cableraidsas
I have some Adaptec SAS raid controllers and the fanout cable comes with an extra cable called a SideBand but I am curious what it does?
I know it plugs into the backplane, but other than that I can't seem to find anything on google
The adaptec site refers to it as "SFF-8448 sideband signals" and there is no mention of it in the manuals or their site.
Yes. This works fine and is not an uncommon arrangement. You may want to look into using nearline or midline SAS drives instead of SATA for future installations, though. These days, there are fewer reasons to use SATA disks given the high-capacity SAS options available.
A few items to help clarify SAS technology...
Internal SAS 4-lane cabling to a backplane
Internal SAS breakout cabling to a backplane
Best Answer
The sideband cables are used to connect the controller to a managed backplane or disk enclosure, so that it can monitor the controller as well as the disks.