bcboncs Posted August 24, 2011 Share Posted August 24, 2011 SAS is completely new to me. I just purchased my build and started it yesterday after taking my picture : I pretty much based my build off Raj's last 24 drive beast : http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=7998.0 I thought I was purchasing all of my equipment to support all 24 drives during this 1,000$+ purchase. I ran into an obstacle understanding the SAS cables, cards, and connections. Cables: House Brand Molex 79576-3007 Mini SAS / SATA Cable x 2 1m 30AWG Internal Mini SAS 36pin (SFF-8087) Male to Mini SAS 36pin (SFF-8087) Male Cable x 4 The 2 house brand cables have 4 data connectors for SATA drives with a SAS end. Do I need to purchase 2 more of these? (I was making purchases based on Raj's build) The other 4 cables just seems to be a SAS cable extender? Please clarify if I'm wrong. Also, the back-end connections to my Norco rack-mount case have interestingly designed connections on the back of them. I did not expect this. Do I need to do something with this? See screenshot: Any help and advice is appreciated. I've built gaming computers before but never had to deal with rackmounts and SAS connections. It's odd but interesting. Thanks all. Link to comment
Rajahal Posted August 24, 2011 Share Posted August 24, 2011 You have the correct cables. This fat plug on the end of each cable is called a Mini SAS plug (a.k.a. SFF-8087). It plugs into the backplanes in your Norco case. I recommend plugging the 'house brand' cables into the top two backplanes, then the rest of the cables into the lower 4 backplanes. The regular SATA ends of the 'house brand' cables will then plug into your motherboard's SATA ports (only 6 of the 8 will be used). The remaining two SATA cables will plug into the 2 port PCIe x1 card. The other end of each of the 4 Mini SAS plugs will plug into the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 cards. It doesn't matter which one plugs into which card. Check out the photos of the 22 Drive Pro on the GreenLeaf site. The cabling of this server will look very similar to yours (the only difference is that yours will also have a 2 port PCIe x1 card). Also, I recommend installing the 2 port card in between the two SASLP cards. This will give each SASLP card more room for airflow. Link to comment
bcboncs Posted August 25, 2011 Author Share Posted August 25, 2011 You have the correct cables. This fat plug on the end of each cable is called a Mini SAS plug (a.k.a. SFF-8087). It plugs into the backplanes in your Norco case. I recommend plugging the 'house brand' cables into the top two backplanes, then the rest of the cables into the lower 4 backplanes. The regular SATA ends of the 'house brand' cables will then plug into your motherboard's SATA ports (only 6 of the 8 will be used). The remaining two SATA cables will plug into the 2 port PCIe x1 card. The other end of each of the 4 Mini SAS plugs will plug into the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 cards. It doesn't matter which one plugs into which card. Check out the photos of the 22 Drive Pro on the GreenLeaf site. The cabling of this server will look very similar to yours (the only difference is that yours will also have a 2 port PCIe x1 card). Also, I recommend installing the 2 port card in between the two SASLP cards. This will give each SASLP card more room for airflow. So basically I pretty much love you. I'll take in all of this information, even that last 2 port card info, and use it. As for the backplane... thanks for the term that'll help me. I will obviously plug in the power and sas connections to the back, but I see other connections like what looks to be a floppy power backplane and some 12-pin interface. Does anything need to be done with this? Also, should additional hard drives be added in vertically or horizontally or does this not matter? Thanks again Raj. My hero. Link to comment
bcboncs Posted August 25, 2011 Author Share Posted August 25, 2011 Also, one more thing on this... The power supply only has 8 female molex connections but I need a total of 12 for this case. I may need to get 4x male sata power connection adapter to female molex. I am going to stop at a local computer store and hope they have them otherwise I'll pick them up from monoprice or ebay. Just giving you a heads up for your 24 hdd beast guide. The PSU did not have any of these adapters included. Link to comment
