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I am looking to add a PCIe V.2 RAID controller (LSI SAS 9280-4i4e) to an older Intel server (SR2500) which has PCIe V.1 slots.

Does anyone have any experience with using RAID controllers designed for PCIe V.2 in a PCIe V.1 server?

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From the FAQ on pcisig.com the answer to Question 5 states that PCIe 2.0 cards must be backwardly compatible with PCIe 1.0 and 1.1. I haven't done this with PCIe cards yet, but the various flavours of 64 bit PCI (66, 100, 133) certainly demonstrated backwards compatibility in my previous experience. I'm typing this on a machine that has a PCIX-133 ASR-2200s card in a PCIX-100 slot.

If the FAQ is to be believed, in order to be compliant with the PCIe 2.0 standard a card must be backward compatible. I would be surprised to find your RAID controller doesn't work, especially on something with a mainstream motherboard chipset.

ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells
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  • I agree, this should just work. – Chopper3 Jun 11 '10 at 09:58
  • Thanks guys - I have decided to go ahead with it - i will update with how it goes... –  Jun 11 '10 at 14:23
  • I ended up with a slightly different version due to availability but it all worked fine and is quick enough for my application - here is the configuration: LSI SAS 9280-8e LSI JBOD 630J w/12 X Seagate ST3146356SS RAID 10 Performance Stats (using SQLIO): 64K Random Write: 1421.63 MBs/sec 64K Random Read: 1118.69 MBs/sec 64K Sequential Write: 1418.04 MBs/sec 64K Sequential Read: 1210.45 MBs/sec Hope this helps someone! –  Jun 28 '10 at 11:28
  • Sounds like a result then. Good outcome. – ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells Jun 28 '10 at 13:10