Thank you again. I only have 10k 2,5" HDDs, so I guess I won't be close to saturating it. That really helps!

l dl380 the expander would have 2 cables to each of the 3 front cages + have 2 spare ports for any drives you have in rear of server.With a maxed out 30x 2.5" front+back server they share the 8 lanes from expander to server.

You can even add another expander to the expander if you want, the

Thank you, that clears up alot.

So basically I have 3 front cages, each connected with 2 ports, as you said (DL380 Gen10). The expander has 9 ports, so 1 is free to use.

I'd like to connect a tape drive to it. It is using Mini-SAS, while the expander is Slimline-SAS. I found a converter, which uses a PCIe-Bracket (without the port, just passively converts), so from what I understood I should be able to convert Mini-SAS->Slimline-SAS and then just connect it with a slimine->slimline SAS cable to the expander?

How does the speed work - if it is like a switch the bandwidth would only suffer if the Tape is actively using the link? Or will it always decrease because the port is connected?