Howdy to this amazing forum. I have lurked here occaisionally, now I come to beg a question!
Apologies if it is answered, but googling and forum searching did not yeaild an answer I could parse.
The basic question is: Is there a drive size or total capacaty limit on various SAS expanders? I am looking to buy two expanders for nearly identical builds I have done and do not want to buy hardware that will not suit.
The two builds are at my house and at the IT shop I work at. Home is for media, the shop build stores drive image backups (we image nearly every machine that comes in the shop pre-service - it has saved the bacon on many occiasions).
The builds are as follows.
Dell R620 Server with Perc H810 RAID Controller. RAM and CPU vary slightly.
Both builds have an old PC case with a wired always-on PSU running 8 drives from an SFF-8088 breakout cable.
2x 1TB SATA in RAID 1 for OS duties
6x 6TB SATA in RAID 6 for storage (~24TB Total)
The current build has issues.
1. It is a little (ok a lot) ugly.
2. I have maxed out the number of drives I can conenct without an expander.
3. I have occaisionally had drives drop out of either RIAD array requiring a rebuild. SMART testing later revealed the drive good - every time. I am thinking it may be power issues, but not sure.
I want to go ahead and get the drives in both systems moved to Norco cases with a SAS expander. This will allow for further growth, and the attachment of hot spares (and hopefully resolve any power issues I may have).
That brings me back to the first question. What SAS expander should I use to ensure I do not hit any capacity limits or have other headroom issues.
If you see any other potential areas of problem or improvement let me know!
Thanks in advance!
Apologies if it is answered, but googling and forum searching did not yeaild an answer I could parse.
The basic question is: Is there a drive size or total capacaty limit on various SAS expanders? I am looking to buy two expanders for nearly identical builds I have done and do not want to buy hardware that will not suit.
The two builds are at my house and at the IT shop I work at. Home is for media, the shop build stores drive image backups (we image nearly every machine that comes in the shop pre-service - it has saved the bacon on many occiasions).
The builds are as follows.
Dell R620 Server with Perc H810 RAID Controller. RAM and CPU vary slightly.
Both builds have an old PC case with a wired always-on PSU running 8 drives from an SFF-8088 breakout cable.
2x 1TB SATA in RAID 1 for OS duties
6x 6TB SATA in RAID 6 for storage (~24TB Total)
The current build has issues.
1. It is a little (ok a lot) ugly.
2. I have maxed out the number of drives I can conenct without an expander.
3. I have occaisionally had drives drop out of either RIAD array requiring a rebuild. SMART testing later revealed the drive good - every time. I am thinking it may be power issues, but not sure.
I want to go ahead and get the drives in both systems moved to Norco cases with a SAS expander. This will allow for further growth, and the attachment of hot spares (and hopefully resolve any power issues I may have).
That brings me back to the first question. What SAS expander should I use to ensure I do not hit any capacity limits or have other headroom issues.
If you see any other potential areas of problem or improvement let me know!
Thanks in advance!