727252-002 HPE 12GB PCI-E DL38X Gen10 Expander Card

HPE 727252-002 12GB SAS Expander Card

The HPE 727252-002 12GB SAS PCI-E 3.0 X8 ProLiant DL38X Gen10 Plug-in Expander Card is engineered to enhance storage connectivity and deliver reliable performance for enterprise environments.

Product Information

• Brand Name: HPE
• Part Number: 727252-002
• Product Category: Storage SAS Bus Expansion – Plug-in Adapter

Extended Specifications

• Host Interface: PCI Express 3.0 X8
• Internal SAS Ports: 9 total
• Controller Type: SATA/600 and 12Gb/s SAS
• Form Factor: Plug-in Expansion Card
• Data Throughput: Up to 1.2 Gbps

Compatibility Details

Supported Server Models

• ProLiant DL380 Gen10
• DL380 Gen10 Base Edition
• DL380 Gen10 Entry Configuration
• DL380 Gen10 High Performance Variant
• DL380 Gen10 Performance Model

HPE 727252-002 12GB Expandar Card Overview

The HPE 727252-002 12GB SAS PCI-E 3.0 X8 ProLiant DL38X Gen10 Plug-in Expander Card belongs to a specialized category of enterprise storage expansion components designed to enhance internal and external drive connectivity within high-performance HPE ProLiant server platforms. This category focuses on advanced SAS expansion solutions that support large-scale storage infrastructures, enabling IT professionals to scale drive connectivity while maintaining optimal performance, reliability, and compatibility with Gen10 server architectures. These expander cards operate as a bridge between host bus adapters and multiple storage devices, facilitating the efficient distribution of SAS lanes and ensuring consistent throughput across connected drives. In modern data center environments, where storage density and performance are critical, SAS expander cards play a foundational role. They allow organizations to expand drive capacity without requiring additional controllers or extensive hardware redesigns. This category targets enterprises that deploy multi-drive configurations, storage arrays, and high-capacity server enclosures where seamless scalability is required. The HPE 727252-002 exemplifies this category by offering enterprise-grade performance with 12Gb/s SAS support and a PCIe 3.0 x8 interface optimized for Gen10 systems.

SAS Expander Cards

SAS expander cards serve as a crucial intermediary layer in storage architectures, enabling a single SAS controller to communicate with a significantly larger number of drives. Rather than being limited by the number of physical ports on a controller, expander cards extend connectivity, allowing dozens of drives to operate efficiently under a single controller framework. This expansion capability is essential in environments where storage density is prioritized, such as virtualization clusters, database servers, and backup repositories. Within the category, the HPE 727252-002 supports 12Gb SAS technology, which doubles the throughput of earlier 6Gb SAS generations. This higher bandwidth enables faster data transfer rates, reduced latency, and improved performance consistency across large storage pools. The card’s role is not limited to connectivity alone; it also facilitates intelligent routing, load balancing, and failover mechanisms that enhance system reliability.

Scalability

Scalability is a defining characteristic of this category, and the HPE 727252-002 is engineered to meet the demands of growing data environments. As organizations accumulate more data, the need to expand storage capacity without downtime becomes increasingly important. SAS expander cards allow administrators to scale storage infrastructure incrementally, adding drives or enclosures without replacing core hardware components.

Compatibility

A critical aspect of this category is native compatibility with HPE ProLiant Gen10 servers, ensuring seamless integration with existing system architectures. The HPE 727252-002 is specifically designed to align with the hardware standards, firmware, and management tools used in Gen10 platforms. This ensures that deployment is straightforward, maintenance is simplified, and performance is optimized for the underlying server architecture.

PCI Express

The category of SAS expander cards represented by the HPE 727252-002 leverages PCI Express 3.0 x8 connectivity to provide high-bandwidth communication between the expander and the host system. PCIe 3.0 offers significant throughput capabilities, enabling efficient handling of large volumes of data traffic between storage devices and the server CPU. This interface is essential for maintaining performance consistency across multiple drives, especially in high-I/O environments where concurrent read and write operations are common. The x8 lane configuration ensures sufficient bandwidth allocation, reducing bottlenecks and enabling full utilization of 12Gb SAS link speeds. As part of this category, cards are engineered to handle enterprise workloads such as transactional databases, analytics processing, and large-scale virtualization.

12GB SAS Technology

The integration of 12Gb SAS technology defines this category of expander cards, setting a performance benchmark for enterprise storage expansion. Compared to previous SAS generations, 12Gb SAS offers doubled bandwidth, improved signal integrity, and enhanced support for modern storage devices. This category focuses on delivering enterprise-grade reliability, scalability, and performance, ensuring that organizations can meet growing data demands without compromising system stability. The HPE 727252-002 exemplifies these advantages by providing robust SAS connectivity that supports both current and future storage technologies.

Integration

This category is tightly integrated with HPE ProLiant DL38X Gen10 server platforms, ensuring optimal performance, compatibility, and manageability. The HPE 727252-002 is engineered to align with the physical, electrical, and firmware specifications of these systems, providing a seamless expansion solution. Integration extends beyond hardware compatibility to include support for HPE management tools, monitoring systems, and firmware update mechanisms. This holistic integration simplifies deployment, maintenance, and troubleshooting, reducing administrative overhead and improving operational efficiency.

Use Cases

This category of SAS expander cards is designed to support a wide range of enterprise and data center use cases, from high-capacity storage arrays to performance-critical application servers. The HPE 727252-002 is particularly well-suited to environments that require scalable, reliable, and high-performance storage connectivity. Common use cases include virtualization platforms, where multiple virtual machines share a common storage pool, and database servers, where consistent I/O performance is essential for transactional integrity and application responsiveness.

Data Integrity

Security and compliance are critical concerns in enterprise storage environments, where sensitive data must be protected against unauthorized access, corruption, and loss. SAS expander cards in this category contribute to security and data integrity by supporting secure communication protocols, robust error detection, and compliance with industry standards. The HPE 727252-002 aligns with these requirements, ensuring that storage connectivity does not compromise the security posture of the overall system.