Mini vs. PCIe vs. embedded?  Pass-Through/JBOD supported?  SAS Supported?  These are the frequent questions that get asked when it comes to RAID controllers in Dell servers.

We’ve put together a convenient Dell PERC RAID controller card comparison table, specifying its generational compatibility, interface, features supported, and cache, so you can have a high-level understanding of what functions a RAID controller is capable of performing. 

Nomenclature Guidelines

When looking at the description of the Dell PowerEdge PERC RAID card controller functions, here are some helpful identifiers:

• “P” (as in PERC H710P, H730P, H740P) – the “P” stands for “Plus” and means that the RAID card has an expanded cache capacity. For example, the H730 Mini has a cache of 1GB, but the H730P has a cache of 2GB.
• HBA (“Host Bus Adapter”) – this terminology in the controller description means that the controller is not designed to perform any RAID activity and solely serves as a pass-through for a JBOD configuration. The advantage to these controllers is if your only requirement is a JBOD – with no RAID virtual disks – they can support a larger number of drives beyond the limitations of the embedded controller. 
• “S” (PERC S140, and S130) – any controller with an ‘S’ means ‘Software;’ or that it is an embedded, or a default integrated controller, with the server’s system board.  Additionally, this controller is limited by the type and amount of drives it can support.  For Dell 12^th Gen, that means a total of 4 SATA drives ONLY (no SAS); and for 13^th and 14^th gen, 8 SATA [only] drives. 

CAVEAT CORNER: Some RAID controllers differentiate between the maximum number of drives they support versus the maximum number of drives they can support within a particular RAID disk.  For our purposes, we’ve simplified our “Max Drives Supported” field to reflect the total amount of physical drives supported. 

Additionally, here is a helpful Dell PowerEdge PERC RAID controller comparison chart, which lists all of their PERCs from the Series 6 family to the Series 11 family.