Hi all,

 I want to add a disk shelf to my UNRAID server. Can anyone recommend a budget friendly solution? I need the disk shelf and also a SAS card to connect the shelf to. I currently have two Dell PowerEdge H310 flashed cards in the system. I did see the NETAPP DS4243 24-BAY for $150 which seems a good deal on NetworkOutlet.com, I presume this is not a new item? It is not clear on their site. With that Disk Shelf, what card would work to allow it to connect to UNRAID?
I have never used a Disk Shelf before but it seems the best solution to add additional storage to my current Norco 24 bay server which is full.

Thoughts?
Thanks in advance

Patrick

Check out this guys setup, pretty detailed example. He also has a couple YouTube videos detailing his setup. Should give you a pretty good idea of what's involved.

 

http://jro.io/nas/

 

 

Cool, I will take a look at it. Thanks

So I watched his videos and read some of the Blog. It seems the most expensive piece of the puzzle is the SAS card with external connections. I looked at the one he used on eBay and it was $400 upwards. Are there any other cards that would work with UNRAID but are cheaper? 

You can get LSI 9200-8e or 9207-8e for $50 to $100 on ebay

So based on what I am reading, I could get a NetApp disk shelf, remove it's noisy controller, put in a standard PSU and an adapter card for SAS internal to external and the use and external cable and a HBA card in the main server and that would allow me to use the drives in the NetAop disk shelf. Only caveat would be that the diskshelf would have to be manually powered up seperate to the main server but being 24/7 server and shelf this would only be an issue if the server and shelf powered down unexpectedly. 
Would I be correct in this scenario that the disks in the shelf would also spin 25/7 and not allow for spinning down?

Keep in mind, you will need an sff-8436 to sff-8088 to connect the NetApp DS4243 tray to most HBA's. I have 2 of these shelves lying around, - they came with 1 controller and IOM each. You will need at a minimum 2 power supplies in the enclosure for it to work properly and level the fan noise "some"... These are proprietary power supplies, not easily hacked. The IOM3 module is all you need to facilitate connectivity to the server HBA - this is nothing more than a SAS controller / interface to the drives in the chassis. Most trays that can be had on eBay already come with them. You will also want the baffles/blanks for all the unused drive slots in the front and controller / power supply slots in the rear. If not, the fans will run at full speed since the chassis detects an air flow anomaly. They do work very nicely with Unraid though.

Edited November 6, 20196 yr by mfwade

45 minutes ago, mfwade said:

Keep in mind, you will need an sff-8436 to sff-8088 to connect the NetApp DS4243 tray to most HBA's. I have 2 of these shelves lying around, - they came with 1 controller and IOM each. You will need at a minimum 2 power supplies in the enclosure for it to work properly and level the fan noise "some"... These are proprietary power supplies, not easily hacked. The IOM3 module is all you need to facilitate connectivity to the server HBA - this is nothing more than a SAS controller / interface to the drives in the chassis. Most trays that can be had on eBay already come with them. You will also want the baffles/blanks for all the unused drive slots in the front and controller / power supply slots in the rear. If not, the fans will run at full speed since the chassis detects an air flow anomaly. They do work very nicely with Unraid though.

So what I was considering getting was the parts linked below. Is there any way to get the noise level lower on these Shelves?  From what I understand a lot of the noise comes from the PSU's? 
https://networkoutlet.com/products/ds4243-netapp-ds4243-24-bay-sas-sata-4u-disk-shelf-2xiom3-2xac-ps-rm-kit?variant=30323046088784
https://networkoutlet.com/products/x6558-r6-c-netapp-cable-sas-qsfp-qsfp-cu-2m-c-r6?variant=30323076694096
https://networkoutlet.com/products/x2065a-r6-c-netapp-host-bus-adapter-sas-4-port-copper-3-6-gb-qsfp-pcie-c?variant=30323074531408
 

Don't forget the trays for each drive

Are you talking about blanks or does it not come with any disk caddies?

On 11/6/2019 at 7:26 PM, crowdx42 said:

So what I was considering getting was the parts linked below. Is there any way to get the noise level lower on these Shelves?  From what I understand a lot of the noise comes from the PSU's? 
https://networkoutlet.com/products/ds4243-netapp-ds4243-24-bay-sas-sata-4u-disk-shelf-2xiom3-2xac-ps-rm-kit?variant=30323046088784
https://networkoutlet.com/products/x6558-r6-c-netapp-cable-sas-qsfp-qsfp-cu-2m-c-r6?variant=30323076694096
https://networkoutlet.com/products/x2065a-r6-c-netapp-host-bus-adapter-sas-4-port-copper-3-6-gb-qsfp-pcie-c?variant=30323074531408
 

So, I haven't tried one of their HBA's, the QSFP-QSFP type. I am speculating here however, provided it uses a supported LSI chipset, you "should" be ok... That being said, if you go this route, I would use one of the generally agreed upon in this forum with the understanding you will need the appropriate cable QSFP-8088.

