Motherboard HHD interface conversion to fibre channel
 

I've been out of the game for several years now. Medical School and Residency took away my fun time. I have buil several computers in the past, but now I find that so much has changed I cannot even determine where to start. I wanted a "bad ass" that could be used for Telemedicine, graphic design and other normal computer "stuff".

I began by proccuring a refurbished W466G Dell Poweredge 6950 Quad AMD Opteron Motherboard. Then purchased four(4) AMD Opteron 8222 3.0GHZ DC 8222 processors. Next I acquired three(3)Fujitsu 147GB MBA3147FD 15,000 RPM Hard drives. I did not notice that these hard drives utilize fiber channel systems. What type of interface does this motherboard use for hard drive connection and is it possible to convert the interfaces to accept fibre channel?

Sorry, but this will be anything but "bad ass". You bought an outdated motherboard that only supports slow, outdated RAM and four outdated dual-core CPUs. AMD is nowadays up to 16 cores per CPUs in servers and up to 8 cores in desktop systems.
So a modern high-end desktop will perform better (for the same price or less, I would think) and a modern server will perform times better.
Also, modern SSDs most likely will perform better than those disks for the same price or less.

But anyways, what you need to connect the disks is a PCIe to FibreChannel adapter, something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...hannel&x=0&y=0
When I look at the prices alone for the adapter, you could easily have built a bad ass machine alone with that and a really powerful system with what you have paid at all (I can only speculate about that, but I have seen the average prices for those used parts).

Next time when you built a machine and are "out of the game" I would recommend to get some infos before buying anything.

Welcome to Linux Questions! :)

Looking up the Dell Poweredge 6950 Server I find that they appear to use SAS drives so I don't know how you'd connect your fibre channel ones. A lot of servers have on-board RAID controllers plus small battery backed cache daughterboards with connectors on the motherboards going to internal disk array backplanes. (I'm more used to HP servers so I'm making asumptions!)
I reckon you'd need to build a Poweredge 6950 rather than a hybrid due to non-standard wiring issues? :(

I agree with TobiSG that you'd be better with a new modern system if you want "Bad Ass", but then again I still like running "old" kit! Sun Ultra 2, HP Proliant ML370 G4!

Anyway... My :twocents:

Play Bonny! :hattip: