I'm always very careful with any kind of HBA and any kind of PCI (-x -e).

In the end it all depends, how fast is the protectier? Are you expecting to use 
all of that bandwidth? Or, are you quite happy with whatever your PCIe-slot 
will deliver, because you'll be able to do whatever you want to do with that 
bandwidth that you got well within the timeframe that you have? Or is the 
SAN-switch more of a bottleneck?

PCIe slots have dedicated bandwidth per slot, but some chipsets have less 
bandwidth tot the system than total bandwidth on the slots, this is rare though.

The only downside: if your HBA goes, you loose all of the connectivity... there 
is no redundancy... Do you care? Well, if you have a spare HBA at hand... you 
might not. If you loose 8 hours or more of work to get a new one in....

There is only one way to know for sure: look up all the specs and do the math.

On 15 jun 2010, at 10:02, Steven Langdale wrote:

> Hello all
> 
> I'd like the opinions of the group on the use multiport HBA's for 
> connecting to a tape library (infact a ProtecTIER VTL)
> 
> What experience does anyone have using dual port 8Gb PCIe cards in a 
> pSeries - the card model is 5735 and is a dual port one.
> 
> I'd originally asked for 2 x single port HBA's but this is all that's free 
> in the particular frame.
> 
> Should I be concerned about the throughput as all my data is going through 
> the single card?  I've not been able to find out much about the actual 
> sustained throughput of this card.
> 
> I'll be connecting it into 4Gb switch ports btw
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Thanks all!
> 
> Steven
> 
> Steven Langdale
> Global Information Services
> EAME Storage Planning and Implementation
> Enterprise Architecture - Backup & Recovery Architect
> ( Phone : +44 (0)1733 584175
> ( Mob: +44 (0)7876 216782
> ü Conference: +44 (0)208 609 7400 Code: 331817
> + Email: steven.langdale AT cat DOT com
> 
> 

-- 
Met vriendelijke groeten/Kind Regards,

Remco Post
r.post AT plcs DOT nl
+31 6 248 21 622