I have followed a thread that explains why you can't have both SAS and SATA HDD populating the bays of an x3650. Does this limitation also hold for the x3650 M2 ie you can have all SAS or all SATA but not both?
I asked this question Techline and i've got answer - no. In x3650 M2 you couldn't mix SATA and SAS disks.
There is a triks, you can use it, but i didn't have detailed solution, of course if it is implementable.
x3650 M2 has two disks cage: 8 + 4. If you order additional 4 disks bay, you theoreticaly have possibility to connect 8 disks to one controller and rest 4 disk to another controller. But this isn't supported configuration and should be verified by yourself.
Recently were announced new x3650 M2 servers with new ServeRaid M5014/M5015.
http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/ShowDoc.jsp?&docURL=/common/ssi/rep_ca/1/877/ENUSZG09-0661/index.html&breadCrum=DET001PT022&url=buttonpressed=DET001PT116&page=1000&paneltext1=DET001PEF011&user+type=EXT&lang=en_GB
May be they will break difficulty.
They are based on LSI SAS2108 chip,
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/RedbookAbstracts/tips0738.html?Open
same as proper LSI Megaraid 9200.
There are some rumours that it can mix SAS and SATA
http://www.networkcomputing.com/storage/tapes-and-disks/lsi-launches-next-generation-raid-controllers.php
But i didn't found same information from LSI site.
Official answer from IBM techline should be obtained.
May I ask where the information came from regarding not being allowed to mix SAS/SATA drives? The controller can definitely handle this, and the IBM ServeRAID MR10i User’s Guide specifically mentions that mixed SAS/SATA configurations are supported.
I think the problem is further downstream in the system. Looking at the reported Techline response, the HDDs all plug into a backplane which then has a cable to the disk controller. Looking at the spare parts list for the x3650, there are different backplanes for SAS and SATA.
The only primary backplane I've seen is SAS, which is backwards compatible with SATA by design. The "simple swap" SATA enclosure may be source of the confusion.
Sorry for everybody.
It's look like I mislead public.
I've got response from Techline and found note on Technical Library:
Document ID: FQ128207
Intermix of SAS and SATA drives is supported by IBM for the x3650 M2 and x3550 M2 rack servers only.
IBM does not support SAS-SATA intermix on the x3500 M2 and x3400 M2 tower servers.
Note: mixing of SAS and SATA drives must be configured in separate Raid Arrays and intermix is not allowed within a single RAID volume. For example a RAID 1 array consisting of one SATA and one SAS drive is not permitted.
