We've currently got a HP ProLiant DL180 G6 server with a Smart Array P410i raid card, and 8 HDDs running off it.
We also just bought a new SATA Intel SSD drive to expand the server, that we're planning to connect to the motherboard's SATA ports..
Not the server's sata (powered by HP B110i), and the raid card on the server only support SATA 2. The SSD is a SATA 3 drive, which is backwards compatible, but we'll lose on data bandwidth.
Is there any way to get a SATA 3 port on the server, using an expansion card or something like that? Or does the server we have have no way of getting a SATA 3 port?
Best Answer
You don't have many options. Any SATA drive on a Smart Array P410 controller or the motherboard's SATA leads will only run at 3.0Gbps (or lower) speeds.
SATA 2 == 3.0Gbps SATA 3 == 6.0Gbps
You can use a different controller in the server, but none of the newer HP Smart Array controllers capable of running SATA at 6.0Gbps are compatible with that server. Other manufacturers do have offerings that may work.
In the end, this may not matter much. There's a bandwidth loss, but depending on your application, disk IOPS and latency tend to be more important than raw sequential throughput.