The PERC S300 card that came with our Dell PowerEdge T110 servers is Windows only (see here). As a result, we're looking for an alternative that works under Linux.

We had planned to use software RAID under Linux. However, the hard drives are SAS-only, that is, we can't just put SATA cables in and hook them up to the motherboard.

Is the best solution here to buy SAS to SATA cables, hook them up to the motherboard and power, and use the drives that way?

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If the motherboard ports are SATA-only, you won't be able to run SAS disks from them.

Your best bet is a dedicated HBA. If you're looking for basic hardware RAID OR the ability to present raw disks to the OS for software RAID, try an LSI controller like the 9211-4i or 9211-8i. That's 4 or 8 internal ports, depending on what you need. You'd probably want to look at: http://store.lsi.com/store.cfm/Host_Bus_Adapters/9211_Adapters/LSI00191

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Thanks - I'd vote the answer up, but don't have the rep 8) – max Sep 22 '11 at 16:41
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