[vvuk]

FWIW -- I've purchased three SAS3041X-R's from ebay, and all have just worked fine ip35 machines without any manual firmware flashing. So it's worth just trying first instead of hunting for a PCI-X x86 machine. I may have gotten lucky (cards were purchased from different vendors, though).

Also, on my O350s, I've pulled the DVD-ROM drive; you can fit up two SATA SSD in the space, and there are adapters from the 4-pin floppy-style power connector that the DVD-ROM drive uses to SATA power. So you can do that, while still leaving the SCSI backplane accessible for 0-2 SCSI drives.