How to use the top 4 drive bays in a FUP8X35HSBP back plane to a S1200V3RPL motherboard .. want 2-500Gb (MBR) and 4-4Tb (GPT) dirves

[TSaty]

How to use the top 4 drive bays in a FUP8X35HSBP back plane to a S1200V3RPL motherboard .. want 2-500Gb (MBR) and 4-4Tb (GPT) dirves. Bottom bay has 2-500Gb drives (MBR) (0,1) to be used for OS + 2-4Tb (2,3) in bottom and want 2-Tb (4,5) in upper bay with 500Gb drives in RAID1 and 4-4Tb drives in RAID 10. I used a SAS to 4 SATA Cable to connect the top SAS connector to SATA ports 4 and 5 but the drives are not recognized. The unit is an Intel Server System P4308RPLSHDR. Is there some option I need to purchase from Intel to get the motherboard to recognize the drives in the top bay of the Hot Swap Back Plane? I have 32 Gb of memory and a Xeon E3-1246 v3 Haswell 3.5GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1150 84W Server Processor and have successfully installed Windows Server 2012 R2 64-bit Essentials with the 4-4Tb drives in two RAID1 configurations so I know the system is working. I just need to get to those top drives. Thanks.

[idata · Accepted solution]

Hello,

If you are using SAS drives, please keep in mind that the on-board connectors will support SATA drives only. Can you please let us know the part number for the drives you are using?

[TSaty]

The drives are all Western Digital Enterprise SATA drives: two 500 Gb WD5003ABYZ to be in RAID 1 for the OS and four 4 Tb WD4000FYYZ. All drives were verified functioning using the WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows software before installation in the server chasis. Originally I only had the four 4 Tb drives in RAID 10 intending to install Windows Server 2012 R2 64 bit Enterprise on it then create shared folders for the data. Even though I "Enable EFI" in teh BIOS, I was unable to boot windows after the initial install step. So I disabled EFI and successfully installed Windows Server but the RAID 10 volume only was able to have MBR partitions so I lost almost 6 Gb of storage. Next step is to try to get the configuration described above so I could have the OS on a 500 Gb RAID 1 MBR volume, then, in Windows, setup the four 4 Tb RAID 10 drives as GPT and thus get the full 8 Tb. However, I can only get one bay at a time to work, thus seeing only 4 HDDs (the 2 500 and 2 4 Tb in one of the bays). Note: the working HDDs are connected using the miniSAS to 4 SATA with SGPIO lines that came with the Intel Server System P4308RPLSHDR . For the other bay I purchased a Tripp-Lite S508-003 miniSAS to 4 SATA cable, no SGPIO lead. I cannot get the MB to recognize the 2 HDDs connected with the purchased Tripp-Lite cable (not the right cable?). I have successfully installed Windows Server on the two 500 Gb drives in RAID 1 and the two (since I cannot see 4 drives) 4 Tb RAID 1 drives as a GPT partition when in the same bay connected with the cable that came with the system, thereby getting the full 4 Tb. I just need to get the motherboard to recognize the other two drives in the other bay. A little verbose, I know, but I hope this helps. Thanks.

[idata]

Hello,

According to our database, you are handling this issue through our email support team. If that is the case, I will proceed to close this thread and if not please let us know to remain it opened.

[TSaty]

Dan. Thank you for your reply. Yes, I received and eMail and did a Chat today with Intel Support. It appears my problem is the cable I am using for the second bay (Tripp-Lite S508-003) .. I need an Intel cable http://ark.intel.com/products/76576/Mini-SAS-cable-AXXE38DRVCBL AXXE34DRVCBL which you did not have in stock so I ordered it from NewEgg per my Chat. It appears that not all cables are the same. Yes .. you can close this thread. I will use the Support Request for the resolution. I will report the results when I get the Intel cable in a few days. Thanks for your help.

[idata]

Hello,

We appreciate the feedback provided on this matter. We will proceed to close your thread.