RT3WB080 Drive Expander

[PaulJF]

I have a RT3WB080 raid controller in my server with 8 drive connected. Is there a way to expand the 8 drive to 16 drives.  

[JoseH_Intel]

Hello PaulJF,

Thank you for joining the community

Due to this product being discontinued, Intel Customer Service no longer supports inquiries for it, but perhaps fellow community members have the knowledge to jump in and help. You may also find the Discontinued Products website helpful to address your request. Thank you for understanding.

Usually you should be able to connect 1 expander to each port of the RAID controller. Another option could be to cascade 2 or more expanders but it depends on the system and expander model itself. 

You can find the available support information in the this site: https://www.intel.com/content/dam/support/us/en/documents/motherboards/server/rt3wb080/sb/rt3wb080_hardwareguide.pdf

Regards

Jose A.

Intel Customer Support Technician

For firmware updates and troubleshooting tips, visit:

https://intel.com/support/serverbios

[PaulJF]

Hi JoseH_Intel 

Thanks for the information and quick feedback.

I'm not familiar with expanders. Can you guide me a bit more to extend my current 8 physical drives, to a 16 physical drives setup. 

Please let me know if you need more info

Thanks

PaulJF

[LyleEpstein]

Hi Paul. Here is info on how the expander works. Essentially you connect your raid controller into this board and it then allows the controller to see many more drives without the need to buy another Raid Controller with more ports on it.

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/support/us/en/documents/server-products/raid-products/res3tv360_ug_002.pdf 

Lyle Epstein

Kortek Solutions

Intel Alliance Partner Gold