I'm looking at this server and am wondering if the onboard SATA will work with Unraid or if I'd need a PCIe HBA card?  I tried to research this topic but I can't seem to come up with a solid answer.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/SUPERMICRO-CSE-829U-X10DRU-I-12LFF-2x-12C-E5-2678V3-2-5GHz-2x-PSU-0GB-RAM-NO-HD/133571662867?hash=item1f197dd413:g:QH4AAOSw0dVfqbms

 

Any other thoughts/opinions about the setup (other than it needing RAM and drive cages)?

My MB is from the same generation with the same SATA controller and I have all 10 SATA ports working fine.

15 hours ago, ChatNoir said:

My MB is from the same generation with the same SATA controller and I have all 10 SATA ports working fine.

 

Good to know!  Based on my little knowledge, I assume the two blue cables in the unit would be coming from the drive backplane and plug into the motherboard, correct?  I found it a bit odd that they were unplugged if they do indeed have homes on the motherboard.

After a second look at the board datasheet, I do see differences with my motherboard.

https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/X10DRU-i+

https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/X10SRA-F

 

The 10 SATA are listed with RAID option on the DRU-I while it is not the case on the SRA-F.

Upon inspection of the pictures, my board has 10 physical SATA while yours seem to have 2 SATA + 2 SAS SFF connectors.

 

Not sure it will behave like mine, you would have to check that.  

They will all work, just need the correct cables.

5 hours ago, JorgeB said:

They will all work, just need the correct cables.

 

Thanks for confirming!  What types of cables would I need to use the onboard ports?

 

I see the chassis already has cables from the backplane but in the listing they aren't plugged in.

 

After looking at a bunch more pictures of the motherboard via Google, I believe the blue cables in the chassis were originally going into an HBA card that is not there anymore and not something that I could just plug into the motherboard.

 

 

Or would those cables plug into ports A and D in the below schematic?

How many drives on the chassis? If more than 8 it has an expander backplane, so you'd need a SAS HBA to connect it.

2 hours ago, JorgeB said:

How many drives on the chassis? If more than 8 it has an expander backplane, so you'd need a SAS HBA to connect it.

 

The chassis (linked in the original post, pictured below) has the capacity for holding 12 drives.  As of right now, I only have eight or nine drives.

 

The ebay link doesn't mention the backplane model, nor can I see by the photos, but most likely it's an expander backplane, so you need an HBA.

7 hours ago, JorgeB said:

The ebay link doesn't mention the backplane model, nor can I see by the photos, but most likely it's an expander backplane, so you need an HBA.

 

I'll message them to see what model it is and post back up here.  Thanks for the help!

From PIC, 2 SAS cable + 2 SATA to connect 12 disks, because HBA was 8643 socket, so SAS cable end also 8643 too. Onboard have two 8087 ( support 8 SATA device, not support SAS device ) .... So blackplane should haven't expander, you should got three 8087 socket in blackplane.

Edited January 27, 20215 yr by Vr2Io

5 hours ago, snowborder714 said:

I'll message them to see what model

There should be a sticker with the model on the back of the backplane, e.g. BPN-SAS3-826EL1

 

 

14 hours ago, JorgeB said:

There should be a sticker with the model on the back of the backplane, e.g. BPN-SAS3-826EL1

 

 

 

They replied with this - BPN-SAS3-826.  I believe this is an incomplete model number though as I've never seen one end just in 826.  I sent another message to them asking if there are any letters or numbers after the 826.

9 hours ago, snowborder714 said:

I believe this is an incomplete model number

Yep, but most likely it's an expander bakplane.

10 hours ago, JorgeB said:

Yep, but most likely it's an expander bakplane.

 

Had to call them to get an answer but it's a BPN-SAS3-826EL1 backplane.

 

From my research, I'd only need one 8087 (motherboard end) to 8643 (backplane end) cable to power all of the drives, correct?  I'll be using SATA drives so a second cable from the motherboard to the backplane won't do me any good.  Then if I wanted faster transfer speeds, I could get a PCIe HBA and use one/both of the 8643 to 8643 cables that are already in the case?

Hopefully I'm understanding what I'm reading but let me know if I'm wrong.

You only need one cable, but also need a SAS HBA, can't use onboard SATA with a SAS expander, using two cables will double available bandwidth, but it won't be needed for 12 disks, assuming LSI SAS3 HBA with SATA3 disks.

6 hours ago, JorgeB said:

You only need one cable, but also need a SAS HBA, can't use onboard SATA with a SAS expander, using two cables will double available bandwidth, but it won't be needed for 12 disks, assuming LSI SAS3 HBA with SATA3 disks.

 

And the reason for the HBA is because the chassis has 12 bays?  If I had an eight bay chassis I could run off the motherboard ports (since it supports 10 drives - eight via the SAS ports and then two via direct SATA ports)?  Just making sure I understand the reasoning!

 

In looking at your previous posts about HBA, it seems the 9300-8i would be the best for my scenario, correct?  SAS3 expander to SAS3 card as well as the ability to use TRIM on my SSD cache drive and I could literally just drop it in and plug it in with the included cables from the backplane.  If there are other ones that you would suggest, let me know.

 

Here's the readout from my SSD device based on another post of yours I found to make sure it supports TRIM.

 

Edited January 29, 20215 yr by snowborder714

55 minutes ago, snowborder714 said:

And the reason for the HBA is because the chassis has 12 bays? 

The reason you need a SAS HBA is because of the SAS expander, an 8 drive chassis could also have one, but it usually doesn't since just two cables are enough to connect all the drives directly.

59 minutes ago, snowborder714 said:

it seems the 9300-8i would be the best for my scenario, correct?

Yep.

I received the server and purchased an LSI 9300-8i HBA and got everything up and running.  I didn't have too many issues but did run into a few small ones, one being the OS didn't recognize the drives even after reassigning them.  I found another post on here that led me to installing the Dynamix SCSI Devices plugin which fixed the issue.  I did also update the BIOS/firmware on the HBA card which was very straight forward.

 

I appreciate all the help!

Edited February 25, 20215 yr by snowborder714

9 hours ago, snowborder714 said:

installing the Dynamix SCSI Devices plugin

You don't need that with updated firmware.