Intel SR2600urlxr Raid
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I looked that system up - it's 10+ years old. You sure it's worth running? You can likely find a new chassis that's more power efficient with more CPU power, etc.
As for actual suggestions, not really, but I'm sure broadcomm and Intel both made cards that would work for you, though you're going to have to stick to the slot options you have available in that chassis.
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LSI cards are pretty popular and can be found on ebay for cheap. Even the rebranded Dell/HP cards can be used most of the time. They are PCIe. You can change the firmware on them too.
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@mroth911 said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
I just got 3 SR2600URLXR, and I am trying to raid 3 x 4tb drive. The server is only seeing max 2tb. is there a way to upgrade the raid controller it's onboard.
Has the BIOS/Firmware been updated?
That may be a backplane limitation more than an on board chipset RAID limitation.
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@PhlipElder said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
@mroth911 said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
I just got 3 SR2600URLXR, and I am trying to raid 3 x 4tb drive. The server is only seeing max 2tb. is there a way to upgrade the raid controller it's onboard.
Has the BIOS/Firmware been updated?
That may be a backplane limitation more than an on board chipset RAID limitation.
It's the 2 TB limit typically a BIOS limitation?
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@Dashrender said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
@PhlipElder said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
@mroth911 said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
I just got 3 SR2600URLXR, and I am trying to raid 3 x 4tb drive. The server is only seeing max 2tb. is there a way to upgrade the raid controller it's onboard.
Has the BIOS/Firmware been updated?
That may be a backplane limitation more than an on board chipset RAID limitation.
It's the 2 TB limit typically a BIOS limitation?
We have two small form factor SR2600URLXR units sitting in the bin at the moment. I don't have anything in SFF that's larger than 1.9TB to test with.
But yes, SAS 3Gbps had a 2TB limitation as did SATA 3Gbps AFAIK.
There may be firmware updates for both the BIOS and the backplane.
https://download.intel.com is the place to check.
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So that max is 2tb.
where do I get the bios updates
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@mroth911 said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
So that max is 2tb.
where do I get the bios updates
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/48667/Intel-Server-System-SR2600URLXR
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So I can't go to 4tb drives 2 is the limit.
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Can the actual backplane prevent you from having larger drives? I understand it can be a performance bottleneck, but drive size prevention?
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@Dashrender said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
Can the actual backplane prevent you from having larger drives? I understand it can be a performance bottleneck, but drive size prevention?
Yup. Early 3Gbps SAS/SATA was hit and miss since 2TB would have been rather huge at that time.
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@PhlipElder said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
@Dashrender said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
Can the actual backplane prevent you from having larger drives? I understand it can be a performance bottleneck, but drive size prevention?
Yup. Early 3Gbps SAS/SATA was hit and miss since 2TB would have been rather huge at that time.
By backplane you're talking about the RAID plug itself? or the place where the drives plug in? I could agree with the RAID controllers plug, assuming it can't be software updated to support something larger.. but as for the actual backplane where you plug drives into, just unplug that cable from the onboard RAID, and plug it into an add-on card - I would think that would work, but perhaps not.
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@Dashrender said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
@PhlipElder said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
@Dashrender said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
Can the actual backplane prevent you from having larger drives? I understand it can be a performance bottleneck, but drive size prevention?
Yup. Early 3Gbps SAS/SATA was hit and miss since 2TB would have been rather huge at that time.
By backplane you're talking about the RAID plug itself? or the place where the drives plug in? I could agree with the RAID controllers plug, assuming it can't be software updated to support something larger.. but as for the actual backplane where you plug drives into, just unplug that cable from the onboard RAID, and plug it into an add-on card - I would think that would work, but perhaps not.
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/48667/intel-server-system-sr2600urlxr.html
There's a manual and that's about it.
We don't have any build info on those guys anymore. That data has long been parsed out.
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@PhlipElder said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
But yes, SAS 3Gbps had a 2TB limitation as did SATA 3Gbps AFAIK.
I don't think so. We have some servers with newer 4TB drives connected to SATA2 ports.
Not as boot drives though, which used to be where 2TB limit became the problem. (Limit is related to MBR)
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@Pete-S said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
@PhlipElder said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
But yes, SAS 3Gbps had a 2TB limitation as did SATA 3Gbps AFAIK.
I don't think so. We have some servers with newer 4TB drives connected to SATA2 ports.
Not as boot drives though, which used to be where 2TB limit became the problem. (Limit is related to MBR)
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000007454/server-products.html
^^^ That says it all.EDIT: The top three are what are in the server AFAIR.
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@mroth911 said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
Recommendations?
Newer servers or software RAID.
Intel doesn't make production grade RAID products. They make great stuff, but their RAID is a train wreck.
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@PhlipElder said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
@Pete-S said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
@PhlipElder said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
But yes, SAS 3Gbps had a 2TB limitation as did SATA 3Gbps AFAIK.
I don't think so. We have some servers with newer 4TB drives connected to SATA2 ports.
Not as boot drives though, which used to be where 2TB limit became the problem. (Limit is related to MBR)
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000007454/server-products.html
^^^ That says it all.EDIT: The top three are what are in the server AFAIR.
That sums it up. 2TB limits.
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@Dashrender said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
Can the actual backplane prevent you from having larger drives? I understand it can be a performance bottleneck, but drive size prevention?
Absolutely, always has.
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So I decided to take the CPU dual x5675 and 96gb ram and put it in my dell r710. with my raid h700 controller.
4tb are detecting.
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@scottalanmiller said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
@Dashrender said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:
Can the actual backplane prevent you from having larger drives? I understand it can be a performance bottleneck, but drive size prevention?
Absolutely, always has.
To clarify, this isn't ALWAYS the case. The backplane can limit drive speed and/or size if it's an expander-type backplane.
On Supermicro, for example, if you have a chassis that ends in "TQ" this means the backplane is not an expander and is merely an input ("direct attached") board allowing SAS connections to it. I.e. you use an SF8087 fanout cable and run the 4 SAS sideband connectors to each port on the board.
Also from Supermicro is the "A" chassis which utilize a breakout backplane which takes a SF8087 input cable and then "breaks out" to 4 connections for 4 drives without modifying the instruction set from your card.
While cabling with both of these become messier than expander backplanes, they're almost forever upgradeable. So whether you bought your 32 drive chassis yesterday or 8 years ago, you can still obtain SAS2 speeds from it and large drives. One can also use a SAS3 card with a SFF8643 to SFF8087 cable, though you will be speed limited to 6Gbps.
