Hi Todd,

You should have no issues with that card in the 2950, I would go ahead and try it in another 2950 or just another PC just to make sure the card works.

Thanks Dennis, unfortunately these are production servers, so I'll have to at least wait until the end of the day to shut them down.  But I'm glad to hear these two should work together.  I'll try another server and report back.

Todd

I tried it in another PE2950 I have and it didn't work either.  Once I have a chance I'll try it in just a regular desktop PC with a PCIe slot to be sure it's not some compatibility problem.  In the meantime, can anyone else confirm that these two should work together?  I don't see why not.

Thanks,

Todd

The system is available with either a PCI-X or a PCI Express (PCIe) left riser board option.

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

If you have PCI-X vs PCIe slots then this is why it does not "see" the card.

ESATA is available in USB.

If you have PCI-X Slots then an easier option is a PCI 2.3 USB 2.0 card plugged into the PCI-X slot

then use USB 2.0 to ESATA connections.

For that situation I recommend an inexpensive Fully compatable PCI card.

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0221833

IOGEAR

Even further update, tried the card in just a plain old Dimension desktop and it worked fine.  So, I guess this card isn't compatible with the 2950, for whatever reason.  It does state that it is compliant with the PCI-e base spec of 1.0a.  Anyone know what spec the 2950 was designed to?

Thanks,

Todd

It definitely has the PCIe riser board option, has "PCIE" printed right on the daughter card next to each slot.  I don't even know how you could get a PCIe card in a PCI-X slot anyway.  I'd really rather not use USB for the speed limitations  There must be an eSATA card that works with this thing, every internal drive in the server is SATA.  Maybe there's a free internal connector available on the motherboard that can be carried out to the back with a simple dummy slot cover and internal SATA cable?  I didn't think to check the board when I had it open.

Todd

RESOLVED:

After doing some more research I came across someone using this same card in a 2950.  They had the same problem until they tried the x4 PCIe slot available in the 2950.  Apparently, I only tried the 2 x8 slots.  Well, it worked beautifully.  Not sure why, as everything I read both in Siig documentation and elsewhere says you should be able to run an x1 card in any PCIe slot.  Maybe this is a limitation of this particular card, or the server?  I don't know, but it seems to work just fine in the single x4 slot.  So, there you go....

Thanks,

Todd

Good thing you were able to get it resolved.. and the passthrough SATA to ESATA exist, my external vantec drives came with them, but I advise not to use the passthrough on a 2950 as  the motherboard SATA ports are passed to Windows as IDE and not HOT-Swappable.. You would have to get a software utility to disconnect the drives and then swap them out, or you encounter the lovely Panic I did where Server locks up; LCD on server goes orange and it reports a FATAL system Error and Crashes...