May 15, 20179 yr I would like to build an extremely small form factor server running unRAID. Unfortunately this would limit me for the amount of drives I could store. Could I use a DAS with unRAID in a JBOD configuration? Would unRAID be able to see the individual disks?
May 15, 20179 yr Yes, definitely. I'm using a LSI 9206-16e (SAS HBA) with a 8bay SAS enclosure - Areca 4036 - though I hear this route tends to get very expensive compared to usual internal drives in bays.
May 15, 20179 yr I used the LSI 9201-16e and had 4 unRAID host servers connected to 60 bay external chassis. Each had the max limit of 28 data drives each and everything worked perfectly. unRAID doesn't care where the physical drive is located as long as it can see it. Wether you have 24 drives in the front of your chassis in like a Supermicro 846 connected via a single internal 8087 cable or you have 24 drives in a external chassis connected via a external 8088 cable, unRAID could care less. Hope that helps!! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
May 15, 20179 yr USB 3.0 has some possible bandwidth issues once you use more than a few drives. (Most motherboards have only one controller and that will limit the overall bandwidth) Not sure about thunderbolt. Haven't gotten any and haven't seen any user with it and a drive or so connected. Should work... if the thunderbolt card was supported by Linux (and LT decides to add the drivers)
May 15, 20179 yr Author Just now, ken-ji said: USB 3.0 has some possible bandwidth issues once you use more than a few drives. (Most motherboards have only one controller and that will limit the overall bandwidth) Not sure about thunderbolt. Haven't gotten any and haven't seen any user with it and a drive or so connected. Should work... if the thunderbolt card was supported by Linux (and LT decides to add the drivers) But will unRAID be able to see all the individual drives in a simple externally attached storage device in JBOD?
May 15, 20179 yr Qualified yes. Depends really on what the JBOD is using to present multiple disks on what interface. SAS connectors (8088, 8644, etc) can only present 4 per cable (unless expanders are in between) SATA connectors can only do 1 per cable, unless there's a Port Multiplier in use and your STAT controller supports Port Multipliers USB can present only one device unless there are hubs which share the bandwidth. thunderbolt? not really sure here. others - Like I said, really depends on the protocol...
May 15, 20179 yr Author 1 minute ago, ken-ji said: Qualified yes. Depends really on what the JBOD is using to present multiple disks on what interface. SAS connectors (8088, 8644, etc) can only present 4 per cable (unless expanders are in between) SATA connectors can only do 1 per cable, unless there's a Port Multiplier in use and your STAT controller supports Port Multipliers USB can present only one device unless there are hubs which share the bandwidth. thunderbolt? not really sure here. others - Like I said, really depends on the protocol... So say something like this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N8VGIW2/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A307CH216CTGMP I know you can't know for sure without trying yourself, but I am just trying to wrap my head around a consumer way to have a mini ITX unRAID server with the storage separated but directly attached to the server.
May 15, 20179 yr high chance it will work (hardware raid controller with simple JBOD) suggest the parity and cache drive be inside the main case if you can as the shared USB 3 bus might not be able to handle all the drives at the same time with severely degrading performance.
May 15, 20179 yr Author Perfect, but a NAS would not work because unRAID wouldn't be able to access the individual drives over a UNC path?
May 16, 20179 yr Definitely not. unRAID requires direct (block-level) access to the drives. NAS drives (shares actually) are file-level access devices. which is exactly the service unRAID will provide from its drives.
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