The Full Frame

I see this confusion a lot on the internet. Most people new to the high density storage game end up buying a chassis or controller that uses a SFF-8087 cord and they assume that they are all the same.

SFF-8087 is not backwards compatible between planes and controllers and drives. You cannot just flip a breakout cable and expect it to work in the opposite direction.

Several different flavors of SFF-8087:

Forward Breakout = crossover = SFF-8087 (Controller card) to 4x SAS/SATA ports on DRIVES

Reverse Breakout = 1:1 = SATA/SAS Ports (on Motherboard or controller) to SFF-8087 backplane

So if you have a LSI 9211-8i HBA (2x SFF8087) and want to connect to 4 SATA drives you just bought, then you need a SFF-8087 (Forward Breakout / “crossover”) cable.

If you have a Motherboard and want to make use of a hotswap bay, much like that in the Norco 4220 chassis. Then you need a “Reverse Breakout” or “1:1” or “Straight Through” cable.

Hopefully this clears up some confusion.