How to use sas hard drives in hp z800

[DocNoob]

Hello guys. I bought 4 hard drives and i didnt know any thing about sas. And unfortunately they turned to be sas drives. I was planning to go for raid configuration. But now i am stuck with it. As far as i know hp z800 has sas controller but im blank after this. Please help me resolve my problem thanks

[DGroves · Accepted solution]

you need to move the 4 internal SAS/SATA cables from the Intel "SCU" ports (which are next to the two Intel 3gb SATA ports)

note that the cables are marked 0-3 match this up with the LSI port numbers marked on the motherboard port 0 is closest to the front of the system which run along the bottom edge of the motherboard

to the onboard LSI controller supports SAS/SATA 

then make sure the Z800 bios has the LSI boot rom enabled (shows the LSI prompt during startup/warm boots)

install the sas drives in the 4 internal hotswap bays, power on and during the z800 boot press the required keys when the LSI bios prompt shows on screen, now create a raid 0/1/10 (raid 5 is not recommended using the onboard controller)

reboot and if using win 10 all drivers are included in the OS earlier os's such as win 7 require manually adding the LSI driver using the "F6" method

if not booting from the LSI controller, disable ONLY the LSI BOOT ROM option in the z800 bios to speed up the boot time of the system

[DocNoob]

 

Ok so i removed these 4 sata cables from their ports and will insert to lower ones. Or do i need to change any other power cables also?

Thanks for helping me i always wondered what these white ports did.

And also will i be able to use my other drives that i already have?

[DGroves]

the HP user manual and the hp service guide is the place you should start instead of asking questions like this that are covered by HP in their z800 documentation

last, google is your friend when looking for things like the above documentation

https://www.google.com/search?q=hp+z800+service+manual+pdf&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS850US850&oq=hp+z800+servi...

https://support.hp.com/us-en/product/hp-z800-workstation/3718645/manuals

[DocNoob]

 

Thanks for your help i was able to install drives and make raid. Now im stuck with how to install windows on it. Tried rufus after creating gpt drive tried to boot from it says to remove this drive and press any key to restart

[DGroves]

if you intend to boot from a Raid drive on the LSI controller you must have

1. a predefined raid array connected to the LSI SAS/SATA ports

2. the array/non array boot drive must be no larger than 2 GB (limitation of the controller & z800 bios)

3. drive must be non GPT, IE-LEGACY with MBR (z800 does not have a uefi bios so no GPT booting)

if using win 10, the array will be found during the install, remove any existing partitions manually then press next, win 10 will auto create all necessary partitions and install

after install, install Intel RSTe (enterprise) 4.5.xxxx driver from intel site or the 4.3xxxx driver from the HP z800 driver page

[DocNoob]

This means i wont be able to install OS in my sas raid? Its total size is 8TB. I only bought these to speed up the system by raid

[DGroves]

no, you will not be able to boot from a 8TB drive

for a fast OS

install a midrange SATA based SSD like the samsung EVO line

read how to install and boot from a m.2 nvme ssd using DUET/REFIND

use the 8TB raid for a non booting data drive

only the x20 and higher model z workstations can boot from large drives as they have UEFI bios,

note that the x20 models although UEFI, will not boot from a nvme drive unless a 3rd party mod is done (REFIND/DUET)

the z x40 line can boot from nvme

[DocNoob]

Thanks for the help. Inspite being a beast this pc is trash in this aspect.

[DocNoob]

So i plan to buy this ssd and use it as boot drive as you suggested

Micron 512gb ssd 

I see that its sata 6gbps but ports in my pc are 3gbps if im not mistaken. So if i use pci to sata. Will it work at max speed?