Rajahal Posted August 25, 2011 Share Posted August 25, 2011 Glad I was able to help. You don't need to use any of the additional connectors on the Norco backplanes....just one power (molex) and one data (miniSAS). You only need to connect one molex power plug to each backplane. The second plug is for a redundant power supply, so if you are only using one power supply then there's no need to use it. You don't need any power splitters. Power splitters tend to be the cheapest and weakest link in a server, so I try to avoid using them whenever possible. Be aware that older versions of the Norco rackmount cases did require both molex plugs to be populated, so some people will tell you to connect both. If you are having any odd power issues with your server, then it could be the case that you have an older version of the case and both need to be connected. That is pretty unlikely, though. The picture you posted shows the newest version of the case (v3 or v4 depending on who you ask). Also, should additional hard drives be added in vertically or horizontally or does this not matter? Not quite sure what you mean here. Do you mean hard drives installed inside the case? By the way, the Norco's drive bays have screw holes for 2.5" drives as well as 3.5" drives in case you want to use any laptop drives or SSDs. Also, make sure that the metal slide on each drive tray is open to allow airflow across the drive installed in that bay. Make sure it is closed on any empty bay. Other random tips: When installing the full height brackets on the SASLP cards, you will have to install the bracket on the opposite side of the card as the half height bracket. Otherwise it won't fit into the PCIe slot correctly. Install the 120 mm fans on the motherboard side of the fanplate. This will give you more room to work with the power and data plugs on the backplane should you ever need to replace a faulty cable or anything like that. Face the PSU so that the fan points towards the motherboard. This will help pull hot air off the motherboard and vent it out the back of the PSU. Leaving the sticky plastic layer on the bottom of the case allows you to slide the case on a table much more easily. However, you will have to remove it in order to swap out the fanplate (or just punch out holes where those screws are located). In case it isn't obvious by this point, I've used these Norco cases a few times before Link to comment
Johnm Posted August 26, 2011 Share Posted August 26, 2011 all good tips from Raj. to further clarify... the SAS to SAS cable go from the 2 MV8 cards to 4 of the backplanes. then 2 of the house brand cables (They are called "reverse breakout cables") go from 2 of the back planes to the 6 onboard sata connectors and the 2 sata connectors on the 2 port PCIe sata cards for 24 ports. keep in mind unraid only supports 20 data drives plus 1 cache and 1 parity a this time. you can use the other 2 drives for app drives. You can take a look at my build if you want. it is very similar to yours, it might give some ideas how i put mine together. http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12822.0 this build might be helpful also. http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=14449.0 You might also want to look at the Norco 4224 thread for even more pointers. Link to comment
bcboncs Posted August 26, 2011 Author Share Posted August 26, 2011 Be aware that older versions of the Norco rackmount cases did require both molex plugs to be populated, so some people will tell you to connect both. If you are having any odd power issues with your server, then it could be the case that you have an older version of the case and both need to be connected. That is pretty unlikely, though. The picture you posted shows the newest version of the case (v3 or v4 depending on who you ask). Other random tips: When installing the full height brackets on the SASLP cards, you will have to install the bracket on the opposite side of the card as the half height bracket. Otherwise it won't fit into the PCIe slot correctly. Install the 120 mm fans on the motherboard side of the fanplate. This will give you more room to work with the power and data plugs on the backplane should you ever need to replace a faulty cable or anything like that. Face the PSU so that the fan points towards the motherboard. This will help pull hot air off the motherboard and vent it out the back of the PSU. Leaving the sticky plastic layer on the bottom of the case allows you to slide the case on a table much more easily. However, you will have to remove it in order to swap out the fanplate (or just punch out holes where those screws are located). In case it isn't obvious by this point, I've used these Norco cases a few times before Thx for the info on the power connectors. I actually ran into all of those obstacles and learned the hard way lol. All except the psu Link to comment
bcboncs Posted August 28, 2011 Author Share Posted August 28, 2011 How do you open/close the vents? I was looking everywhere lol Link to comment
prostuff1 Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 unless they have changed it, the vents are on the tray that slides out. There is a piece of metal on there that just slides back and forth to open/close the vent holes. Link to comment
Johnm Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 How do you open/close the vents? I was looking everywhere lol http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5912.msg123118#msg123118 Link to comment
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