6.2-BETA2 Dell PE1950

[Jerry Bell]

> The confusion is actually on Dell's end.  They've overloaded the 'PERC'
> term to mean both software and hardware RAID.  You can build out a
> 1950 or 2950 with an MPT SAS card instead of an MFI SAS-RAID card, but
> they will still tell you that you are getting 'PERC RAID'.  The power
> of marketeers.  Anyways, I _think_ that the 'i' in 'PERC 5i' is the
> indicator that it is software RAID, and thus just an MPT chip doing
> its 'integrated mirror' feature.

I've spent some quality time on this well Dell in the past 2 weeks.  The
SAS card is called SAS5i, and the "i" in PERC 5i and SAS5i means
"internal".  They also have a PERC 5E which has external SAS ports.  The
"i" cards are typically integrated, mounted up near the array shelf, where
the "e" cards go in the pci-e slot.

I'm not aware of an option to configure a Dell server through Dell's site
with RAID using the SAS5i card.

I got a sweet deal on a refurb 2950 without raid, and trying to convert it
to raid has been fun.

Jerry