It has been a pleasure to use and work with the Norco case. Sits in my office closet with no noise and weighs a lot! Right now I have all my drives connected to two SAS add on controllers. I was thinking of moving my parity drive off the add on controller to one of the motherboard SATA ports. I have read in the wiki somewhere that it is a good idea to have your parity drive on a different controller then all the others. The Norco case does come with an internal mount tray for a drive and I believe some screw holes on the side internally for another drive. I know that would be the easiest thing to do but I'm asking if anyone around has somehow used one of the hard drive trays and bypassed the internal connection on the backplane and used a cable from the mainboard? I do not see how it is possible to do, since every hard drive tray slides right into the slot and the drive interface is right there. I don't know if they design or make different trays that would allow this. Maybe someone has done this before?

 

 

Change one of the backplanes to the SATA port version, route your parity drive to the motherboard, and use a forward breakout cable to run the other drives on the backplane off your HBA.

Change one of the backplanes to the SATA port version, route your parity drive to the motherboard, and use a forward breakout cable to run the other drives on the backplane off your HBA.

 

I tried checking the Norco shopping online site to see what they have but couldn't find the SATA version. I'd love to sacrifice one blackplane to SATA so I can use some of those motherboard connections. I'll keep on searching. I hope they still make them. Would be a very easy swap and I'd end up with a backup SAS backplane.

 

EDIT: Wait a minute. I can just remove the SAS to SAS normal cable and hook up a reverse break out cable to one of the current backplanes. Goes from backplane then to 4 ports on the main board. Don't really need a SATA version of a backplane.

 

EDIT#2: Well, I learned something new today. Can't go from SAS using a breakout cable directly to a SATA connection with a backplane. I disconnected my last backplane and hooked up a breakout cable to it. Threw my parity drive in one of the slots and connected the SATA connection to my mainboard. I tried all 4 of the breakout cables and drive wasn't recognized. I wonder why it wouldn't work. A breakout cable is essentially SAS to SATA which is used on addon cards all the time. I guess the logic on the backplane itself was prohibiting it to work.

 

You have actually seen the SATA verson of the Norco backplane?

You sure that you have the proper breakout cable for the direction you need to go?  Pardon me if you are aware of this; there are forward breakout cables, and there are reverse breakout cables.  One doesn't serve the purpose of the other.

 

Per http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=7003.0

{quote}

if the host-controller side is a SAS connector (SFF-8470) and the target side is SATA drives then you must always use a SAS to SATA Forward Breakout Cable.  If The Motherboard/host-Controller side are SATA connectors and the backplane is a SAS connector then you must always use a SAS to SATA Reverse Breakout Cable. 

{quote}

 

FYI, just today I used a reverse breakout cable to go from a motherboard's 4x SATA to a minisas HSBP, so the assertion that it cannot be done generally doesn't jive.

As others stated, your probably trying to use the wrong cable. What case/backplane do you have? As an example for 20 bay chassis Norco offers a 4020 and a 4220 which equates to this numbering scheme for the 4020: 4=4U, 0= direct connect SATA backplane, 20= 20 drive bays. And the same applies to the 4220 except the (2) after the (4) indicates SAS connections. If we know what you have we can recommend the correct cable for you.

As others stated, your probably trying to use the wrong cable. What case/backplane do you have? As an example for 20 bay chassis Norco offers a 4020 and a 4220 which equates to this numbering scheme for the 4020: 4=4U, 0= direct connect SATA backplane, 20= 20 drive bays. And the same applies to the 4220 except the (2) after the (4) indicates SAS connections. If we know what you have we can recommend the correct cable for you.

 

I have the Norco 4224 (in my signature). This is the reverse breakout cable I was trying to use.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133033

NORCO C-SFF8087-4S Discrete to SFF-8087 (Reverse breakout) Cable

 

One end connects to the backplane and the other ends ( 4 ports ) connect to the motherboard SATA connections. I had several reverse breakout cables from when I was connecting up my hard drive cages using the Supermicro Add-On cards.

