SAS Expander case?


Homerr

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I searched a bit here and the web and don't quite see if this is a thing - SAS Expander case with a backplane.  Maybe I'm using the wrong terminology for my searches.

 

I'm looking to expand my server with more bays - 20 of 20 are full now.  I have a old Norco RPC-4020 which is in a rack and I'm happy with it in general.  I have a x16 slot open (x4 electrical) and am wondering if there is a setup with an expander card, cable to a second case (rackmount if possible) with 8? +/- drive bays (hot swap/front accessible a plus).

 

A sub question would be can x4 electrical on the PCI-e slot support 4 or 8 drives?  Plex is the main use, 98% one user connected.

 

I have a mix of 10/12/16tb drives with 2x16tb parity drives, but would like more storage space without ditching the 10tb drives.  Does this exist and can it be done for hundreds $ instead of thousands $$$ ?

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the shown device wont help him at all.

It just "expands" a PCIe 1x slot to the outside (through the "USB type" cable, which is NOT used for USB).

 

An 1x slot can handle a stupid SATA controller for max 4 drives.

 

What he is looking for is a SAS expander, thats a multiplier device hooking to a SAS controller (which usually has 4 ports per connector, the expander makes 16 out of them).

That is a total different pair of shoes (and a different price range too)

 

I personally would not go for a SAS expander, it slows down things a lot. But if you dont care about speed...

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2 hours ago, MAM59 said:

the shown device wont help him at all.

It just "expands" a PCIe 1x slot to the outside (through the "USB type" cable, which is NOT used for USB).

 

An 1x slot can handle a stupid SATA controller for max 4 drives.

 

What he is looking for is a SAS expander, thats a multiplier device hooking to a SAS controller (which usually has 4 ports per connector, the expander makes 16 out of them).

That is a total different pair of shoes (and a different price range too)

 

I personally would not go for a SAS expander, it slows down things a lot. But if you dont care about speed...

I already said use it to power up the expander in external storage enclosure. Nothing relate the PCIe signal and USB cable. If you have electronic skill, you can connect the PCIe to PSU without those adaptor.

 

In fact, expander were best solution to connect many SAS/SATA device, I haven't got slowing.

Edited by Vr2Io
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Based on what you all have said I did some revised searching and think I've found more what I'm looking for - Supermicro 826 chassis (12 bays) with a BPN-SAS2-826EL1 or BPN-SAS3-826EL1 backplane.  There may be other chassis, but this seems fairly common and parts are available and are on ebay for around $250-300.

 

Art of Server has done a nice explainer on this.

 

 

 

Using this second video above it seems a single 8087 cable would be enough using his 2-5-9 rule with 3.5" SATA drives.  With a SAS2 backplane, 12 x 2gbit = 24gbit.  (At 15 min mark in 2nd video.)

 

Getting to a PCIe HBA to my motherboard -

 

My motherboard has a 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 Slot (PCIE3: x4 mode) slot available, so x4 electrical.

 

(I'm using the primary PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slot (PCIE2: x16 mode) for my LSI-9201-16i card for the array in the Norco RPC-4020 chassis.  Motherboard is a Asrock X370M Pro4 with a Ryzen 5 3600 (Pinnacle Peak) cpu.)

 

Continuing with his math (15:45 in video), PCIe2.0 = 500mb/s per lane x 4 lanes = 2,000mb/s or x8 to get gigabits = 16 gbit/s total bandwidth.  This is a bottleneck, but I'll also never have 12 drives going at max other than parity checks.  So for Plex this seems like it should be fine.  Does this sound okay?

 

So, to not make this too hacky it seems I would need, in order, starting from the backplane -

1. SFF-8087 cable to a ?? (unknown) rear panel PCI slot connector.  (Is this cable directional?)

2. The ?? PCI slot connector cable to the HBA in the unraid server.  (Would prefer this inermediate bit so I can unplug the SM 826 case for maintenance instead just a long 8087 cable fron the backplane to HBA.)

3.  The HBA itself, with at least one external connector.  Sounds like it needs to be at least PCIe2.0, SAS 2008.  (Could this be a newer PCI33.0 spec x8 card instead?  Would it just run at the slower 16gbit/s speed?  Thinking a couple years down the road if I replace the motherboard/cpu.)

 

If this all looks correct so far can anyone help me with part numbers/links for the 3 parts listed above?

 

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

Update -

 

So, I guess I was just looking for a JBOD case.

 

It took a bit more looking at what was out there and from browsing Supermicro manuals it looked possible to do what I wanted.

 

I ended up getting a "SuperMicro CSE-826 12x LFF 2U Barebone W/ Trays 2X PWS-920P-SQ" off of ebay.  It came with a SAS826A backplane, and per the video above on Supermicro backplanes I also got a BPN-SAS2-826EL1 and that is now in the server instead.  It took a couple of weeks to get the CSE-PTJBOD-CB2 power board.  The case came with a couple of SFF-8087 cables, those go to a "CableDeconn Dual Mini SAS SFF-8088 to SAS36P SFF-8087 Adapter in PCI Bracket" (Amazon) and then a 2m long SAS SFF-8088 to SFF-8088 Cable.  I also got a Supermicro MCP-290-00053-0N rail kit for my rack.

 

I have fired up the case and the 3 case fans absolutely HOWL.  The power supply is actually very quiet, as advertised.  I have ordered a FAN-0104L4 replacement fan that seems to be the go-to replacement.  If I like it I'll order 2 more to quiet it down.

 

So, I built a JBOD case.

 

I had an Adaptec card that I had hoped to use that just errors and won't boot to it's BIOS when in the ASRock X370M Pro4 in the Norco.  It was in the x16(4x electrical) slot that is highlighted in the picture below, I removed the ASUS video card in that pic.  

 

 

What I could still use help on (from my last post) is picking out the HBA card -

 

3. The HBA itself, with at least one SFF-8088 external connector.  Sounds like it needs to be at least PCIe2.0, SAS 2008.  (Could this be a newer PCI33.0 spec x8 card instead?  Would it just run at the slower 16gbit/s speed?  Thinking a couple years down the road if I replace the motherboard/cpu.)

 

Any suggestions for a card?

 

I do like the Art of Server and would buy something from him on ebay, but am open to other sources.  I just would like to have an opinion or two on what to get.

 

 

CSE-826 case:

Supermicrocase.thumb.jpg.809a339cacdf44b59206455c1bb92adc.jpg

 

CSE-826 on top of my Norco RPC-4020 (excuse the dust, I cleaned it later)

supermicronorco.thumb.jpg.f64ae09512fadc24b3f79348851a18aa.jpg

 

Inside the Norco case, Asus video card removed.  This is the x16(x4) slot.

Norcoinside.thumb.jpg.3539896174a59f14fdeb84737028dc59.jpg

Edited by Homerr
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  • 3 months later...
1 hour ago, Homerr said:

As an update I got a "Genuine LSI 9207-8e SAS HBA 6Gbps PCI-E 3.0 P20 IT mode for ZFS FreeNAS unRAID" from ArtofServer.

 

The upgraded fans are also great, this has all been running for a few months now without issue.

That's great.

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