Intel S5000XVN User Guide - Page 31

SAS Workstation Board In addition to the SATA features described above, SAS models of the workstation board (product code S5000XVNSAS or S5000XVNSASR) have a dual-mode 4-port Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) controller that supports both SAS and SATA hard disk drives. This controller is capable of data transfer rates of up to 3.0 Gbps per port. The SAS controller supports up to 120 physical drives when expanders are used. The BIOS Setup utility includes options on the Advanced | Mass Storage setup page to enable or disable the SAS option ROM and the SAS controller. Both of these options must be enabled to use RAID. • When the SAS controller is enabled, the two black SATA ports on the workstation board continue to function as SATA ports. The four blue ports can be used as either SAS or SATA ports. When the SAS controller is disabled in the BIOS Setup utility, SATA ports 0 and 1 (the two black ports) function as SATA ports and all other SAS / SATA ports are disabled. • When the SAS option ROM is enabled in the BIOS Setup utility, Intel® Embedded Server RAID Technology II is available. This enables SAS RAID modes 0, 1, or 10 for the four blue ports on the workstation board. This SAS controller can mix SAS and SATA drives and the RAID mode of this SAS controller supports up to eight SAS/SATA physical drives and eight logical drives. If the SAS option ROM is disabled in the BIOS Setup utility, but the SAS controller is enabled, the four blue ports on the workstation board continue to function as either SAS or SATA ports and the two black ports on the workstation board continue to function as SATA only ports. However, RAID support is not available. If RAID 5 is desired, the optional Intel® RAID Activation Key AXXRAKSW5 can be installed. To enable RAID 5, this activation key is placed on the SAS_Key connector that is located at the left side of the workstation board. For information on how to install the Intel® RAID Activation Key AXXRAKSW5 accessory to enable RAID 5, see the documentation that is included with the accessory kit. See Figure 2 on page 4 for connection locations. Two SGPIO connectors are available on SAS models of the workstation board, one for the SAS controller and one for the SATA controller. SAS enclosure management is provided through the SES2 connector on the workstation board when a cable is attached between the SES2 connector and the non-expander backplane. Notes: • For help with navigating the BIOS Setup utility, see the Intel® Workstation Board S5000XVN Technical Product Specification. • For help with enclosure management cabling, see the Enclosure Management Cabling Guide for Pedestal Systems with Hot-swap Drive Backplanes. This guide is on the Intel® Server Deployment Toolkit 2.0 CD. Intel® Workstation Board S5000XVN 13