Z440 + LSI 9217-4i4e RAID configuration

[wny2016]

Installing a LSI 9217-4i4e SAS controller in a new Z440. The Z440 manual shows the various RAID configurations, no problem there.

I'm wondering if I can specify a RAID 1 with a pair of SAS disks - and - then connect another two SAS drives to this controller, but just have them be ordinary (non-RAID) disks. I have always liked SAS drives for their durability, as compared to SATA. By using, say, the same model SAS drives for both the array and for ordinary storage, it would be a simple maintenance arrangement.

[lemence · Accepted solution]

Yes, you can install all 4 drives and at the time of creating RAID -1 array just add 2x HDDs as RAID disks and leave 2x HDDs as non-raid disks. 

[wny2016]

Thank you! I like to set up workstations with SAS drives for peace of mind. I pretty much run them until their OSs ar eout of date, then start again.

I'm retiring an HP Z210 with 4x 300GB SAS drives running Windows 7. LSI RAID controller, but set up for non-RAID operation.

The new Z440 will by 2x 2tb SAS RAID 1 for OS and programs, 2x 2tb SAS for data that gets backed up by my NAS.

If I wanted to be a little crazy, I suppose I could configure the 2 non-RAID drives as a pair of ordinary SATA RAID drives using HP's built-in controller but I've never worked with any of those... I like to have separate drives for OS/programs and data, an old habit.