Backplane Recommendation?

[dnyberg]

So I'm planning a personal NAS server; I can source motherboard, psu, enclosure etc, and gather from this forum a 93xx series controller is the sensible approach. So far so good.

 

But where I'm stuck is in finding backplanes to connect 4, 6 or maybe 8 3.5" sata drives to an 8643 cable. If I had to use those 8643 to 4x sata type cables, it seems to me I'd end up with an enormous mess of cabling snaking about in the enclosure; I'd much rather find backplane cards to reduce that clutter. (I'd kindof like to build with space for 16 drives, and all that cabling adds up.)

 

But everything I'm finding at any reasonable cost online are pulls from proprietary servers. I don't object to used on principle, but the sellers all weasel on the details; they don't say "this card uses X connectors", but rather "this is for your dell this, ibm that, hp something else server". I understand their not wanting to be responsible for compatibility issues, but that's a problem for me.

 

Are there 8643 to satadrive backplanes popular in this group that I could go looking for? It's the last bit I need to find before melting my debit card.

 

Thanks in advance, everyone!

[ChatNoir]

I do not really understand your question.

 

A backplane by itself is not that useful. And from what I understand, they are specific to their case (or several case from one manufacturer).

 

Why look for backplanes instead of a full case that suits your need ?

[dnyberg]

I don't intend to purchase a consumer case, and the enterprise models I see cost a fortune; their main benefit being they provide backplanes to reduce the internal clutter and airflow problems. (I'm impressed by the systems I see on 45drives.com for example, but $4000-$6000 to start isn't going to happen.) Rather, I expect I'll have a friend with cabinetmaker skills build an enclosure to my specs. So I have design flexibility to meet my needs exactly, and it'll be cheaper as well.

 

If I'm stuck running 16 sata data and power cables around (32 cables total!), then I'm stuck doing that, but I'll have to make it a lot larger to accommodate an extra couple of inches behind every drive so the cables don't have to bend too sharply, plus probably more space to accommodate airflow, and all that otherwise useless cabling as well. Backplanes that take a single SAS connector each (8639, I think?) would solve a lot of clutter/airflow issues. I'm hoping that approach is feasible.

[whipdancer]

10 hours ago, dnyberg said:

Are there 8643 to satadrive backplanes popular in this group

Probably not.  I've never seen a backplane discussion that wasn't in the context of a specific case.

You can check this out, though.  I'm working on a modified version of it.

Edited April 10, 2022 by whipdancer

[dnyberg]

Cute link, thanks for that! It doesn't address my clutter/cabling issue, as he clearly is just going with the traditional Box of Many Cables approach, but it does display ingenuity and a possible direction. Not to mention that he put out the build files for people to use. Again, thanks, though I'm still clinging to hope I can do something pretty similar to what the 45drives bunch offers.