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Questions about the Dell PERC h700 RAID card & RAID cards in general.

I want to upgrade my home PC to RAID (4 x ssd's with an option for an additional 4 x hdd's) and was told to look at getting a used Dell PERC h700.  I'm looking at the following on eBay:

http://r.ebay.com/KrGV0e

My questions are:

1. What are the cables that are included in the photo used for?
2. Is this suitable for a desktop or can you recommend a different card for my expansion options?
3. Is this the correct cable to connect the drives: http://a.co/6A3IZID ?
4. If I connect this card to a PCI x4 as opposed to x 8, will that be a big difference or make it not worth getting?

Thanks.
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Dr. Klahn

The cables -- This unit uses Serial Attached SCSI ("SAS") drives, not standard SATA drives.  These are Dell M246M mini-SAS cables.

Suitable for a desktop -- It could probably be crammed into a full size tower, but with eight drives hanging off it, plus power and data cables?  I'd have to say "not really."

The Amazon cables -- Unless you can Google an article that says "Yes, these work, and I've done it personally, here's pictures" I'd stick with Dell-approved cables.

PCIe x4 vs PCIe x8 -- See what Dell recommends in the manual, and stick with that.

Overall, for a home system I'd have to say -- look at a SATA RAID controller instead, or a NAS with RAID capability.
Good chance it won't work. Use a generic card - LSI, Adaptec, 3ware, etc. A SAS controller is fine, but it's not a good idea to pull server hardware and throw it in a desktop (and vice versa).
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Use a generic card - LSI, Adaptec, 3ware, etc. A SAS controller is fine, but it's not a good idea to pull server hardware and throw it in a desktop (and vice versa).


I was told by another admin that it's OK to get an enterprise-grade card, but can you instead recommend a specific card for what I want to do?
What make/model is your desktop?
Which operating system?
What make/model are the drives?
My desktop is custom built.  Windows 10 Pro.  The primary drive is a Samsung EVS 240 GB; the data drive is a WD Caviar Black 2 TB.  So basically what I would do is purchase three more of each drive and set them up in separate RAID 10 configurations.
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PowerEdgeTech
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