 

Thanks!

 

 

 

That's strange that it doesn't work. I use that same exact cable on a couple of my chassis and it works just fine. Possible that you have bad ports or a bad cable but that doesn't seem likely to me since I assume those drive bays were working prior to the cable switch. I will say that on occasion using a Norco 2208 that if a drive was pulled out, unRAID would not see the drive again till it was either rebooted or I unmounted the array, then went in and clicked on new config, then added the drives back. Never lost any data but it might be worth a try.

 

Edit: sorry for not seeing you chassis, I'm using tapatalk and it doesn't show me forum sigs

That's strange that it doesn't work. I use that same exact cable on a couple of my chassis and it works just fine. Possible that you have bad ports or a bad cable but that doesn't seem likely to me since I assume those drive bays were working prior to the cable switch. I will say that on occasion using a Norco 2208 that if a drive was pulled out, unRAID would not see the drive again till it was either rebooted or I unmounted the array, then went in and clicked on new config, then added the drives back. Never lost any data but it might be worth a try.

 

Edit: sorry for not seeing you chassis, I'm using tapatalk and it doesn't show me forum sigs

 

I don't even load up unraid. Since it is a SATA port on the motherboard that drive should show up right in the BIOS when it is detected. Soon as I get into the BIOS I hit a menu option that gives me all the SATA information and nothing comes up. Frustration on why it is not working. I also have multiple reverse breakout cables. This is an unused backplane. All my SATA controllers are enabled on the mainboard, never saw a drive come up when connected properly.

Spent some time trying to get that parity drive to show up going through that backplane. Doesn't look like it is going to work. I tried 4 different brands of reverse breakout cables ( I have a stock pile of cables ), different tray slots, and of course different ports on the main board. The Norco case powers up the drive, turns on the power light for the drive but that's about it.

 

Technically it should work. The mainboard has an Intel 6G controller and a Marvell 6G controller built onto the board and I've tried both. Really pissing me off on why it's not working. The only thing I haven't done is bypass the backplane all together and temporarily hook up the drive directly to the SATA port and power the drive via PSU. Not that I would keep it that way, but at least I would see that the mainboard does init the drive. If that test works, then there may be an issue with the Norco backplane's being able to use reverse breakout cables straight to SATA ports on the mainboard for connectivity.

 

Just for the heck of it I ordered a different brand reverse breakout cable. I have the usual popular red ones that most people have, so I ordered another brand/style breakout cable. I wonder if there is a way to tell from looking at the cable if it is a forward or reverse cable? Can't go by the pictures in online advertisements because all the pictures I've seen (of the red cables) the numbers on the cables are the same I have here at home.

 

I use the same "red ones" from Norco that are actually Molex brand. As far as telling from an online source, I honestly don't know. You can be sure if you buy them newegg and that state they are the reverse that they actually will be correct. I have also ordered some from Directron as they were cheaper at the time and they worked perfectly.

I use the same "red ones" from Norco that are actually Molex brand. As far as telling from an online source, I honestly don't know. You can be sure if you buy them newegg and that state they are the reverse that they actually will be correct. I have also ordered some from Directron as they were cheaper at the time and they worked perfectly.

 

Figured it out. The red ones we see all over are probably the most common. I have several of this type and lengths. What looks like the model# of the cable printed on the white label is the same on the forward and reverse models. When I ordered the "reverse" cable I made sure that was in the description of the cable. Received the "reverse" cable and it did indeed have the same model# on it but on the black molex connector there is a very small letter and number. My reverse cable has an "A" and also an "18". So I looked at my other cables, which apparently are all forward cables. One of them has "4" and an "A" and another one has a "3" and an "A". I don't know what the numbers mean. Has nothing to do with size and I can't confirm since I don't have many to compare. Too bad there isn't an indicator or writing letting the user know if it's a forward or reverse model. Used a black marker to help with that.

 

So it sounds like your back up and running. That's the important part.