Is it possible to configure a Dell T710 with a PERC H200 RAID controller and 8x 15k 2.5" HDDs and then add 4x X25-E SSDs, purchased separately, when the system is setup, and not sacrifice performance by mixing the SSDs and HDDs?
Or is it better to buy an LSI #9260-4i RAID controller just for the SSDs? In this case, the SSDs would not be able to be connected to the backplane and not hot-pluggable, but would be cabled to the 9260-4i.
The configuration will be
System Drive: 4x X25-E in RAID 10 (C:) volume
DataDrive1: 4x HDDs in RAID 10 (D:) volume
DataDrive2: 4x HDDs in RAID 10 (E:) volume
The Dell documentation says that when SAS and SATA (SSD) are mixed, only two SAS drives can use used and they must be in slots 0 and 1. Yet, the Dell configuration web page does not give an error message when you select 2 SSDs and 8 SAS HDDs.
Best Answer
The H200 can present at most 2 logical drives (virtual disks) so your plan for 3 RAID groups wont fly with the H200 controller alone. You could configure the SSD's in one RAID 10 group, and the 8 SAS HDD's in the other but that wont deliver isolation between the IO on the two data drives.
Which document are you referring to that states that the SAS drives must be in slots 0 and 1 for mixed SAS\SSD setups? The H200 user guide doesn't mention that restriction, the only restrictions that are mentioned are that all drives in a RAID group must be either all SSDs or HDDs and either all SAS or all SATA.