I'm a little confused on what cables to use with my HBA.

 

Basically, I've had my UnRAID machine up for about 2 years now, but was running out of space for new drives. I decided to grab one of there:

 

https://www.servercase.co.uk/shop/server-cases/rackmount/4u-chassis/4u-short-length-server-case-w-16-x-35-hot-swappable-satasas-drive-bays-6gbs-minisas-+-2-x-525-bays-sc-4316s/

 

This has 16 hotswap bays, with 8087 connectors on the backplane.

 

Now, I have a SuperMicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 HBA which was working great with a breakout cable back when I was using 8087 SAS to 4x SATA connectors. If I pull a drive out of my backplane and connect with that cable the drive is recognised jsut fine (so my controller isn't dead). But when I use these cables: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B076VNM1JY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

None of my drives are recognised. I can only think that either these cables are dead or (more likely) these are not the correct cables. The only thing that could be the case following that is that the backplane itself is dead. The reason I don't think its the backplane is all the drive LED's light up on the front (the drive sleds have fibre optic pass throughs and they light up so the drives are at least getting power!)

 

Thanks in advance

 

Tom

Those are the correct cables, and since each mniSAS is a direct connection to 4 drives, i.e., no expander, it should work, if you have more than one cable try more than one backplane so you can rule things out, by the photos looks like each backplane is 4 horizontal slots, unlikely to have 2 bad cables and 4 bad backplanes.

So, I tried the other two backplanes but no dice. At this point either the cables are both dead or the entire backplane setup is dead.

 

I tested each backplane against a drive just using the SAS-SATA forward breakout cable and the controller shows the forward breakout drive but not the backplane drive.

 

I guess I’ll try some different 8087-8087 cables as they’re relatively cheap to replace, and if not return this chassis for a replacement.

The 8087 cables do require a bit of finesse to plug in correctly. You say you have gotten the breakout cables working, so you probably understand. But I still struggle sometimes to know when a cable is fully inserted and clicks properly into place. Some cables are easier than others.

 

Double check you are making a good connection on both ends.