If you have a SATA/SAS controller, are you able to have a SATA boot drive and a SAS as your 2nd drive? I was able to configure this on Dell’s website, but our sales rep says you can’t mix the two unless you have a total of four SAS drives???
jeff, why do you need sas for your home PC? is the 3gb backend the holy grail for building LT1’s?
LOL
I am guessing it’s a low level card the does not allow true dual channel sas/sata drives… it probably shares internal memory or bus that limits it. but most dells (although i dont work wtih them) have onboard sata controllers to boot to and the optional sas card for extended storage. check to see if you have an onboard as well. i would not attempt to mix and match drives if you aren’t using two different hardware controllers.
Does it make sense that you could do it if you had a SATA boot drive and 4 SAS drives?
i don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about… i’m guessing that he’s saying that the upgraded sata/sas card allows RAID configurations and the option to also dual control both types of drives??? I don’t know why the amount of drives even came up.
other guys on here work with dells… maybe they know more than me!
i imagine you would need two different controllers to do that. What are you building?
I am not positive but I think the perc 5 controller only runs SAS drives and not SATA, and the perc 4 runs only SATA and not SAS. I don’t see how you could mix and match.
i’m guessing nothing special… he’s jsut an engineer and they have to make everything the most difficult possible!!! haha :blue:
hahah… i hear that
The workstation has an integrated SATA/SAS controller. This will be a non-raid system.
I called a guy in Dell tech support and he said that you can mix the two drives and either one can be your boot drive, which is completely different than what the sales rep said (I don’t think he knows what he’s talking about). The Dell webaite says you can mix them but the boot drive must be the SATA drive. I think I believe the tech support guy!
Not making things harder, I just don’t know what I’m doing with this computer stuff - learning as I go! I just want a computer that won’t take 12 hours to run my job.
oh… workstation.
i have no freaking clue!
haha… one or the other will be fine… iwas just messing with you… i’m sure if the tech guy said you can run both then it’s a dual controller… so you’ll be golden either way…
I usually do make things too difficult though. 
Jeff what are the other workstation specs if you don’t mind me asking?
Base Unit:
Dell Precision 690 Mini-Tower Dual Core Xeon Proc 5060 3.20GHz, 2X 2MB L2 Cache 1066MHz (222-1739)
Memory:
8GB, DDR2 ECC SDRAM Memory 533MHz, 4X2GB, Dell Precision 490/690, Factory Install (311-5924)
Keyboard:
Entry Level, USB, No Hot Keys keyboards, Dell PrecisionWorkstations (310-7949)
Monitor:
Dell UltraSharp 1907FP Flat Panel with Height Adjustable Stand,19.0 Inch VIS,OptiPlex Precision and Latitude (320-4566)
Video Card:
nVidia,Quadro FX 3450,256MB dual VGA or DVI, Graphics CardDell Precision X90 (320-4938)
Hard Drive:
146GB SAS Hard Drive, 1 inch (15,000 rpm) for Dell Precision 490/690 (341-3415)
Hard Drive Controller:
C7- All SAS Hard Drives Non- RAID for 2 Hard Drives Dell Precision 690 (341-3385)
Floppy Disk Drive:
3.5inch,1.44MB,Floppy Drive Dell Precision 490/690 Factory Install (341-3690)
Operating System:
WINDOWS XP PRO x64, with MediaDell Precision, English Factory Install (420-5258)
Mouse:
Dell USB 2-Button Optical Mouse with Scroll for Dell Precision (310-7958)
CD-ROM or DVD-ROM Drive:
48X/32XCDRW AND 16XDVD+/-RW w/Cyberlink Power DVD,Roxio Digital Creator Dell Edition Dell Precision X90 (313-4283)
Speakers:
Internal Chassis Speaker Dell Precision 380 (313-3417)
Documentation Diskette:
Resource CD contains Diagnostics and Drivers for Dell Precision 690, Factory Tied (313-4143)
Bundled Software:
Microsoft Office 2003 Basic Edition for Optiplex,English (412-0450)
Additional Storage Products:
146GB SAS Additional Hard Drive, 1 inch (15,000 rpm) forDell Precision 490/690 (341-3427)
Controller Option:
SATA/SAS integrated controllerfor Connecting Internal Hard Drives, Dell Precision 690 (341-3435)
lol nice
you should of checked out the ibm dual xeons too… sometimes their prices are comparible… 8 gig of ram 
you should of stepped it up to solid-state drives LOL!
Yea thats a pretty beefy system!
Finally got this resolved - kind of. Dell was able to setup a 250GB SATA boot drive, but had to do two 146GB RAID 0 SAS drives as the additional drives. Still not sure why. And somehow the price came out a few hundred dollars cheaper, but with an extra 250GB drive. :dunno: And previously it was non-RAID. Works for me.
And I’m getting the 8GB of RAM and a 19" flat panel. Purchase req is being done today. Yay!
My increased productivity should easily pay for this machine. :hsugh:
baller