As it turns out, I picked up the wrong cables. The two included Int-MS-1M4S cables that came with the RAID controller were intended to connect the card directly to four individual SATA drives each. The issue is that when I connect a drive to my server, I’ll be slapping them into those caddies I mentioned earlier, which slide in the front of the case and connect to what’s called a “backplane”. The backplane has the power and SAS/SATA connections already in place, and has two sockets that accept cables from the RAID controller. What I needed instead was two M246M cables, link here. Oops. After getting all the parts I needed to get started, I’d planned on spending all weekend getting things set up until I ran into this issue. After scouring the online catalogs for major computer stores and contacting everyone I could think of who might “know a guy” in driving distance (thanks, fellas), I ordered two of the M246M cables and will instead be working on homework so I can play with my new toys during the week, guilt free.