We currently have several x3650 IBM M1 (7979) series servers. They are great for what we need, have plenty of cpu/ram, etc. They have IBM ServeRaid 8k RAID controllers.
We attempted to redo the RAID arrays and upgrade the hard disks. We had just 4x73GB IBM SAS 15k drives (2.5") in a RAID 5 (1 was hot spare). We removed those and installed 8x146GB Seagate SAS 15k, with intent of 6 drives in a raid 10 with 2 hot spares. However, the built-in RAID controller (ServeRaid 8k) simply did not want to see the drives. It would initially recognize them, but when attempting to initialize the drives it would error out. I updated firmware on raid controller, but no luck. Fortunately, I work at a datacenter, and we were able to test our drives in other systems and didn't run into any problems.
It seems issue is limited to the ServeRaid 8K; which honestly, isn't a great card, has not so great reviews, and only provides SAS 3Gbps.
So we are looking for an inexpensive option to upgrade the controllers in our servers. My research has me considering the IBM M5015 RAID Controller. It provides SAS 6Gbps, double the cache (512MB), and seems to still be a favored budget/enterprise controller due to the ability to Flash it the generic LSI firmware. It is a rebranded LSI 9260.
It seems especially ideal since it was the card included with the IBM x3650 M2 (we have x3650 M1).
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/tips0738.html
I'm probably going to order one to test before committing to 2 more (we have 2 live servers plus one for backup). Just wanted to post this in case anybody had any feedback or suggestions prior to ordering one.
We attempted to redo the RAID arrays and upgrade the hard disks. We had just 4x73GB IBM SAS 15k drives (2.5") in a RAID 5 (1 was hot spare). We removed those and installed 8x146GB Seagate SAS 15k, with intent of 6 drives in a raid 10 with 2 hot spares. However, the built-in RAID controller (ServeRaid 8k) simply did not want to see the drives. It would initially recognize them, but when attempting to initialize the drives it would error out. I updated firmware on raid controller, but no luck. Fortunately, I work at a datacenter, and we were able to test our drives in other systems and didn't run into any problems.
It seems issue is limited to the ServeRaid 8K; which honestly, isn't a great card, has not so great reviews, and only provides SAS 3Gbps.
So we are looking for an inexpensive option to upgrade the controllers in our servers. My research has me considering the IBM M5015 RAID Controller. It provides SAS 6Gbps, double the cache (512MB), and seems to still be a favored budget/enterprise controller due to the ability to Flash it the generic LSI firmware. It is a rebranded LSI 9260.
It seems especially ideal since it was the card included with the IBM x3650 M2 (we have x3650 M1).
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/tips0738.html
I'm probably going to order one to test before committing to 2 more (we have 2 live servers plus one for backup). Just wanted to post this in case anybody had any feedback or suggestions prior to ordering one.
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