Hello,
I have an old HP server (ML350-G5) having a HP Smart Array E200 disk controller. As far as I can see, this controller is SATA I. Will a WD RED PRO 4TB work on it? The server runs Windows 2008 (First release, not R2).
Regards.
WD red pro has SATA 6 Gb/s interface, you should contact HP to check the compatibility.
I’m sure HP would reply : “Contact WD for compatibility”. The spec of the E200i controller is clear It is a SATA I controller (This is a controller build when only SATA I existed). The real question is : Is a WD RED PRO 4TB backward compatible with SATA I controller?
I would be wary of mixing old tech with new tech. Some old tech is better left to recycle. You may be better off just buying a new NAS that contains WD RED drives,
The most important thing to check: Is the E200 compatble with drives > 2TB?
Generally all sata3/600 drives should be compatible with sata1/150 controllers. You can check if your Raid controller detects a sata3 disk, even with a small notebook HDD. It should be detected.
I have a handful of servers running with P400 controllers, with 512M cache and battery
Mostly linux file and mail servers, and one with vmware esxi.
The P400 only accepts drives up to 2Tb! I use mainly WD black, and it runs smoothly, no problem ever.
I also had a test system with a bunch of 250Gb hitachis, and it worked also flawlessly.
The P400 is sata2 compatible, but only for SAS connection. I use SAS->4xSata cables (without SAS backplane) and with plain SATA disks, so it switches back to SATA1. I had no problem with that. , they are OK.
For numbers: After changing from linux software raid to the P400, the IO latency decreased by cca 70%.
