3DM 2 Online Help

System Requirements
3ware 9690SA and 9650SE model RAID controllers have the following requirements:
Motherboard and Slot Requirements
A workstation-class or server-class motherboard, with an available PCI Express x8 or x16 slot that complies with PCI 1.1 or later. (Some versions of the 9650SE can use PCI Express x1 and x4 slots).
A list of motherboards that have been tested is available at
http://www.3ware.com/products/sys_compatibility.asp
A workstation-class or server-class motherboard, with slots that support the specific 3ware RAID controller model, as shown in Table: Required Slots for 3ware RAID Controller Models.

Required Slots for 3ware RAID Controller Models
Controller Model | PCI-E X1 | PCI-E X4 | PCI-E X8 | PCI-E x16 | PCI-X (64-bit)
9690SA (all models) | No | No | Yes | Yes | No
9650SE-2LPML | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No
9650SE-4LPML | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No
9650SE-4LPME | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No
9650SE-8LPML | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No
9650SE-12ML | No | No | Yes | Yes | No
9650SE-16ML | No | No | Yes | Yes | No
9650SE-24M8 | No | No | Yes | Yes | No
9590SE | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No

Notes:
In a Mac Pro, the PCI Express slots can be configured by using the Expansion Slot Utility (available through System > Lib > Core Services > Expansion Slot Utility). For optimal performance of your 3ware RAID controller, make sure you are aware of the PCI Express slot configurations, and make sure that you install the RAID controller in a slot configured for at least the minimum number of lanes (4 lanes, for a 9650SE-4LPME, and 8 lanes for 9690SA models).
3ware 9690SA and 9650SE RAID controllers must be installed in a PCI Express slot that complies with PCI 1.1 or later standards.

Drive Requirements
For 9650SE Model Controllers
Depending on the particular model, the 3ware RAID controller may be connected to two, four, eight, twelve, sixteen, or twenty-four SATA drives using the supplied interface cables.
Drives must meet SATA-1 (1.5 GB/s) or SATA-2 (3.0 Gb/s) standards.
For 9690SA Model Controllers
The 3ware 9690SA RAID controller may be connected to up to 128 SAS and/or SATA drives. A maximum of 32 drives are allowed per RAID unit and up to 32 active RAID units per controller. Also, there is a limit of 4 enclosures with SAS expanders per controller.
You cannot mix SAS and SATA drives in the same unit.
Drives and drive enclosures must meet SAS (3.0 Gbps) and SATA (1.5 or 3.0 Gbps) standards.
A list of drives that have been tested is available at
http://www.3ware.com/products/sys_compatibility.asp
Drives may be of any capacity or physical form factor.
The length of internal unshielded interface cables may not exceed 1M (39”) and a maximum of 6M (234”) for external shielded cables.
Enclosure Requirements
For 9690SA controllers, enclosure management features in 3ware software are available for supported enclosures with expanders that provide SCSI Enclosure Services 2 (SES-2).
For 9650SE controllers, enclosure support is CCU-based with SAF-TE (SCSI Accessed Fault Tolerant Enclosure).
A list of supported enclosures is available at
http://www.3ware.com/products/sys_compatibility.asp
Cascading of enclosures is limited to 4 enclosures based on the same expander. Enclosures may contain cascaded expanders internally.
Operating System
3ware RAID controllers may be used with:

| Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, 2008, and Vista, both 32-bit and 64-bit x86

| Red Hat Linux, 32-bit and 64-bit x86

| SuSE Linux, 32-bit and 64-bit x86

| Fedora Core, 32-bit and 64-bit x86

| Other versions of Linux, 32-bit and 64-bit x86, using the open source Linux 2.4 or 2.6 kernel driver

| FreeBSD, 32-bit and 64-bit x86

| VMware ESX 3.x Server

For the latest driver versions for all operating systems, see the current Release Notes at http://www.3ware.com/support/ and the file versions.txt, available on the CD.
Other Requirements

| Adequate air flow and cooling

| Adequate power supply for drives

| 3DM 2 (3ware Disk Manager) displays information in a browser. It requires one of the following browsers:

| Internet Explorer 5.5 and later

| Mozilla Firefox 1.2 and later

| Netscape 7 and later

In addition:

| JavaScript must be enabled

| Cookies must be enabled

| For best viewing, screen resolution should be 1024 x 768 or greater, with 16-bit color or greater.

For a complete listing of features and system requirements, refer to the 3ware SATA RAID Controller datasheets, available from the website at http://www.3ware.com/products.

Related Topics
  Highlights of the 9.5.1 Release
  Understanding RAID Concepts and Levels
  3ware Tools for Configuration and Management
  Monitoring, Maintenance, and Troubleshooting Features

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