combination of SAS and SATA, correct?
4) if I were to REMOVE the LSI card from any of these blades, can I assume I would just reconnect the blue cables to the motherboard, rather than to the riser card?
Thanks for helping someone who is a newb at the SFF model!
Andy in CO
Anonymous
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March 8th, 2017 09:00
Hello.
The nodes are interchangeable because they are designed to reside in the same chassis.
The backplane configuration is not tied or limited to any given controller card. It will work with both SFF and LFF models.
Yes, a combination of SAS and SATA hard drives can be used as long as they separately constitute virtual disks and not configured on the same virtual disk.
No. The SATA cables for LSI-9260 -8i connection to the interposer is a mini SAS on one end. You can use a pass-through mode on the LSI-9260 card instead of getting rid of it.
Thank you.
andygrantonline
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March 8th, 2017 23:00
Robert, thank you for your reply.
1) thanks. I am shipping two of the nodes that came with the SFF to my production rack in California to be installed in an LFF host.
4) how do you set pass thru mode on the LSI card? is it in the interface (ctrl-H or ctrl-Y) that precedes the boot sequence?
andygrantonline
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March 8th, 2017 23:00
When googling for pass-through settings, I get the following which says pass-through is not possible on the LSI 926x series:
www.xtremesystems.org/.../showthread.php
freebsd.1045724.x6.nabble.com/LSI-9260-is-there-a-way-to-configure-it-JBOD-like-mps-td5796967.html
Anonymous
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March 10th, 2017 09:00
I have looked again but the available option is not supported by Dell and it is not recommend. You may set each disk to RAID 0