Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters

[Jeremy Chadwick]

On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 10:00:27AM -0800, Jeremy Chadwick wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 11:37:03AM -0600, Barry Pederson wrote:
> > Gerrit Kühn wrote:
> > >On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:56:14 -0800 Freddie Cash <fjwcash at gmail.com> wrote
> > >about Re: Support for SAS/SATA non-RAID adapters:
> > >
> > >FC> > I installed a Supermicro AOC-USASLP-L8i card here some days ago.
> > >FC> > Should be even cheaper than the ones you mentioned and comes with a
> > >FC> > LSI chip supported by mpt driver:
> > >
> > >
> > >I guess the version of the card I have here was actually intended to be
> > >used in some kind of special Supermirco-Extension Slot. However, it fits
> > >into a standard PCIe slot and works nicely there as far as I can tell.
> > >Do you have the opportunity of using a riser card that would give you one
> > >more slot?
> > 
> > Those Supermicro UIO cards look like backwards PCIe cards.  Do they
> > come with other brackets for fitting into a PCIe slot, or did you
> > have to go bracketless?
> > 
> > The online manual at
> > 
> >   http://www.supermicro.com/manuals/other/AOC-USASLP-L8i.pdf
> > 
> > didn't mention anything about brackets or how it'd work in PCIe slots.
> 
> Supermicro UIO slots will adapt to whatever adapter you stick in them
> which are labelled compatible with said motherboard.
> 
> The UIO slot itself is proprietary, but provides pinout interfaces
> to support both PCIe 1x, 4x, and 8x, as well as PCI (32-bit and
> 64-bit), and PCI-X (presumably 100 and 133MHz).  But ultimately it
> depends on what board offers what pinouts through the UIO slot.
> 
> Rather than "document it", here's how it works in the Real World(tm):
> 
> - We need a PCIe x8 on our X7SBi for a low-profile RAID card
> - X7SBi motherboard has a UIO slot:
>   http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon3000/3210/X7SBA.cfm
> - UIO slot on this board supports one of the following, depending
>   on which riser you buy:
>   - (1) PCIe x8
>   - (1) PCI-X 133MHz (64-bit).
> - Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you'll find:
>   - CSE-RR1U-ELi -- 1U PCI-E x8 Riser Card for X7SBi 
> - Visit Supermicro's Accessories page, and select Riser Cards:
>   http://www.supermicro.com/support/resources/Riser/riser.aspx
> - Search for CSE-RR1U-ELi, and you find:
>   http://www.supermicro.com/a_images/products/Accessories/CSE-RR1U-ELi.jpg
> - Contact Supermicro distributor (whoever you got the server from, or
>   you can contact Supermicro directly to help find a distributor for
>   you) and get the CSE-RR1U-ELi.  Some online retailers do sell these
>   risers too.
> - Costs about US$11.
> - Buy it, install it, mount the card in it, enjoy.

By the way, I'll add that the AOC-USASLP-L8i is **not** compatible with
the UIO riser/adapter for the X7SBi.  This should be apparent just from
examining the location of the PCIe x8 slot on the RAID card vs.  where
the CSE-RR1U-ELi PCIe x8 slot is located.

You'll find what boards the AOC-USASLP-L8i is compatible with, UIO
riser-wise, here:

http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-USASLP-L8i.cfm

So in general, make sure whatever Supermicro card (RAID, Ethernet, SAS,
SCSI, whatever) you're going with is indeed compatible with whatever
Supermicro board you stick it in.

Best thing to do is contact Supermicro Technical Support and ask.  Their
TS folks are better than average; I can get full specifications for ICs
out of them, while I've never been able to achieve this with Tyan.
Rackable (who uses Tyan mainboards) might have better luck.  :-)

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                   jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                       http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                  Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.              PGP: 4BD6C0CB |