 

Regarding the power supply noise, the tray noise isn't 'terrible' although, I kept mine in the unfinished basement. I suppose you could modify them however, that's outside anything I would be willing to do.

 

Keep in mind, depending on the firmware, etc. located on the IOM controller, it may not support more than a 3TB drive.

 

Good luck.

Out of curiosity, did you end up getting the shelf?

On 2/5/2020 at 3:46 PM, IDontBelongHere said:

Out of curiosity, did you end up getting the shelf?

I didn't get the shelf, with the limit of 30 drives for an array I decided not to go the shelf route and instead upgrade drives when needed, I still have a few 4tb drives which I will end up upgrading either to 8tb or 10tb, keeping in mind that 10tb would require me to upgrade the parity drives to 10tb first.
 

19 hours ago, crowdx42 said:

I didn't get the shelf, with the limit of 30 drives for an array I decided not to go the shelf route and instead upgrade drives when needed, I still have a few 4tb drives which I will end up upgrading either to 8tb or 10tb, keeping in mind that 10tb would require me to upgrade the parity drives to 10tb first.
 

Ah! I must've missed the 24-bay being full part. Yeah. You probably made the best move. 

Just got 2x Netapp X2065A-R6 4-Port SAS QSFP 6Gbps HBA with 90 days warranty for $30 total on Ebay. ($15 each.)

 

http://ebay.us/AlUU4n

 

Got a DS4246 shipped (Best offer accepted) for $175. It came with 2x QSFP cables, couple of those M-F power cables, and a couple of 18" CAT 6 cables with metal ends. Also came with a free 1 year warranty.

 

http://ebay.us/HQK4LL

 

No trays, but there's a model on Thingiverse for them. So, time to fire up the 3D printer. I've got one drive just laying in there and supported a bit in the front with a couple thin cardboard pieces. It works short term to see if how it works.

 

So far, as expected. No issues, drive is recognized, running SMART tests on it now, and it shows as unassigned device.

 

Something is spamming the log tho...

 

Feb 20 22:45:00 BlackTower kernel: sas: broadcast received: 11
Feb 20 22:45:00 BlackTower kernel: sas: REVALIDATING DOMAIN on port 0, pid:31368
Feb 20 22:45:00 BlackTower kernel: sas: done REVALIDATING DOMAIN on port 0, pid:31368, res 0x0
Feb 20 22:45:00 BlackTower kernel: sas: broadcast received: 11
Feb 20 22:45:00 BlackTower kernel: sas: REVALIDATING DOMAIN on port 0, pid:31368
Feb 20 22:45:00 BlackTower kernel: sas: done REVALIDATING DOMAIN on port 0, pid:31368, res 0x0
Feb 20 22:45:00 BlackTower kernel: sas: broadcast received: 11
Feb 20 22:45:00 BlackTower kernel: sas: REVALIDATING DOMAIN on port 0, pid:31368
Feb 20 22:45:00 BlackTower kernel: sas: done REVALIDATING DOMAIN on port 0, pid:31368, res 0x0
Feb 20 22:45:00 BlackTower kernel: sas: broadcast received: 11
Feb 20 22:45:00 BlackTower kernel: sas: REVALIDATING DOMAIN on port 0, pid:31368
Feb 20 22:45:00 BlackTower kernel: sas: done REVALIDATING DOMAIN on port 0, pid:31368, res 0x0

 

PID is:

ps -fp 31368
UID        PID  PPID  C STIME TTY          TIME CMD
root     31368     2  0 22:40 ?        00:00:00 [kworker/u64:1-flush-btrfs-1]

 

Edited February 21, 20215 yr by RealActorRob
add info

31 minutes ago, RealActorRob said:

$30 total on Ebay. ($15 each.)

So cheap.

 

31 minutes ago, RealActorRob said:

No trays, but there's a model on Thingiverse for them. So, time to fire up the 3D printer.

DIY 👍

 

33 minutes ago, RealActorRob said:

Something is spamming the log tho...

Connect with one or two QSFP cables ??

1 hour ago, Vr2Io said:

 

Connect with one or two QSFP cables ??

One.

 

But I am still researching if there's a benefit to using two on the X2065-A card, and so far can't seem to find out if you need two IOMs but I also heard for one person, using two IOM6's used LESS power somehow.

 

Also need to check firmware version on shelf. Somehow.