We have a PE R410 with a PERC S300 controller that we want to use with linux. I know that linux does not have support for the PERC S300.
My preference would be to use the R410 motherboard ICH10 SATA ports and, ideally, have these cabelled to the SAS backplane (Dell P/N 0F678M).
Has anyone done this, using some combination of SFF8087 to SATA fanout cable such as these:
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04&sku=a2982408
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115064
I'm aware of the fact that the S300 is cabelled to the drive backplane via the riser card and an unusual SFF8087 Y-cable that has one SFF8087 at the controller riser card end and two SFF8087 at the backplane end, as discussed here:
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/servers/f/906/t/19326640.aspx
What I'm wondering, based on this knowledge, is whether I can get some unusual 4-SATA-to-2-SFF8087 cable that would serve the purpose, or whether I could use two of the SFF8087-to-4-SATA cables shown at the URLs above but only use 2 of the SATA ends from each set of 4.
Alternatively, is there a different model of backplane for the R410 that is intended for what I'm intending to do?
I've also seen R410s with no hard drive backplane that have direct cabling between the motherboard SATA ports and the drives. That's another option of course, but I know then that there are some other Dell parts I'd need to obtain (drive cabling and power harness, different drive carriers). If anyone knows exactly what parts I would need for that option, I'd welcome that information.
I would rather not have to purchase another controller to replace the S300, whether another PERC model from Dell or something aftermarket that uses the PCI slot in the R410, but I'm still open to this option as a last resort so recommendations are welcome.
Thanks!