If you have a backplane, the only way to connect the drives is through the controller.  If you are wanting to run Linux, you will need to upgrade at least to the H200 controller or higher. Regards,
So I have just bought a Dell r410 server, without doing my investigation first. It seems that with the current RAID controller (perc s300) I can't install a linux system. It supports only Windows. So far, so good... after removing the controller and connecting the drives (SATA HDD) directly to the MB with a sata cable... they are not shown at all. Bios doesn't see them or showns them as unknown according to the setting I choose (AHCI, SATA..) Any suggestions? I just upgraded to the latest BIOS version from 1.3.9 to 1.11.0, but still no progress.
Issue with Sata HDD on Dell Poweredge R410