Chapter 5: Installing the Controller and Disk Drives ● 51
3 When all internal disk drives have been installed and attached to the controller, close your
computer cabinet, reattach the power cord, then continue with Connecting External
Devices on page 53.
Connecting Drives to a System Backplane
In a backplane connection, disk drives and SAS cards are attached to and communicate with
each other through a system backplane.
The number of disk drives is limited to the number of slots available on the backplane. Some
backplanes have embedded SAS expanders and can support up to 128 end devices. (For more
information about backplane and expander connections, see page 92.)
1 Connect one or more internal SAS or SATA disk drives to the backplane. (Refer to your
system’s documentation for more information.)
2 Use an internal SAS cable to connect the controller to the backplane, as shown in the
examples on page 51.
3 When all internal disk drives have been installed and connected, close your computer
cabinet, reattach the power cord, then continue with
Connecting External Devices
on page 53
.
Disk drives on
backplane
Controller connected to backplane
with Internal mini-SAS to mini-SAS
(SFF-8087 to SFF-8087)
Controller connected to backplane
with multi-lane cable (SFF-8484)
Disk drives on
backplane
External SAS cable
connecting to a
drive bay
