adaptec 82885t sas expander#

nifty little thing. up till now have only been able to get the lenovo ones, like the one pictured below. intel has made a version of it as well called res3fv288.

part number 2283400-r

general specs#

chipset: pm8044
host interface: none
connectors:
- 6 sff-8643 which can connect to drives
- 1 sff-8643 to connect to controller or expander
- 2 sff-8644 to connect to controller or expander
sas 12, 6 & 3gb/s
sata 6, 3 & 1.5gb/s
cascading expander support
stp

power and cooling#

16watt (1.34a @ 12v)
200lfm airflow

firmware#

adaptec: 0.59
intel: 0.57 (also includes cpld 2.1.0)
lenovo: 0.63

it’s not clear to me what the difference might be between these versions. i hope to get some insight should i be able to track down an adaptec or intel card.

connectors#

the external connectors (sff-8644) cannot be used to attach drives, only expanders or controllers
the leftmost internal connector (sff-8643) cannot be used to attach drives, only expanders & controllers
the internal connector next to the leftmost can be used to attach drives but not on very old firmwares
the 5 remaining internal connectors can be used to attach drives

software#

expanders do not need software or drivers to work, actual plug & play.

opinion#

pro
- can be powered via either pcie or the molex connector
  - can transform a case with psu into a drive chassis
- makes sata 1.5gbps work with newer hba’s
- comes with vented full and half size bracket
- supports wide ports on external and internal connectors
- can even be daisy chained
- todo picture of card mounted on atx standoffs
con
- todo lenovo health alert (cosmetic most likely)
- needs some decent airflow to cool
- needs adaptec controller to use cli config tool
  - i do doubt this since lenovo bundles this with a broadcom hba while seemingly supporting cli config
  - updating firmware & some other basic things do work through storcli
- documentation could be better
- eol & eos, even though lenovo released a firmware update in 2025