Considering that the shipping from .us was a minimum of $360 usd, and on top of that taxes n stuff.. its pretty nice
Supermicro 4u 24 bay chassis with SAS2 expander
- Thread starter Mark
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The second one arrived today. It did indeed include a X8DTE-F MOBO, 2 passive heatsinks and an Adaptec 5805 w/512mb and battery. The backplane is an SAS1. It also came with 2 900w PSUs and all 24 drive caddies. It was well packed and in excellent condition. At $265 and $43.16 shipping, I'd say it's not a bad deal. I would have preferred an SAS2 backplane but I'm not complaining.
Windows loaded without a hitch. I seem to have a problem with IPMI, doesn't respond and doesn't get an ip via DHCP but I'll sort that out along the way.
And btw, the blue LEDs are on when a a drive bay is occupied, unlike the other one.
Windows loaded without a hitch. I seem to have a problem with IPMI, doesn't respond and doesn't get an ip via DHCP but I'll sort that out along the way.
And btw, the blue LEDs are on when a a drive bay is occupied, unlike the other one.
Yep, from what i gathered from SM support (and they even checked with a higher up tech and called me back 2 days later), the behaviour of the Blue LED on SM backplanes is totally set / dependant upon the Firmware that supermicro has installed on the backplane. There is no jumper nor setting, nor type of HDD that can change the default / act of the BLUE LED.
So essentially you are stuck with whatever your SM backplane does by default and there is no way to change the LED behavior. However as is clear from the many replies in the past 2 pages, the Default position for the LED differs greatly by backplane model number. (i was hoping ppl who replied would have included their exact backplane model number). to recap here is my experience:
BPN-SAS1-846EL1 (expander) - With drive in slot: LED OFF / LED ILLUMINATES BASED ON ACT LOAD
BPN-SAS1-846EL2 (expander w/ redundant ports) - With drive in slot: LED OFF / LED ILLUMINATES BASED ON ACT LOAD
BPN-SAS1-846TQ ( 24 x sata/sas direct attached so SAS1/2/3 speed does not matter / apply) - With drive in slot: LED OFF / LED ILLUMINATES BASED ON ACT LOAD
BPN-SAS1-846A ( 6 x sff8087 direct attached so SAS1/2/3 speed does not matter / apply) - With drive in slot: LED ON / LED FLICKER/DIMs ON ACT (at full act, blue LED is barely visible)
I have / have tried TONS of different SATA / SAS / SSD drives on the above BPs over the years and have never once found one that changes / alters the default BLUE led setting. (i have seen issues where a bad / weird drive wont light the LED up at all, even with ACT but on drives like these the same is true on any of the backplanes its inserted too).
so IMO , it has nothing to do with the actual drive / HBA / Raid card, its entirely programmed into the Backplane Firmware, and there is nothing we can do to change it ( and SM support confirmed this to me)
I have seen various level of success getting SGPIO to work with the DRIVE LOCATE feature , via either a sff8087 (w no break out, bc the breakout is integrated into the 8087 cable) OR via a fully broken out Sideband cable. but this never affects the LED default or LED activity on drive activity, just when you issue the LOCATE command.
Great source of information concerning this chassis.
I would like to give my thoughts referring to this post and I hope nobody will be offended.
Would it be possible to create a new thread in the chassis and enclosure section where we can copy and paste this information and continue the discussion?
Because everytime I see a new post in THIS thread my heart jumps and is in expectation of a great deal, so that perhaps I can get lucky and call myself a member of the CSE 846 / SC 846 club as well.
And everytime I am a bit disappointed that it is now news concerning a great deal, but information I would like to see in the chassis enclosure section.
Again: I do not mean to offend anybody. Just my thoughts.
I would like to give my thoughts referring to this post and I hope nobody will be offended.
Would it be possible to create a new thread in the chassis and enclosure section where we can copy and paste this information and continue the discussion?
Because everytime I see a new post in THIS thread my heart jumps and is in expectation of a great deal, so that perhaps I can get lucky and call myself a member of the CSE 846 / SC 846 club as well.
And everytime I am a bit disappointed that it is now news concerning a great deal, but information I would like to see in the chassis enclosure section.
Again: I do not mean to offend anybody. Just my thoughts.
I want to find the 12Gb/s backplane for the 846, something tells me it will cost as much as the 846 on ebay
LOLHah, yeah, I think I googled one of the backplanes with LED always on and it was like 450 bucks, pfft..
I'm curious about these chassis, with the most standard backplane, EL1. They're SAS expanders so would basically any RAID controller that supports up to 24 drives work? Meaning I could use a 9650SE-24m8? And do I only need to plug in one cable from the SAS to the backplane even though that raid card has 3 ports?
I'm curious about these chassis, with the most standard backplane, EL1. They're SAS expanders so would basically any RAID controller that supports up to 24 drives work? Meaning I could use a 9650SE-24m8? And do I only need to plug in one cable from the SAS to the backplane even though that raid card has 3 ports?
Keep in mind there are SAS SSDs.
I was tempted to get the SAS3 backplane for my SC836, but I was quoted almost 2 times more then what I paid for the case.I want to find the 12Gb/s backplane for the 846, something tells me it will cost as much as the 846 on ebay
I just swapped out the Adaptec 5808 that came with mine for an IBM 1015. Now the LEDs are only on when there's HD activity. I also had to swap out the SAS cables because the originals were too short. The cables I used were not SM cables so that may have something to do with it.
Yes, you can swap them and it should fit. The teardown/swap/rebuild is a bit of a PITA, but unless your chassis is really really old vintage it can be done.
However, in the weird economics of the used marketplace you'll probably pay less to just get a chassis with the right backplane - the backplanes by themselves are hard to source at good prices.
However, in the weird economics of the used marketplace you'll probably pay less to just get a chassis with the right backplane - the backplanes by themselves are hard to source at good prices.
Performance improvement going from a TQ (individual connectors) to a SAS-2 expander backplane? None at all. In a purely theoretical sense it would be a performance decrease - but in all practical and likely use cases you probably couldn't measure any difference...and you certainly won't notice.
The advantage is being able to drive the whole backplane from a single HBA and a massive improvement in cabling.
The advantage is being able to drive the whole backplane from a single HBA and a massive improvement in cabling.
Has anyone been able to contact the original seller of these systems, certifiedservers? I've sent a message via eBay on this listing and via their email address that was posted on this board and I haven't heard back from them. Both times I asked if they would be able to include rails to match the original offer, but I haven't heard anything.
I used the messaging inside of Ebay on one of their items and had really good responses. They seemed to take a day each time, but that could have been my fault in responding to them so late in the day each time.
I haven't fired it up yet but the SC846 they sold me looks like it is in good shape.